The Fallen Ones (Holloway University #1)

5. Jace

Chapter 5

Jace

Jace: Meet me outside the commons after classes end.

Caleb: Fine.

I stared down at the text I’d sent Caleb hours ago before checking the time again.

He was late. Classes let out thirty minutes ago. I was willing to give the asshole the benefit of the doubt about foot traffic and shit, but this was ridiculous. He wasn’t answering my calls either. Deciding I’d give him another ten minutes, I leaned against a tree next to the science building, taking in all the people coming and going. The place was packed with students going about their business.

A text flashed across my screen from Jessica.

I rolled my eyes and stuffed the phone back into my pocket, not interested in hearing from her. It was all over campus that Lily and I were broken up. Of course all the fucking vultures came out to prey.

I knew the rumors going around about me and Jessica because I’d started them. Wanting to light a fire beneath Lily prompted it. I considered it a little incentive to see if her sadness and jealousy would be motivation to come to the party as a way to fuck someone new to get back at me. I hadn’t really fucked Jessica. I’d kissed on her and made it look real, but I’d walked the moment I could and hadn’t looked back.

She was a complete bitch anyway. From what I’d heard, she was in trouble currently with the university for plagiarizing someone else’s research paper and was looking at getting dropped from a required class over it. The rumors circulating about that said she’d take other student’s work as a means to critique and help them only to steal the best ones and turn them in as her own.

I wasn’t surprised. Her father was a fucking thief too and had tried to screw my old man out of some money. Guess the cunt apple didn’t fall far from the cunt tree.

I hoped everything fucked her life over. No one deserved it more than her.

Several long minutes later, I saw Caleb jogging across the campus toward me. He didn’t look happy, but fuck it. As long as he showed up, I didn’t care.

“Where the fuck were you?” I demanded when he stopped in front of me.

“Sorry. Lily needed me.”

I shoved off the tree, my body rigid. “What’s wrong with her? Is she OK?”

“She’s fine. She needed help getting her canvas and art stuff out to her apartment. I drove her over. Traffic was a bitch.”

I grunted. Traffic was always a bitch, but Lily didn’t live all that far from here. It didn’t matter though.

“You could have at least told me you were running behind,” I said.

“Right. I should have just whipped out my phone and called your ass right in front of her,” he shot back, glowering at me.

I ignored his shitty answer. “Did you talk to her about the party? Is she coming?” I held my breath, hoping he had some good fucking news for me.

He hesitated for a moment before looking away.

“Caleb. Is she coming?” I demanded again.

He finally looked back at me. “Yeah. She’s coming. She told me today.”

A slow, satisfied grin spread across my face at his words. I knew my rumor of me and Jessica would work. I knew my girl better than she knew herself. She would want to one-up me, hoping to hurt me with someone else after denying me what was rightfully mine. Lily could deny her desire for me all she wanted, but we both knew who she fucking belonged to. She wasn’t as in control as she thought she was. Once she stepped foot into Satan’s Hollow, she’d lose any sense of that control she tried to cling to. It was mine. I was in control.

Always was. Always would be.

“Jace, man, I’ve been thinking?—”

“Don’t fucking start. Stop thinking. This is happening,” I snapped at him, knowing the bitch wanted to back out. “You made a deal with me. Now you follow through on it. She’s agreed. If you ever want to have this chance, you better take it and stop being a pussy about it.”

“It’s not right, Jace. It could hurt her?—”

I closed the distance between us so he’d be sure to catch every clipped word I said to him. “I could hurt you if you fuck this up. This is our fucking shot. She’s been playing with both our cocks for way too long. Now it’s time we get what we deserve. And that’s her tight, little virgin pussy and all. Don’t fuck this up for us.” I backed away from him to see a muscle popping along his jaw.

“Whatever,” he mumbled. “I’m not backing out. I just don’t want her to get hurt.”

“Love is pain,” I muttered, feeling that pain clear to my blackened soul. Lily didn’t know the real me. The broken guy. The dangerous one. The one willing to kill and die for her. She only knew me as the one who smiled and played her games. Now it was time she played mine.

“So you’re still in?” I asked, wanting to be clear on it.

“I’m in,” he confirmed, looking like he was sucking on a lemon.

I nodded. “Good. Let’s keep shit simple. Make sure she comes to the party. None of her backing out shit.”

“She is. Olivia is coming too. She was making plans with Lily today during lunch.”

That was good news. Olivia was pushy with Lily and always got her to do what she wanted. It wasn’t pushy in a bad way. I considered Olivia to be motivational when it came to Lily. If Olivia was going, I knew I could count on Lily coming.

“Perfect. I’ll talk to Dylan, the frat president of Satan’s Hollow. He’s one of my boys. He’ll make sure she gets a key to our room. Once she’s inside, we fuck her.”

“If she let’s it happen,” Caleb said.

I scoffed at that. “It’s happening whether she wants it to or not. I want what’s mine. Don’t you?”

He stared me down, that muscle back to thrumming along his jaw.

“I know you want to bury your cock deep inside her,” I continued. “Need I remind you about what will happen now if you don’t?”

He twisted his hands into tight fists for a moment before snarling at me. “I don’t need you to fucking remind me. I’m in. Stop asking me.”

“You’re in no matter what happens once that door closes?”

“Yes,” he hissed. “No matter what.”

I surveyed him for a moment before nodding. He was serious because he sure as hell wasn’t wavering on it. He was quiet for a beat, clearly letting his guilt over what we were planning eat at him. I didn’t give a fuck on his feelings. He could feel whatever he needed to feel as long as he didn’t fuck anything up. All I wanted was Lily to come into the room and close the door. Then, it was game on. No take backs. I was fucking what was mine.

And Caleb would fuck her with me, getting what she’d been dangling in front of him for ages. Sharing my girl wasn’t something I wanted, but I wanted her so fucking badly I was willing to sacrifice one of her tight holes as a means to get it.

Before I could push on with more plans, a slow clap sounded out from the shadows of the science building.

I froze, really hoping it wasn’t who I thought it was.

“What do we have here?” A low, growling voice dripping with mockery called out. I didn’t need to even look in his direction to know who the fuck it was.

Damien Fletcher.

“Looks like the golden boy and his little bitch are plotting some very bad things,” Damien continued, stopping next to us, shrouded in his all black attire. He raked his fingers through his dark hair, his silver rings flashing beneath the sunlight that spilled between the branches of the tree we were beneath.

I tightened my hands into fists at my sides as Damien smirked at me. Caleb looked like he was going to be sick.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I demanded. What I really wanted to say was did you hear what we were talking about? Damien was Lily’s ex-stepbrother. My former best friend. My enemy and competition in nearly everything. While I knew she didn’t get along with him after her mom’s death and his old man booted her ass into foster care, I also knew he harbored some weird feelings toward her. He didn’t have to tell me he did. I was excellent at reading people, and Damien Fletcher had a big, bold headline over his pretty head that screamed his feelings, even if Lily couldn’t see it. If he’d overheard anything, it could be a big problem.

I hated Damien Fletcher. I’d hated him from the moment his piece of shit father fucked my whore of a mother. Our friendship ended immediately. Anything he did past blinking pissed me off to the highest extent. He seemed to go out of his way to pissed me off too since all that shit went down years ago. He’d cock blocked me way too many times in the beginning, and it looked like he was back to continue his bullshit.

Damien’s smile widened as he shoved his hands into his pants’ pockets. “Imagine. I was simply taking a stroll through campus when I saw you two pricks over here. Considering I happen to know you hate one another and Lily broke it off with you, I thought I’d better come see what sort of party you two were having. Sounds like it may be a fun party.”

Caleb visibly stiffened at Damien’s words, and I ground my teeth together hard.

“What did you hear?” I demanded. I stepped forward, willing to beat him to death if I had to.

Damien let out a soft, dark chuckle. “You’re planning on fucking my sister at Satan’s Hollow.”

“She’s not your sister,” Caleb snapped, seeming to come out of his stupor.

“She will always be mine,” Damien countered with a snarl, a dark gleam in his eye. “She doesn’t know you two pricks are simply just snakes in the grass, waiting to strike. I expected it from you.” He shot me a sour look before looking to Caleb. “But you? She fucking worships you, and here you are, plotting on tricking her just to get to her pussy. That’s fucked up.”

“What we do with her is none of your business,” I said in a deadly calm voice.

“It’s my business now that I know what you’re planing,” he replied smoothly. “In fact, I think she she should know what the two people she’s trusted have planned for her. Guess I should be the knight in shining armor who saves her.”

Anger tore through me at his words. He was going to ruin every-fucking-thing. I couldn’t let that happen. Not when we were so close to getting her and maybe keeping her.

I hated this motherfucker right down to my bones, but I loved her more.

And love meant sacrifice sometimes.

“What do you want, Damien? To keep quiet about this?” I asked, staring him down. I knew it wouldn’t be money. He had just as much as I did.

He raised a brow at me. “I’m not going to keep quiet.”

I shot a look to Caleb to let him know we may have to kill this prick to silence him.

“Unless,” Damien said, his voice low.

“Unless what?” Caleb demanded.

“You let me in too,” Damien finished.

I stared in complete shock at him. The last thing I expected him to say was that. I assumed he’d threaten some more before just running off to tell her. I knew he had some fucked up reason for sticking around her after all the years, but to think it was the same reason me and Caleb were after her blew my mind.

I thought he was just fucked in the head and liked to torment her over some little crush. And maybe he did and thought this would be a great way to twist the knife on her since she always pushed him away.

Caleb stared in shock at Damien. Before Caleb could open his mouth to protest, I spoke.

“You’re out of your fucking head if you think I’m letting you anywhere near Lily.”

The smirk Damien had been wearing morphed into something ugly and dangerous. “I think you’ll want me to join you. If you don’t let me play with her too, I have no issue going to her right now to divulge all the shit you two are planning. Try to get your way out of that.” He held up his phone for me to see he’d been recording the entire conversation.

Motherfucking prick.

“I bet she’d love to know how the two people in her life she cared most about are conspiring to fuck her together as a means to take what they think belongs to them.”

The sickness on Caleb’s face grew, his body trembling.

“Jace, we can’t let him join. She hates him?—”

“I know,” I answered, glaring at Damien who had the balls to continue smiling back at me. He looked like the cat who got the cream. So smug. He wasn’t bluffing though. I knew this asshole. He never bluffed. If Damien Fletcher said he was going to do something, he did it. He didn’t fuck around. He wouldn’t hesitate to run to Lily and ruin everything.

The rage surging through me morphed into something darker, more sinister. Damien and I had a long history riddled with hatred. We’d been best friends once. So close we were practically brothers. Inseparable growing up in the same social circle, our fathers the best of friends. It seemed inevitable that we would be too. Everything went to shit when his old man fucked my mother and caused a divorce between all our parents. We competed in everything after that. Women. Sports. Friends. Status. All of it. Sometimes he’d win. Sometimes I would.

This wouldn’t be something I’d let him win though. I’d never told Lily about my mom fucking Damien’s dad and it being the reason my family was so broken now. Or the reason hers was.

“You think we’re going to just step aside and let you join us?” I glared at him, wanting more than anything to plant my fist in the center of his face.

Damien shrugged, that smug as hell smile still on his face. “The way I see it, you don’t have a choice in the matter. Let me in or I blow your plans to fuck. Then I’m the hero who gets to fuck her. Maybe I’ll record it and send you the video or upload it online for everyone to see. Bet you’d love that. I think the headline would be Damien Fletcher Fucks Golden Boy Jace Adam’s Girl. I’ll hashtag it creampie or some shit too. You know, to be extra.” Damien glanced to Caleb. “Be real shit to lose her, huh, Caleb?”

Caleb’s face twisted in fury, but Damien continued. “Lily will cut you out of her life like a fucking tumor if she finds out you had a hand in this. She trusts you with everything. You’re her best friend. The only one she has left in the world. Imagine how broken this would leave her? All your chances with her…gone. Poof. Up in smoke.” He made an explosion gesture with his hands.

Caleb looked like the air had been sucked from his lungs. The panic flashed in his eyes, his body tensing further.

Fucking Damien.

He was right. He was pushing all the buttons I’d pushed when I’d cornered Caleb with my plans.

Fucking turning tables. The taste of my own medicine was rather bitter. I locked eyes with Caleb, hoping to hell he was catching the silent conversation I was pushing at him. By the look in his frantic eyes, he understood.

I looked back to Damien. “You’re a fucking prick.”

“I’m just looking to get what’s mine too. If you two get to share her, then why not just make it three? Seems only fair.”

I glanced back to Caleb one final time to take in the sick look still on his face. We both knew what was at stake here. We were backed into a corner and had no place to go but forward.

And forward meant with Damien Fletcher.

“Fine,” I spat at Damien. “You’re in. You don’t fucking tell anyone either or I swear to everything there is, I will cut your fucking throat before I piss on your corpse.”

Damien’s grin widened as he stepped forward, his dark eyes sparkling with the wicked the devil had pushed into his soul. “Deal.”

I hated Damien Fletcher more than anything I’d ever hated in my life.

But for Lily, I’d endure.