Page 61 of Fuckboy Psychos (Scarlett Force 1)
Oh no.
It’s cutthroat, and I didn’t get to where I am by being nice.
“Aspen!” Lem cries out when really, she should be begging for Basti. He looks like he might actually tackle me off of her, but I lift my gaze up to meet his, and I can see that he understands the severity of the situation.
He doesn’t want to lose control of Prescott anymore than I do.
We deserve some credit here. As brutal as it is to crush my childhood best friend in the mud beneath my heels, I’m not a terrible queen. There have been—and surely will be—worse people who attempt to run the streets around here.
“Apologize to me, Lemon,” I say, grinding my heel into her back when she attempts to stand up, palms sliding in the mud. Her fancy haircut and her new makeup, the pretty dress that Aspen bought her, none of that matters right now. It’s just me and her and all of this unresolved bullshit between us. “Apologize and tell Aspen that you’re done with him, and we can put this all behind us.”
“Eat shit, Scarlett!” she screams, and I lean forward, putting so much pressure on her back with my heel that she collapses into the mud and chokes on it. Spitting and screaming and flailing around while Aspen watches, clearly unimpressed with the entire situation.
“Well, now I won’t be able to give her a ride home,” he says, and then he’s moving around us and heading for his own car. He pauses once as Lem cries his name, turning to look back at me.
“Aspen, wait!” she pleads, and that sound … the desperation in it, that just breaks my little black heart into pieces. “Aspen!”
“I’ll be back,” he tells me, looking straight into my eyes. “Over and over and over again, until I finally have you squirming underneath me and begging for more.”
“Please. Greater men than you have tried.” I spit at him, and the wet globule lands on his cheek. Icy fury flares in his eyes as he swipes his hand down his face and then smears his palm down the front of his black suit jacket.
He says something low and cruel under his breath, and even though I can’t quite hear what he’s saying, the threat in his words is apparent.
Aspen takes off while Lemon howls and Nisha looks at me with a tight facial expression, like she knows this is the right thing to do but doesn’t envy me my position in the least.
Bastian squats down beside Lem, reaching out to swipe some of her muddied blond hair back from her forehead.
“Just apologize, girl, and we can be done with this. You can come back to school, and we’ll help you graduate—”
“Leave me alone!” Lem screams as I step back, allowing her to rise to her feet. She looks like a fresh-born foal, floundering around on new legs. Nobody moves to help her as she struggles to stay standing. “You’re a bully, Scarlett Force.”
“I’ve heard that one before,” I agree with a slight nod of the head. “But if I truly were, I wouldn’t just teach you a humiliating lesson and send you on your way.” I step toward her, daring her to escalate this fight to blood and fists. I truly hope not. I truly hope we haven’t come to that point in our friendship, a crossroads that can never be backtracked, that final move from argument to enemies.
But I have to test her.
“Aspen is taking me to a fancy dinner with the mayor,” she hisses out at me, as if she thinks I would ever care about something like that. The mayor? Like, what the fuck does that even matter?
“Lem,” I start, putting my hands on my hips as I look her over with a tired sigh. “If you think that sort of statement would ever sway me then clearly, you haven’t been listening or looking for the last thirteen years of our friendship. Aspen is a snake, and if you don’t extricate yourself from his coils now, you’re going to find yourself suffocated and bleeding from the eyes.”
I look up, raising my voice so that everyone gathered around can hear.
“Nobody gives Lemon a ride or helps her out in any way. No phones, no bus fare, nothing.” I don’t bother to check and see if she has her phone on her. The dress she’s wearing is too tight and short for her to be carrying it around—and her boobs are too small to use my personal favorite phone storage locale—so I figure it’s probably still in Aspen’s car.
Despite him leaving her here tonight, I know that the two of them are far from finished with one another. He already knows that she has a high threshold for abuse, and it’s been made quite clear that he has a purpose for her other than just sex.
