Author's Note: Now that it's summer, I can dedicate more time to this story. I have the rest of it all planned out, and I'm really hoping to get it done before summer ends. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, it's been great motivation when I felt like ditching this story. Please read and review!!! I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
Dedication: This chapter was originally going to have no Blake whatsoever, but since chocolate is gawd was so nice and liked the character so much, I incorporated him anyways. Now, enjoy.
Who Needs Date Rape Drugs Anyways when you've got a Stalker?
Incredible.
That was Chase's first thought as she stared across the table and into the caramel colored eyes of Ryder Ferreira. In the backdrop of the wood-paneled room that had been modeled with a pre-colonial theme, the fire that was playing against Ryder's face made the tiny flecks in his eyes stand out.
Chase felt the wooden table underneath her palm and slowly traced the ingrained spirals with the tip of her finger. Ryder had approached her a half hour ago and had asked if she'd wanted to leave, maybe find some place where they could talk and eat?
And since she'd been anxious to get away from the throngs of half-naked girls and drunken boys, she'd quickly agreed. Now, it had occurred to her that this might not have been the wisest choice. She was now dining with a stranger boy, who could probably abandon her if he'd wanted to, since she was stuck with only the name of the restaurant, Dan's Fishsticks Diner, no car, no cell phone, and absolutely no idea how to get back.
Chase van Buren berated herself for being so stupid. So, incredibly stupid.
Back home, Blake was thinking of something similar. I am incredibly fucked, he thought, pacing the length of his room unrelentingly. What the hell was I thinking?
You weren't, a tiny voice said nastily in the back of Blake's head. You just wanted to feel less awkward after telling her all that. Why'd you go around blabbing anyway?
"I swear, I am on something. It's not my fault," Blake muttered, running a hand roughly through his still-wet and chlorine infiltrated hair. There was no way he had been rational tonight. He must have been under the influence of something.
Maybe so, but talking to yourself is never a good sign.
Now, how was he supposed to fix the problem? He hoped Arielle wasn't waiting to receive apologies in the form of roses and chocolates galore. It would seem kind of pointless; her dad would be paying for them anyway, so Blake dropped the idea.
Blake racked his head for the things that would make him seem sincere. What else did girls get all excited and happy over anyway? He knew from experience that the three words, "I love you" worked like magic when you needed a girl to give you head, but he doubted that was what Arielle wanted.
He could always serenade her under her window, write a letter of apology, or--Blake's favorite--ignore it and pretend like nothing happened.
He sighed. Maybe he'd just give her the traditional "I'm sorry" and see if that didn't do the trick
What ever happened to Blake's colorful and vivid imagination now?
He gently rapped on her door.
Arielle, cautiously opened it just a sliver of an inch, just to see if it was someone other than Blake.
'Hey, look I'm—" Blake tried to grab the door and opened it.
"Go away," she slammed the door. Or at least she tried to, but all Blake heard was the loud crack as Arielle slammed too hard between his fingers and the door frame.
"Fuck!" he yelled, examining his poor fingers It hurt like hell, but at least it wasn't broken. He steeled himself against the unbearable pain. He held his poor middle and ring finger gingerly. "You broke my fingers!" he yelled at the closed door, slamming it with his left fist, knowing that Arielle would eventually open the door from curiosity. "You could at least have the decency to see if I'm okay," he muttered, fully intending on playing the pity plan against Arielle.
When the door didn't open, Blake sighed. "Arielle, look, I'm sorry. But could you at least help me out here?" He paused to see if that would elicit any response from her. It didn't. "Please." He put on his best pity voice, knowing that if he sounded like he was in enough pain, Arielle's soft heart would finally find it to help him out.
She cracked open the door a little, and stuck her head out suspiciously. Seeing this, Blake stuck his red fingers in front of her face and opened up the door to enlarge the gap within them. He stepped inside her room
When she saw that this was all just a ploy, she hit him on the chest. Hard. "Dirty, son of a bitch," she cried, clawing at him viciously.
Hell. It kind of hurt. But Blake just let her do it. Better get it all off her chest before he said anything.
"Arielle," he interrupted, grabbing her angry fists, "I did come here to say I'm sorry, you know. The least you could do is make it easier for me."
She yanked her fists back furiously, but didn't resume hitting Blake, opting instead, to glare at him behind her ice-blue eyes.
"Well, you came and said it. Now, you may feel free to go rub your perverted-ness in some other girls' face."
"Goodness, Arielle. I'm a seventeen year old male. I have needs. But I would never try to force you to do anything." Blake sighed, looking down at his hands, and playing his final card. "I just want a friend, Arielle. I'm lonely. And I just want to be able to talk to someone. I didn't mean to upset you." Blake screwed his face up in an attempt to pass himself off with the look of an innocent and lost five-year-old who didn't understand just how badly he'd screwed up.
"Yeah, but you could have tons of friends. You don't need me," Arielle shook her head. Blake noted with satisfaction that she was caving. At the very least, she was no longer trying to hurt him.
"I don't want those people as friends. They make me sick," Blake scoffed, momentarily forgetting that he was supposed to be playing the part of a reformed sinner.
"This really isn't going to be easy, this friends business." Arielle murmured, sliding her ring up and down her left index finger. No doubt she was thinking about her bitch of a sister, who was apparently some kind of control freak.
"Friends, not sex buddies. You think Jade could handle that?" Blake snapped. He pushed his hair up. Crap, that's not how it's supposed to go. He carefully reigned in his temper. "Just friends," he said again in a calm voice, offering his hand. There was no need for him to turn the whole entire Lewallen family against him just yet.
"Okay. Friends." Arielle said, shaking his hand firmly, feeling slightly nervous. But then again, anything that concerned Jade made her nervous.
Somewhere in Beverly Hills, Chase was also feeling more and more nervous by the minute. The diner was slowly emptying, and Ryder showed no sign that he was about to leave anytime soon.
She really had tried to pay attention to what he was talking about. Something to do with soccer or whatnot. But it was hard, considering that she was still stuck in the middle of nowhere. In actuality, Ryder was totally innocent. After all, his golden looks and friendly enough personality left little evil to be imagined. But, growing up on the streets, you could never be too careful.
"Ryder?" she said softly, when he launched into another great soccer save.
"Yes?" he arched his brow in a polite way.
"I just remembered. I have some last minute homework to do at home. Would you mind dropping me off?" she said, hoping that she hadn't offended him too greatly by bruising his seemingly over-swelled ego. She twirled her ring around her finger nervously.
"Oh. Yeah. No problem," Ryder stood up with an almost disappointed look on his face. "We should definitely do this again some other time though."
"Yeah. Definitely." Chase said vaguely and fidgeted nervously as she saw the diner owner—Dan?—eye them with a shifty look in his eye. Why would Ryder choose this place anyway, when there were so much more publicly populated restaurants on the way?
She pondered Ryder's intentions on the way back to the car. Not that she was ugly or anything, but she was no beauty and she knew it. There was nothing sexy about her, unless you counted her chest.
What Chase knew she didn't have physically, she tried to make up for it in personality. Seeing Ryder Ferreira, the womanizing, Californian, surfer-toned, soccer-loving jock with the sexy British accent and smile, take an interest in her, it was hard not to feel unsettled. After all, Chase had been raised at school to believe that there was only one thing teenage males like Ryder wanted, and it certainly had nothing to do with personality.
"So, want to hang out again maybe Thursday after school?" Ryder asked, giving Chase a look to the right of his eye, then quickly moving his gaze back onto the road, as he flawlessly steered his Bentley down the winding road.
"I think I might need to help with the reception stuff. Get it all in order. My mom's freaking out. But if I don't, I'll definitely call you," she said vaguely, while leaning her head against her palm and watching a lone black Mercedes behind them on the road in the side mirror.
Ryder nodded, whipping out his cell phone with his left hand. Chase glanced curiously for a second, if only to see who he was texting.
Jade Lewallen.
Chase quickly turned her head again before he could accuse her of nosing in his business, and focused her attention on the road, trying to memorize road names in case Ryder had any intention of abandoning her on the side of a road. She absent-mindedly twisted the loose ring around her finger, frowning at the thought.
"Ah, Chase?" Ryder said, when they paused at an intersection with the streetlight casting an eerie glow in front of them. "Would you mind it if I stopped at the nearest pharmacy? There's something I have to pick up there."
Chase looked up sharply, her eyes glinting in the darkness of the car. A part of her immediately armed up the defenses. But seeing as she was here on Eucalyptus Lane with Ryder's car as the only means for transportation, she wasn't exactly at a liberty to be pushy about her choices. "Sure." She shrugged nonchalantly, but on the inside, she slowly looked around the car to see if she could spot anything she could use to her advantage. A sharp object was always good, as Blake had always told her. Also, anything heavy or cloth-like.
Her eyes had landed on Ryder's jacket and his soccer uniform when Ryder abruptly pulled into an empty lot, with the pharmacy's sign lighting against the backdrop of the night like a beacon.
"Stay here. I won't be long." Ryder said, slamming his car door and winding his fingers around the car keys, and opening the car windows so that Chase would be able to get some fresh air.
Chase stared out of the car window, absent-mindedly scratching the back of the hand that she'd thrown carelessly over the window's sharp edge and letting the damn ring accidentally shift off her hand.
"Oh shit," Chase said in dismay, as she opened the car door and crouched down on the ground to gently examine the ring. Her fingers bruised over the shiny surface, fervently praying that there would be no scratches and carefully triple checking it to make sure.
Then, she felt it.
It was as if something had suddenly gone very wrong, the kind of feeling you get when you know someone's staring at you pointedly across a noisy cafeteria. The feeling of being watched. Out of the corner of her eye, Chase saw baggy black pants.
"Shit," she cursed again under her breath, scrambling to get up and to turn around to face this newfound enemy. Half of her heart hoped that it would be Ryder, coming around to see why Chase would be crouching on the blacktop ground. The other half of her told her to shut up and to stop being so stupid.
Her adversary pushed Chase down before she could run or scream, fingers burying into Chase's pretty red locks. Then, before Chase could even bother to scream, she felt the person tie something foul around her mouth. Then, she felt her hands being snapped backwards and lashed together with rope while a piece of cloth tied itself around her eyes. The irony that she'd been the one thinking about using Ryder's jacket to do the same to him should he have thoughts about hurting her, failed to take any of the edge off.
Chase stumbled blindly as she was yanked to her feet rudely, and prodded in the general direction her captor wanted her to take, and then needlessly shoved into the backseat of a car.
She heard the person get up into the front seat and slam the brakes into reverse and tear out of the parking lot as Chase nearly feel off the backseat. Chase felt her fear increase. Even if the person's not-so-noble intentions didn't kill her, not having a seat belt while in the backseat of this maniac certainly would, Chase reflected as she felt the car hit a bump in the road that was not at all helped by the speed of the car.
Think, Chase, think, her mind urged as Chase lay helplessly, a sob threatening to escape her throat. She was seventeen, for goodness sake. She hadn't even done any of the great things she'd always dreamed about. Go to college and grad school, do something in theatre, really fall in love, have kids.
I'm going to die with an un-fulfilled life, she thought dully to herself, as she became aware of the numbing pain that was most definitely from the lack of blood circulation in her hands.
Chase's head bumped up and then dipped back down sharply as the driver made a screeching turn. Then, mercifully, the car came to a stop, and she felt her captor yanking her out and throwing her onto hard ground. It felt suspiciously like blacktop, and Chase realized with a new wave of panic that she was in the middle of the road. Not only that, but she had no idea how to get off before some drunk driver came mowing her down.
She tried to keep calm and to use her head to devise an escape plan. Her best option was to just feel around with her hands and hoped that it led to the side road sometime soon. Beside her ear, she heard a small flipping sound.
Then, before she could even bother to wonder what it was, she felt the person reach behind her and press the tip of the blade sharply into her skin, drawing blood.
"Consider yourself warned," a voice growled into her ear cruelly, swiping a finger across Chase's fresh wound. She felt the hem of her shirt being lifted and the person slashed a line vertically down the length of her stomach. "I won't be so kind when I come to paint warning number two next time."
Then, her skull slammed into the ground, and she heard the distinctive noise of the person gunning the car away.
She didn't know how long her mind was in shock. Then, her self-preservation skills kicked in and she quickly focused on getting up, ignoring the throbbing pain in the back of her head.
If this was warning number one, she didn't want to find out what warning number two was.
She stumbled along slowly, trying to find where the road ended. Her toe kicked on something that wasn't blacktop, and she collapsed onto the bristly ground.
Now, for the hands. Chase rotated the ropes that bound her hands together, and smiled when she felt them start to loosen with the movement. Whoever had tied her hands clearly wasn't very good at making sure they stayed on.
Once those were off, she quickly ripped off the piece of cloth in her mouth and over her eyes. She quickly gasped out in gratitude when she felt the cool Californian air hit the insides of her mouth.
"Thank God," she nearly sobbed, at finding that she was still in one piece, albeit a little hurt. Chase's fingers brushed across the dried blood on her palm and quickly pulled up the front of her shirt to look at the gruesome one that her attacker had oh-so-kindly drew there as a reminder.
She quickly pulled her shirt back down and wearily glanced around. She was far from escaping. Chase had no idea where in the world she was supposed to be, and she felt a lump in her throat. Even though she was scared, she guessed she ought to be thankful that she'd grown up in a place where she'd had to find her own way around often enough. God forbid if any of these Beverly Hills princesses were stuck in her position.
Noting a small light in the distance, Chase wobbled down the path, and started to make her way back home.
Back at the Lewallen Estates, Blake was fuming angrily.
"So, being the cold bitch that you are," he gave a pointed glare at Jade, leaving no question as to which bitch he was talking about, "you left my poor, innocent sister out there, in a new town, on her first day here."
"Please, I'm sure she's fine. She sure didn't look like she was in trouble the last I saw her," Jade flipped her hair condescendingly at Blake.
"If she's fine, then why the hell is everyone else in your so called social circle back home while my sister remains missing?" he glared again, advancing forward threateningly.
"Get over yourself already," Jade shouted. "Maybe she decided to go home with Ryder. I'm sure she doesn't need your permission for everything."
A deadly look came over Blake's face. So his baby sister was out there with some guy, getting raped. And all Jade Lewallen was doing was standing there, in her ridiculously slutty outfit, telling him to get over himself. Well, he was going to show that bitch just how wrong she was.
"You," he said in a enunciated, quiet voice, so that there would be no mistake, "are going to call this Ryder and you are going to tell him to bring my sister back here in five minutes, and you are going to do this now."
"There is no way I am going to let trash like you order me around. No one—and I mean no one—fucks with Jade Lewallen." She said, so angry that red splotches were appearing on the apples of her cheeks.
"Well, princess," Blake snarled, his hand darting forward to grasp the front of her shirt cruelly, "consider me the first, because tonight, I have a feeling that you are about to learn that the world doesn't involve around Jade fucking Lewallen."
"And I have a feeling that tonight, you are going to find out that just how merciless I can be to people like you," Jade spat, wrenching herself away from his grasp. She gently smoothed the top of her shirt.
He advanced at her slowly, the fury obvious in his eyes, and grabbed her hair viciously, and nearly took her head off while directing her gaze towards the glass-pane windows in the foyer. "See that nice, beautiful car out there, Gorgeous? Be careful where you're treading, or it might just not look so nice tomorrow morning. And if you truly make me run out of my patience in the next thirty seconds, we'll see just how well you can make those threats without that pretty face of yours."
Blake swished his trademark blade next to her ear. "That cow forgot to confiscate this, unluckily for you. Convenient, isn't it? I've used it before, but never on a girl. So, unless you want to be the first, I suggest you pick up your phone and make that call now."
Not willing nor stupid enough to test Blake's thin patience, Jade slowly withdrew her cell phone from her pocket, a look of pure loathing etched on her face, and speed-dialed her friend. She wished she could telepathetically tell Ryder not to pick up, if only to spite Blake the more.
"Oh, and if you even think about screaming right now, or telling anyone else about this, I will make you regret it." Blake hissed in her ear, pressing the flat side of his blade against the side of her face a little harder, to demonstrate exactly how serious he was.
He had never truly used it to harm another person, but right now, he felt like if the little bitch pushed him any further, he just might.
Men. So insensitive and crude sometimes.
Therefore, it was with Ryder's voice ringing over the telephone lines that the first battle victory between Jade and Blake had been cast, with many promises of vengeance to come.
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