Detention, page 7
“I promise …” I glanced at the glove compartment. “I won’t.”
He tightened his hand around the steering wheel, following my gaze. “Don’t worry.”
“How can I not?! You have a gun!” I exclaimed, speaking when I shouldn’t have. Immediately, I covered my mouth and wished that I could take it all back. I didn’t want him to hurt me, nor did I want to get in trouble for this.
He pressed his lips together.
“Sorry,” I whispered in a hurry, yanking on the door handle to get the hell out of here.
But before I could slip out of the car, he seized my wrist. I sucked in a sharp breath and froze, nerves zipping through my body. I didn’t turn back. Fear froze me to the fucking spot.
Why did I decide to come with him?
“Are you okay to drive?” he asked me after a second of silence.
I stayed quiet for a few moments, then nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.”
Once he released my wrist, I hurried out of his car and speed-walked to mine. I shuffled through my backpack, pulled out my keys, and unlocked the doors, leaping into the car as soon as I could. I tossed my backpack into the passenger seat and sped out of the parking lot.
Sure as hell, I couldn’t go home now. My mind was racing, and I probably looked like a ghost. Dad would definitely know what was up if I stepped a single foot into the house. He’d know I hadn’t been with a friend.
After driving through the ritzy beach sector that had upscale boutiques and charged upward of two hundred dollars a plate at the restaurants during the summer months, I aimlessly headed toward the beach.
I didn’t know where I was going or where I would end up.
But I needed air. I needed to breathe.
How can Mr. Avery have a gun?! A freaking gun! Has he used it on anyone? He didn’t seem like the type of person to go hunting, and that definitely wasn’t one of those hunting rifles that I saw in the movies.
Speeding through the desolate roads near the beach, I didn’t even stop. My mind was racing. My heart was racing. I didn’t know who the hell I was anymore. I was sleeping with my teacher! Me! The good girl who never got in trouble.
Once I made it through the beach without getting stopped by the Redwood Police—they usually hid down here for traffic stops—I took a couple of deep breaths and headed toward the first parking lot that I saw.
I needed to calm down. I couldn’t go home like this.
A sign for Walmart glowed against the dark-blue night sky. I parked in the very back and pulled the key out of the ignition, breathing heavily. After inhaling sharply, I blew out a long gush of air. Head clearing.
Hands clutched on to the steering wheel, I closed my eyes and gently banged my head against the headrest.
What the hell was I even thinking? Sleeping with a married man and my professor? Going to his house? Finding his gun?
“I need to stop,” I whispered. “God, I need to stop.”
But he felt so good. So fucking good.
No! He can’t make me feel good. He’s married.
Yet I couldn’t stop thinking—
Someone knocked on my window. I snapped my eyes open and sat up in the seat, scrambling around to lock the car and see who was standing outside in the darkness. The knock came again from my passenger side.
Gunther Zurn.
17
callan
Fifteen minutes after Sakura left the parking lot, I still sat in my car and stared through the windshield with my gun sitting on my lap. She was never supposed to find this. I should’ve fucking hidden it better.
The note that Rick Santos had slipped me earlier lay on the passenger seat. After unfolding it, I dragged my hand over my face and grunted. One of these fucking days, when Georgina was out of my life, I’d fucking leave the mob. I hated working for them.
On the paper, there was a single name.
Cortez.
A cop.
They wanted me to kill a fucking cop, and I just wanted to teach.
My phone buzzed nonstop in my pocket. Without checking who it was, I yanked it out and hit Answer. I needed a distraction from Sakura tonight or else I’d figure out where she had gone off to and follow her.
It was a FaceTime call from my wife, who was in bed at the five-thousand-euro-a-night luxury hotel room in the heart of Paris. She had on nothing but a lacy navy push-up bra and panties, not even our wedding ring.
Not that I wore mine anytime she wasn’t with me.
“What’re you doing out so late?” she whined. “Where are you?”
“Out.”
She giggled incessantly. “I went out tonight too.”
“Great. Listen, I got to—”
When she rolled over in the bed and rested her head on someone’s bare chest, I gritted my teeth. Then, from behind her, another man draped his arm over her breasts and squeezed one.
I pressed my lips together and flared my nostrils. I hadn’t loved her in years, but the damn nerve of that woman irked me. I didn’t give a fuck if she cheated on me, but at least try to fucking hide it.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Don’t tell me that all you did was teach at that boring school of yours, come home, and grade papers. All you do is work, work, and work. You never have the chance to spend time with me, and I—”
Before she could get another word out of her whore mouth, I ended the call and turned off all notifications from her. I thought about blocking her number completely, but if she told her father that I had done that …
He had the money to pay off the entire mob, if he wanted. Get me killed.
Every time I even mentioned breaking it off with her and finalizing a divorce, she hung this over my head. Which was why I was even in this mess to begin with. If the mob trusted me enough to get shit done, they wouldn’t kill me.
Someone knocked on my window, jerking me back. I cursed to myself and glanced over to see Principal fucking Vaughn standing in the dark in the desolate parking lot. I turned off my phone and rolled down my window.
“Yes?” I asked.
He folded his hands. “You’re here late, Callan.”
“I had to come back to class. I forgot a couple of exams that I’m grading tonight.”
God, what the hell is he doing here this late?
He usually left Redwood Academy at four in the afternoon, not eight at night. As far as I knew, all the admin meetings were in the mornings anyway.
“Did you get them?” He rocked back on his heels, the wind blowing his suit pants against his skinny legs.
“Hmm?”
“Did you get the exams?” he asked again.
Fuck.
“Doors were locked,” I lied through my fucking teeth to my boss.
He nodded toward the doors and stuffed his hand into his pocket, pulling out a silver ring of keys. “Come on. I’ll let you in, and we can talk. I have much to ask you about, seeing as you ran out of our meeting yesterday pretty quickly.”
After turning off my car, I gritted my teeth and followed him through the empty parking lot toward the main building on the high school campus. Wind burned my face, the biting fall temps chillier than usual.
“Why’d you park so far away?” he asked.
He knows something.
And I didn’t have any answers for him. I could lie all I wanted about why I was here, but why had I parked in the back lot, where there were no cameras? I couldn’t get around that unless I was trying to hide something.
“Just felt like it,” I said, as it was the best fucking response I could fabricate.
“Hmm …”
When we reached the doors, he shoved the key into the lock and pushed the door opened. A single automatic light turned on in the hallway. The school looked so different at night. I stepped into the building and walked with him toward my room.
“As I was saying in our meeting, you have an astonishing student in your class,” Vaughn said, stopping when we reached my classroom. “I mean, Sakura Sato is amazing, even outside the classroom. Wouldn’t you say?”
I pressed my lips together, wanting to ignore him, but I couldn’t help but feel off. That same eerie feeling washed over me from the last time I had spoken to him about Sakura. And I couldn’t fucking shake that he was talking about more than just her studying and volunteering.
“Sakura is great,” I said in as monotone of a voice as I could. “Why?”
“Smart. Pretty. Caring. She’s got everything going for her, hmm?”
He wanted me to agree for some fucking reason. Had he caught us? Was this him trying to get me to admit to sleeping with one of my students and enjoying it? No, Vaughn wasn’t that much of a saint. His pockets were stuffed with dirty dollar bills from the rich.
“Why?” I asked with my back turned, walking toward my desk.
“Some of these seniors …”
I shuffled through some papers on my desk. “What about them?”
He chuckled. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Do what?” I asked, not wanting him to actually find out that I didn’t have any exams.
After a couple of moments of complete silence, I glanced up to find him still by the door, shaking his head.
“Ah, that’s a story for another time, Callan. If you ever want to get a drink at Escape, I’ll tell you about it.”
Escape? One of the Redwood mob’s hangouts?
“Yeah, sure,” I said, stuffing some papers into a manila folder. “Sounds great.”
But I’d never take this asshole up on his offer. He was too interested in Sakura, had commented on her looks, and suspected me of something. I didn’t know what the fuck he was getting at, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to ever find out.
18
sakura
I didn’t know what the hell I had agreed to, but for some reason, I was now walking through aisles in Walmart and dropping things in my cart that I didn’t need while Gunther—yes, Gunther from Literature—stood next to me.
Turning into the chip aisle, I pushed my cart to the Doritos, stared up at them, and nervously chewed on the inside of my cheek. I wished that I had just kept my window rolled up in the parking lot and decided to just go home.
But it was too late. I had been too nervous.
And now, a guy that I had barely said a few words to was grabbing chips from the top shelf.
“I, uh, wanted to ask you something,” he said, setting the chips into the cart.
Fuck! Please don’t ask me to go out with you. Please don’t ask me to go out with you.
After tightening my hands around the cart, I walked to the end of the aisle with my gaze trained on the food in front of me. If anyone saw me out with Gunther at night alone, my life would be ruined. Rumors would spread like wildfire through Redwood.
How will Mr. Avery react once he hears them? The thought made me warm between my legs, my heart pounding. I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. No, no! I can’t think shit like that! He had a gun!
“Are you okay?” Gunther asked.
I stopped in my tracks and pushed some hair off my flushed cheeks. “Yeah, sorry. Um, sure, you can ask me whatever.”
He paused and flipped some longer hair off his forehead. “You okay? Really?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”
“ ’Cause …” He shrugged half-heartedly at me. “You seem nervous in Literature.”
Double fuck.
Eyes widening, I looked away. “I’m totally fine. You don’t have to worry.”
“Is Mr. Avery—”
“Mr. Avery is great! My favorite teacher!” Fuck, I am so nervous. “Don’t worry, really.”
I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t want him to ask me anything else because I feared that I’d either blush harder than I was now or I’d completely blurt out everything that had happened during that detention.
Anxiously, I glanced around Walmart and spotted Akio, a nice senior from Redwood.
“You sure because—”
“Akio!” I shouted, waving like a maniac even though I had barely spoken to him. I pushed my cart in his direction and glanced over my shoulder at Gunther. “Sorry. Akio is my cousin. I’ll, um, see you in class tomorrow.”
Once I left Gunther alone in the chip aisle, I speed-walked to Akio, who stared at me quizzically.
He stood in front of the freezer of boxed pizzas with a bunch of sweets in his basket. “We’re not cousins.”
“Shh!” I whisper-yelled at him, peering over my shoulder to watch Gunther leave. Once he disappeared from my view, I turned back toward Akio. “Sorry, didn’t mean to push that on you. I just didn’t want to continue talking to him.”
“It’s fine.”
“Long night?” I asked, glancing into his cart again at all the sweets.
“Uh …” He scratched the back of his head. “Sorta. Long story actually.”
While I didn’t know Akio that well, he worked as an intern under Mom at the pharmacy. I didn’t want him to ask me any questions about her because I didn’t even want to start to answer them. It wasn’t my fault that Mom was an addict.
“Well, um … have fun with that,” I said.
After he flashed me a nervous smile and scratched the back of his head—like seriously the same way any guilty main male character in all the anime that I watched did—I steered my cart toward the checkout lines.
I felt bad, walking through the store and putting everything back where I had found it, so I guessed that meant I would be buying all this food and junk that I didn’t need and probably would never use.
Just as I turned the corner to the checkout, I spotted the same man from earlier at Mr. Avery’s house waiting near the exit. I swallowed hard and froze, knowing that he hadn’t seen me through Mr. Avery’s tinted windows, but fearful that he had.
Quickly, I turned back around and walked to Akio, who still stood in the frozen pizza section. “Actually, I know that this is a stupid request, but could I shop with you until you’re ready to check out? I, um … don’t feel comfortable walking outside alone.”
Akio paused for a long moment, glanced down the end of the aisle just as the man passed by us—like he had spotted me and followed—and then nodded. “Sure, I don’t mind. I’m almost done anyway.”
My stomach twisted in knots. I couldn’t wait to get out of here and go home.
Between the IUD, going home with Mr. Avery, finding his gun, and walking around Walmart with Gunther, today had been the craziest day of my life. And I only expected tomorrow would be even crazier.
19
callan
I paced around my classroom the next morning with a whiteboard marker in my hand and Sakura on my mind. Last night, I hadn’t been able to think. Even after I had my hands covered in blood from working with the mob, I couldn’t get her out of my fucking head.
She’d better show up today.
While she had promised not to miss class, I wasn’t so sure what she’d do after spotting that gun in my glove box.
Students for the third period began flooding into the classroom. Every time the door opened, I glanced over and hoped it was Sakura. But the desks began filling with uninterested kids until there was only a minute before class.
Growling to myself, I uncapped the marker and began writing today’s lesson.
Sakura was never late.
After glancing over my shoulder again at the unoccupied desks, I gritted my teeth. And she wasn’t the only one missing from class today.
Surprise, surprise, Gunther wasn’t here either.
Fucking punk.
Fifteen seconds before the late bell rang, Sakura rushed into the room, wearing a pair of reading glasses, with her hands clasped around her backpack straps. “Sorry I was almost late,” she said, trying to catch her breath.
Gunther walked in after her.
I clenched my jaw and held myself together. They hadn’t been doing anything together. Sakura must’ve been talking with a teacher or had a class in another building on campus, or maybe she had been in the restroom. With him.
As if that kid knew what he was doing, he smirked at me.
Averting my gaze, I glared at the whiteboard and continued writing today’s lesson. Gunther was screwing around, trying to piss me off, wanting to get under my skin. That fucking brat never liked me.
“Did you find what you were looking for last night?” Gunther asked Sakura.
With the marker in my hand, I froze halfway through writing notes on the whiteboard and tensed. Where the fuck did he see Sakura last night? She had been with me for hours after school ended. What have they fucking been doing together?
“Um … yeah, I did,” Sakura responded.
After forcing myself to finish the notes, I set the marker down and walked back to my desk with my hands balled into fists by my sides. Sitting down, I cut my gaze to him and Sakura, who sat next to each other.
On the outside, I was calm. I was so fucking calm.
But inside … I wanted to bash that kid’s brains out.
Tonight, I’d find that punk kid after school and make sure he didn’t lay a hand on Sakura. Fuck getting Blaise to do it. If Gunther wanted to taunt me in class, then I would be the one to warn him to stay away.
“Good,” he said to her, leaning forward.
And I couldn’t fucking handle it anymore.
“We’re changing seats today,” I said through gritted teeth. “Stand up.”
Murmurs erupted throughout the class. We had just started the year a bit over a month ago. There was no obvious reason to switch seats, and I’d had no plans to, but I couldn’t handle them together anymore.
Everyone grabbed their belongings and hurried to the walls to make space in the center. I didn’t know who the fuck I would place where, but Sakura would be as far away from Gunther as I could get her.
“Sakura,” I announced, knocking my knuckles against the desk closest to mine. “Here.”
I walked diagonally across the room to the back and tapped the desk. “Gunther.”
Gunther walked over to me and clenched his jaw. “What are you doing?”
“Sit,” I growled quietly.
