Brandon is staring at me constantly since I told him my body count, especially after he saw me doing that dare to Derek.

"Sometimes imagination is better than reality," Dominic says referring to my dare and Irène laughs.

Derek spins the bottle and it falls on that girl Dominic seems to get annoyed by.

"Dare."

"Good, go upstairs and fuck Dominic," Derek says and I widen my eyes in surprise and amusement.

Everyone laughs, including Dominic.

"Was that supposed to be revenge? 'Cuz I like it."

"No, what the fuck?" the girl seems annoyed but still it's suspicious how much tension there is between Dominic and her.

"Turn him on and leave him with blue balls," Derek suggests.

"Even mentioning sex turns him on," Irène says.

"Haha, guys, you are so funny." Dominic rolls his eyes.

"You said my dick is small on that Instagram story," Derek jokes.

"Isn't it?" Dom replies and Derek just shrugs as Dom and Irène look at me.

It's really not.

"Did y'all fuck or something?" Shanice asks but no one replies. They just look at each other and laugh.

I guess it takes a special kind of humor and positive masculinity to not get defensive about this.

"Moving on..." I say.

I didn't join this game to talk about Derek's dick. My point was making him jealous but I only made him horny.

The girl dared by Derek actually accepts the second dare and grabs Dominic's hand to go upstairs.

Safe to say we won't see them again.

"It's only us now. Who is going to ask all those freaky questions?" Shanice asks.

I spin the bottle and it points to me, but it's Irène's turn to ask the question.

"Truth, with you always truth," I laugh.

"Hmm, okay, since I don't know this and I'm curious..." Irène stops for dramatic pause. "What was your first time like?"

I suddenly feel the daunting emptiness inside my stomach as if I fell off a cliff but I never touched the ground.

My mouth starts drying up and I stare at her without even blinking but I'm not actually looking at her.

"Are you okay? You look pale," Shanice asks and I try to nod. I really do.

But I'm not okay.

I take a shallow breath and I try to think of my second time. But I hate my second time too. I hate all the times I had sex except the times with Derek.

"I w- was drunk, I don't remember most of it."

"Was he drunk too?" Irène asks as Derek stares at me. He doesn't know this part of the story. When we talked about our first times I almost had a panic attack and told him it was with a random guy I met at a party.

"Yeah, of course," I lie, my mouth feeling so dry I can't swallow.

I notice my hand is shaking when Derek looks at it. I put it between my thighs to stop it.

Irène looks at the time and she stands up.

"Fuck. It's late. Let's go," she says as she grabs my arm and everyone else is confused.

"Veronica, wait," Brandon says and I turn around while Shanice and Derek stare at me.

"Would you give me your number?" he asks with a sweet smile on his face.

I'm just happy he asked me this in front of Derek.

"Yeah," I say as I tell him my number and Irène drags me away.

"What the fuck was that?" she asks annoyed as we go to the hallway. "You know what, don't answer me."

She opens her purse and she puts on black leather gloves.

I immediately look around to see if anyone is here and luckily they are all in the living room.

She forces me to go upstairs as she keeps looking through her purse.

We reach a random bedroom, which I seriously hope is empty.

She locks the door behind us as soon as we are inside.

"I'm going to make him pay just the same way," she explains as she takes out a medium-sized filled with weird blue-ish pills. "Fentanyl, the deadliest drug of all."

"Are you out of your fucking mind? Why would you do this?" I yell at her.

Why did I agree to help her? Why did I think it was going to be something petty and small, or at least something he deserves for something he did do. Not fucking planting drugs.

"You agreed to help me, did you think I'd egg his house?" she mocks me.

I shake my head in disbelief, annoyed at her constant extreme ways to hurt people.

"Hurry, he is coming anytime now," she says as she puts the drugs in his pillow's cover

"Are you going to call the police now?" I ask as my hands start shaking again.

"Duh."

"You can't leave Shanice, Dominic and Derek here!"

She shrugs.

I scoff. I run to the door and I already hear her calling the cops.

Before I close the door, she says on the phone, "I have to report a crime."

Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuck. This stupid idiotic bitch.

I run downstairs as fast as I can. The cops will be here anytime now.

The first thing I see is Nathaniel in the living room.

FUCK. He shouldn't see me here.

I hide behind the wall as he walks to the kitchen with a girl clinging onto him. He pours himself a bit of vodka as I make my way through the people so I can get back to Derek.

He needs to be out of here... they will absolutely end his life this time.

When I run back to the couch where we played truth or dare, I only see Shanice.

"Shanice, come here." She is talking to a blonde boy and ditches him when she sees my worried face.

"Irène fucking planted drugs in Nathan's room and called the cops! We need to be out of here," I whisper in her ear as loud as I can without the room hearing it.

"Oh my God... where are Dominic and Derek?"

"I don't know. I will look for them," I say.

I don't see Brandon either and I hope he just went home...

I stop the random girl that was playing with us. "Have you seen Derek?"

She shakes her head.

It's so late. Is Irène even out of here?

I can't believe she did this without telling me first... why do I always expect more from her when she constantly disappoints everyone?

Someone grabs my hand and I don't wince, fully expecting to see Derek.

"What are you doing here?" Nathan asks and I try to force my hand out of his hold but he doesn't let go.

"Is Irène here too?" he asks with annoyance in his voice. He knows Irène wouldn't let it slide after what he did to her. Just like what she did to Alexander.

"What do you mean?" I play it off, hoping to come as convincing.

"Don't play dumb. You aren't a good liar."

"She left. We only came here to party like everyone else," I respond.

He suddenly eases the hold and I breathe a sigh of relief. So it worked? He believed me?

Nathan wraps his arm around my waist and his nails dig into the thin fabric. I wince when he pulls me closer.

He breathes near my ear as he whispers, "I know what you two are here for, and it's not going to end well for you, Veronica."

He pushes me away and I don't look at him twice, I immediately scan the room for Derek.

Derek is always here when stuff like this happens but when I actually need to find him, he is fucking nowhere.

Nathan's threats mean little to me, I know they won't work once the police shows up. He has no chance against Irène.

And I sometimes hate Irène, but I know she wouldn't let anyone cross us.

I searched everywhere. The backyard, a few bedrooms before I went downstairs... I don't have any place left and Nathan won't leave me alone if he sees me around here again.

How is the police not here yet?

The bathroom. I didn't check the bathrooms!

I scan the room again for Nathan, but I don't see him and I walk to hallway, tying to push people away who keep stepping on my feet.

There are only three bathrooms in this house.

I go to the first one I see and lightly knock, then knock again harder.

The door suddenly opens and Derek is standing in front of me shirtless.

"Why are you shirtless?"

"Someone spilled a drink on my shirt."

I hear the distant sound of the police sirens and I immediately get into the bathroom with Derek, knowing that the main entrance can't be used to escape now.

"We need to leave now!"

I lock the door and he looks at me confused. I try to open the small window and I hope he fits through it

He grabs my hand and he tries to open the window, his muscles tensing as he forces the locked window.

"What happened?!" he asks me but he knows it must be bad because he immediately wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me so I can climb out of the window first.

We are lucky this bathroom is on the first floor.

I look down and I notice there is a bit of distance that I have to jump but I don't think twice as I push myself ahead.

"Wait!" Derek says as he looks down at me.

I can see the lights of the police sirens through the trees and I hope they don't come to us now. We are in the backyard and a few people are climbing the fence to escape.

Derek jumps from the window and he lands near me.

My wrist hurts and I try to massage it but it's not helping much.

We run to the fences and I immediately notice how tall they are compared to my height, even taller than Derek.

He again helps me climb them and I fall on my hand as the fences didn't give me enough stability to prepare my jump.

I wince in pain and Derek jumps near me, landing perfectly.

He lifts me up by my shoulders and we run towards the other houses.

Fuck. We have to jump into other's people backyards. There is no way out of here.

"Are you okay?" he asks as he takes my hand that I'm trying to massage and I hope it's not broken.

I nod as we hide behind a tree. I have to tell him what happened but we can't stay here.

A dog starts barking and I know they are in the yard because it's too close to us.

Fuck. Dogs. Again.

They will smell us. We need to leave.

We run towards the other houses and he looks over the fence as Derek checks if there are any dangerous dogs. The lights are turned off too but we don't have much time, the whole neighborhood heard the sirens.

He helps me jump the fence again and he jumps right after me. We run around this swimming pool until we get to the other side. My feet are tired and I just cannot run for any longer. We need to be at least a few homes away so the cops won't see us, plus they will be busy searching the house.

After running through a few backyards, we realize that we can't go to the street when the police is exactly going to come this way anytime now.

So we again climb out of the backyard and we stop when we notice we are near a store.

It's a small grocery store but we notice that we could hide behind the dumpsters in the back.

Derek points to the ladder that climbs to the top of the store and I follow him.

No one will see us there.

I climb the ladder first and when I get to the top, Derek comes after me.

We sit further from the corners so no one sees us and I am thankful the store is closed.

But they must have surveillance cameras... fuck. We've already been in the database and won't hesitate to arrest him for any mistake.

"How did you know the cops were coming?" Derek asks me.

Suddenly the sirens start again and I slightly peek at the street.

In the back of the car I notice two men, but I can't recognize who. Only one cop is driving and I don't see the dog.

Maybe the other cop stayed there to further search the house and arrest the other people.

It has to be Nathan. Irène reported him first. But is that second guy Dominic or even Brandon?!

But what will happened to the other people who were caught? Did everyone escape?

"Irène did this... it was because Nathan snitched on her and she got expelled from college. She planted drugs in his room and called the cops."

"Did you know she would do this the whole night?" he asks a bit annoyed.

"No! I knew she would do something but not this... I certainly didn't expect this. I immediately went to find you once she told me."

"I can't have you be put in prison again. You are looking for a job now too and-" I say breathless.

He pulls me in for a hug and I freeze, completely forgetting what I was about to say.

His embrace is warm and even though it's so cold outside, all this sweating and his touch is making it seem like we are in Hell.

I hug him back. I don't even know why, but I do it.

I take in his strong scent and we stay like this for a while. I don't even know if we do it to keep warm or just because we want to.

"Thank you," he whispers as he lets go. The cold creeps into my skin as his hands leave my back.

I look into his eyes for a few seconds. I don't blink. I should say something. This is making me nervous.

"No problem," I say as I look at the street and I notice another police car going to Nathan's house, but without the sirens on.

This doesn't seem good. But we are safe. I hope Dominic and Shanice are too.

"How's your hand?" he asks and I realize I forgot about it.

"It's going to be okay." I mean it. It barely hurts anymore.

He is about to say something and he stops. I patiently wait for him to continue.

"I will leave Atlanta. I'm going back to my parents' city."

My heart sinks a little.

"Why?"

I know I told him to stay away from me, but I don't want him to abandon his friends.

"I don't have any reason to be here. I can't even find a job."

I know I'm not a good reason enough to make him stay. If he wanted to, I'd be his.

"You have Dominic and Shanice!" I say annoyed.

"They will be fine without me."

"But I won't be fine," I raise my voice.

I shouldn't have said that.

"You asked me to stay away," he cuts me off.

"Because you kept messing with my head. I just wanted you to stop hurting me."

"I just... miss my parents, Ronnie," he says and looks away.

His old home is still there, abandoned since his parents died. He grew up there, he had to leave everyone behind. He always has to travel for hours and hours just to visit their graves.

I want to say I'm sorry. I feel like I mess up everything.

I suddenly realize how alone he must feel. Dominic and Shanice have their own life, problems. He doesn't have any family, he doesn't have anyone to love. His apartment is so big yet so empty.

And all those problems we had with the police, Felix, being kidnapped, not finding a job, being shot... must eat him alive. Because I know it's destroying me.

He only has me, but he doesn't want that.

"I will leave tonight but I want to be honest with you. I don't want you to resent me."

"Tell me," I say, desperately waiting for his answer.

"I blame myself for what happened to you. Every fucking day. I can't sleep." His eyes slightly glow as they get redder.

I try to grab his hand to comfort him but he stops me.

"I have constant nightmares about you being kidnapped, killed... everything. It's a real fear. You were never safe with me. It's all my fault. And- and I know none of this would have happened if you didn't love me."