Beautiful Elixir

  “Wow”—Mel muses—“you walk through a pile of shit, and you really do come out smelling like a rose.” She lifts a brow, and I can see the slight look of dissension on her face.

  “Forget me. What’s school like? Were midterms tough? What’s going on with the frats? You guys still working the mixers?” The mixers were huge on campus. They were what Alpha Kappa lived for. Most likely still are.

  “Oh, come on.” Brylee and Reese scoot into the conversation. “Why would you care about frat boys when you have a real man waiting for you on the lake? Rumor has it, you’re shacking up. Soon there might even be another McCarthy among us.” She holds up her left hand, gleefully mocking.

  I glance to Mel and watch as her face glows an eerie shade of evil, a crimson rage with undertones of a jealous jade green. I’m guessing smearing the fact I’m oh-so-happy in her face is only adding fuel to the fire. I can’t figure out if this is a good thing or not.

  “So are you in love?” She takes a sip from her cup. “You’re among friends, Ken. Go ahead—spill it.”

  Reese steps into me, her chest heaving—never a good sign. Reese is famous for wearing her emotions on her sleeve, all of the good right along with the bad. Her lack of restraint doesn’t discriminate.

  “Kennedy does deserve love. She deserves all of the happiness, all of the good things that go along with it. You hear me? This girl is amazing. She’s a kick ass sister and a kick ass friend!”

  Crap. I crane my head into the crowd, momentarily tuning out my cheering section and come upon Kamryn. I shoot her a look and nod to Reese. Before I know it she’s front and center, pulling Reese over to help her meet a few of the local boys.

  Brylee makes a face. “You know, I’m not sure, but I’d swear I just saw Keith down by the lake.”

  “What?” Both Mel and I say in unison.

  We gravitate in that direction, continuing our conversation about nothing in particular while Brylee fills us in on how much she misses hanging out with Reese full-time and wishes she could find her own Mister Right.

  “Don’t we all,” Charlie mopes.

  “Here we go.” Mel averts her eyes as Charlie starts in. “Before you dive into a pity party, might I remind you that you’re at a real party thrown in your honor? Brylee, get that girl back in the thick of things before she submerges herself into the lake. I’m serious. Or I’ll drown her myself.”

  Brylee is quick to comply and pulls Charlie laughing all the way back to the crowd.

  The night stills around us. For a brief moment, I feel safe around Mel. This is Melanie after all, the girl I’ve spent the last two years with eating ice cream out of the carton and watching marathon rom-coms until our eyes bled. Melanie and I shopped together, we went to concerts, we got shitfaced together, we even got high together after we had the entire house sign an I-choose-to-be-drug-free petition that the school pushed on us. Mel and I were a team. None of this twisted shit makes sense.

  “Ken!” A loud male voice goes off like a bomb, and I spot Keith drudging along the shoreline, scissoring his hands over his head as he makes his way over.

  “God.” I run down the sandy shore, traversing over old logs and stones. I have every inch of this lake memorized. I can make my way around here blindfolded if I had to.

  My foot hooks on a branch, and I fly right into the waterline, face first into the icy spit of the lake.

  “Crap,” I say, pushing myself up. Keith lends me a hand while Mel loses her shit, laughing herself into a hernia. It all feels so normal. A part of me wonders if we were swayed in the wrong direction. Mel can’t be the vicious snake we’ve painted her to be.

  “Keith?” I touch his face to make sure he’s real. I’ve never really hated Keith. Ironic since I’ve never truly loved him either, but the thought of him being dead depressed the hell out of me. “I’m so glad you’re safe.” I wrap my arms around him, and it feels good, as if I’m simply hugging an old friend, a brother. An odd thought since we’re currently starring in at least ten different graphic videos that contest that familial theory. “I have to apologize to you again. This whole nightmare really is my fault.”

  Mel takes a few steps in, her brows arching with curiosity. I clear my throat, making sure my voice has the ability to carry. I offer Keith’s side a firm squeeze and enlarge my eyes, praying he’ll play along.

  “I wasn’t really honest with you.” I hold my voice steady. “I did everything, Keith. I not only uploaded the videos but that box of dildos? The erotic magazine subscription sent to your dad? The pizza with dead flies—the fire on the Dean’s lawn—you get the picture, it was me from the beginning. Do you forgive me? Maybe we can start over? Caleb and I sort of have an open relationship.”

  Mel physically has steam coming from her ears. Her mouth hangs wide. Her eyes bulge unnaturally.

  “You bet, babe.” Keith leans in and offers a thump of a kiss to my lips, and it takes everything in me not to reprimand him. I’m not willing to go that far to piss Mel off. By the looks of things, I’ve already tipped her sanity, not that it was stable to begin with. “Maybe we can hook up later?” He offers. “I got pretty hot watching those old home movies. You really know how to shake those peaches, baby.”

  “What the hell am I hearing?” Mel explodes in a fit of rage. “Are you two shitting me?” She breaks out in a high-pitched giggle, like a fool—like a psychopath.

  “Shut the hell up.” Keith drops his hands from my waist and twists into her. “You don’t get to talk to me.”

  That’s it. The show is over. Keith never could control his temper.

  “I don’t get to talk to you?” Her head ticks back a notch. “Who are you to talk to me that way?”

  “I’m your worst nightmare, honey.” Keith takes a few even strides in her direction, but Melanie doesn’t flinch. “I know all about the fucked-up games you’ve been playing. You think you can screw with me?” Keith wraps his hands around her throat and gives a firm throttle.

  I leap onto him, trying to claw his hands off her neck, but he’s staunch, strong, and as immovable as steel.

  “You can’t do this, Keith! Don’t kill her! She’s not worth going to prison for!” I manage to pry her free as Melanie coughs herself back to life.

  She spits dark fluid from her mouth and gives a deep laugh. “So you know.” Mel looks up, bloodied tracks running down either side of her chin like fangs. “Poor little rich bitches got toyed with. Boo fucking hoo! Kennedy is right. She loaded the videos—beat me by an hour—but she never had the balls to carry out the rest of it.” She glances to me, clutching at the divot in her throat as if it were her favorite pendant. “That’s what you have your house bitches for, isn’t that right?”

  “I know who you are.” My chest heaves uncontrollably. My voice shakes with anger. Where the hell is Caleb? “I know what my father did to yours.”

  “My father is innocent!” She leaps in my face, screaming. “Meanwhile, your father goes on to protect the assholes of the world and wins every single time! Your father took mine away. Honest to God, I couldn’t believe it the first time you told me who your father really was. It was during rush, but I suppose you don’t remember that. Why would you?”

  “I do remember, Mel.” I needle into her eyes with mine, the hatred I have for her slowly melting to pity. “I remember because you are the only one I told.”

  She winces as she gives an audible swallow. “You’re nothing but a shallow bitch who’s had the world given to her on a silver platter. I thought—what a fun game, take the platter away and see how she feels. Seeing you happy when I was so miserable was unacceptable. Your smile was acid thrown in my face. One by one, I bet drunk skanks that they couldn’t sleep with Keith Can’t-Keep-it-in-My-Pants Stearns, and, sure enough, he took every one of them up on their offer. And, even after catching him, you still wandered back! You’re so pathetic.” She gives me a hard shove, and I stagger back a few feet.

  Keith puts his body between us to ensure it won’t happen ag
ain.

  “And then I made a game of pinning all of those petty grievances on you.” She gives a dark laugh. “The fun was just beginning.”

  “How did you drug me?” Keith demands.

  “Roofie. Oh come on, Keith, don’t look so surprised. It’s bought and sold right in your dorm as easy as a dime bag. I drove you down the mountain and rolled you into the biology building like a log. Nobody cares about you, Keith, certainly not me. But you”—she reverts her attention to me. Her wicked soul is fully revealed by the light of the pale witness in the sky—“it seems you can do no wrong.” She throws her hands up in the air. “Honest to God, the more shit I smeared on you, the more our sisters flocked to you like flies. You are their queen, and you can walk on water.” Her hand digs into the back of her jeans, and she pulls out a small pink capsule before spraying a jet stream of liquid into Keith’s eyes.

  He lets out a harrowing howl, staggering while doubled over in pain. “Shit!”

  Melanie pounces on me like a cat and lands me on my back, my head ricocheting off the knife end of a rock.

  A dull choking sound emits from my throat as Mel and I begin to thrash our way into the lake. My body goes instantly numb as she plunges us into the frozen shallow end. My limbs hook around hers as I struggle to break free from her stronghold. Her hands rip from my shoulders to my face as she holds me firmly under water.

  Panic. Can’t breathe. Every cell in my body is begging for respite. Her grip remains staunch, and I let out a cry, nothing but bubbles riding around my face in a fury as the world fades to gray.

  My body writhes and struggles. My head pulsates like a bomb.

  Caleb bounces through my mind. Need to get back to Caleb.

  So cold.

  So dark.

  Mel’s face is the last thing I see as the world fades to nothing.

  Caleb

  A sharp biting wind slices through the crowd as I struggle to keep an eye on Reese. I know Kennedy is somewhere in the vicinity playing coy, playing it up for Melanie the nut job that brought us to this circus in the first place. Every now and again Reese looks around unsettled, and then I see Kennedy’s dark hair bobbing nearby, and a swell of relief fills me.

  “I don’t see her.” Gavin is the first to stoke the flames of this guilt that’s been coating me for the last half hour. I promised Kennedy I wouldn’t take my eyes off her, but she’s been dodgy, and, as soon as Melanie showed up, it was like I was afraid to jinx the show by watching too closely.

  “She’s with Reese. She’s standing in the back, talking to some guy.”

  Ace leans in. “You sure that’s not her sister?”

  “Shit.” In truth, I had forgotten all about Kennedy’s lookalike wandering around the party. I thread through the crowd, and, sure enough, it’s not Kennedy I’ve been tracking. I race over to Reese just as Ace beats me to her.

  “Where is she?” My eyes dart around the crowd trying desperately to find her, or, at the least, that psychotic bitch with an ax to grind.

  “She’s right here with Brylee and her sorority sisters.” Reese spins with a look of horror. A scream curdles in her throat as if she’s lost a small child in the crowd. “Kennedy?” Her voice rises.

  I push past the masses until I spot Brylee and speed over.

  “Where is she?” I pant, my hands holding onto her shoulders as if to steady myself.

  Something about this feels staged, dramatic, hellish as the music amps up, the lyrics move quicker, the crowd grows in girth and spins around us in a dizzying blur.

  “Relax.” She flicks me off her shoulders. “She’s around. I just saw her with Mel.” Her lips curve with a devilish grin. “I would never have pegged you for the possessive type. I kind of like that.”

  Gavin appears between us, out of breath, the perspiration running down the sides of his face. “Where’s Kennedy?” he barks at her. “Mel’s the one that’s been fucking with her.”

  “Oh my, God.” The drink slips right out of her fingers. “Last I saw them they were headed toward the lake.” She points west, and we bullet through the crowd, the icy air spears through my lungs like a knife.

  “Kennedy!” I roar into the night, hearing my own voice come back to me as an echo.

  “Fuck.” Ace points to the shoreline in the distance.

  At first, I don’t see anything then the last thing I expect takes form—Keith’s body lies over hers in the sand, his sturdy frame straddling her legs, his mouth fused over her lips.

  Are they together again? My heart jolts right out of my throat. A rusted terror grips me. Maybe this is the fiery climax. Maybe Kennedy has been fucking with me the entire time.

  Her knee rises lazily over his back, and I can feel the vomit in my throat as we come upon them.

  “Kennedy,” my voice rips into the night, unsure of what its intention is. I only know she’s here, and he’s with her, their faces still very much intact.

  Keith pulls back and wipes his mouth over his shoulder before he helps her into his lap.

  Kennedy is weak. Her head bobs over his T-shirt leaving a heavy stain. I touch the back of her hair, my fingers coming away damp and glossy.

  “She’s bleeding,” he says handing her off to me.

  “Kennedy?” I take her into my arms and press my lips to hers.

  “Caleb.” My name croaks from her in less than a whisper. Her fingers rise to touch my mouth. “Love you.”

  My heart jackhammers back to life. Just seeing her with him—thinking the worst was enough to kill me.

  “God, I love you.” I rock her slowly in my arms as I try to sift through what just happened, what’s still happening.

  Gavin leans in and examines the back of her head. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

  Ace offers Keith a hand and he groans as he rises as if he’s injured himself.

  “She’s still out there. She did this.” He pinches his eyes with his fingers and relays how she doused him with pepper spray while knocking Kennedy down and splitting her head on a rock. “She tried to kill her. She held her under, but I was able to knock her off. I was trying to save Ken, breathing for her and shit.”

  Kennedy gives the impression of a weak smile, but I can see she’s struggling to hold on.

  A howling lake patrol vehicle makes its way over.

  “That’s my dad,” Ace says, kneeling. “He’ll be able to give her first aid until we can get her down the mountain.” He winces at Kennedy. “You’re going to be just fine.”

  I give Ace a hard look and motion back to the party. “You think she went back?”

  Ace shakes his head. “If she’s smart. She’s already long gone.”

  Melanie is smart.

  And I have a feeling she is long gone.

  * * *

  Kennedy receives ten stitches, didn’t lose a hair in the process for which she was forever grateful. I take her home and hold her in my arms, making lazy love to her all weekend.

  Early Monday morning we get a knock on the door at seven thirty, and I open it wide to find Peter Slade’s smiling face staring back at us.

  “Morning.” He touches the back of his neck sheepishly, most likely because we look like we’ve been fucking all night, and we have. “I have some great news, and I wanted to share it with you both firsthand.” His silver eyes gleam, and, for the first time, I can see Kennedy in him, his eyes, his shrewd smile, she’s all there. “Melanie turned up.”

  “She did?” Kennedy lunges at her father and pulls him in tight. “It’s really over.” She sobs into his chest. “It’s done. This entire nightmare is behind us.”

  “It’s done.” He presses a tender kiss to her ear. “She was hiding out and got tired of running. She finally showed up at the Morris Township County Correctional Facility.”

  “That’s a men’s prison.” I should know. It was where they were housing Solomon and would happily still be doing so if Kennedy didn’t help set me straight.

  “That’s where her father is.” He nods. “She
wanted to speak with him one last time.”

  Kennedy groans. “Okay, I know I shouldn’t feel sorry for her, but that breaks my heart.”

  “I know.” Her father strokes her arm. “She asked for me personally to help find another defense team to look into her father’s case. She said she’d plead guilty to all the charges against her if I could find someone who would try to clear his name.”

  “And there’s that,” Kennedy whispers. “Mel is smart. I bet that was her plan from the beginning. Are you going to do it?”

  “That’s another thing I was coming here for. I thought Maxim McCarthy might want a crack at it.” His jaw tightens, and so does mine at the mention of my father. “I think there might be something to that whole plea of innocence he’s been singing since day one.”

  “I’ll let my dad know.”

  “I’m off.” He gives Kennedy another quick embrace and pulls me in on it. This feels good. This feels like family. “You take care of my little girl.” He wags his finger at me as he heads down the walk. “And you”—he points hard at Kennedy—“don’t be such a stranger. Your sister and I miss you.”

  Kennedy blows him a kiss.

  We step in and close the door as Kennedy coils in my arms with a hearty moan.

  “I have a surprise for you, too. It’s not nearly as impressive as your father’s but I think it’s worth mentioning.”

  “Is this the real deal or did you just mix innuendo with the same breath as my father?” Now it’s Kennedy who looks unimpressed.

  “The real deal. I was able to remove just about all of the videos.”

  “What!” Her voice shrieks to the ceiling as the room vibrates with joy. “Are you kidding?” Tears come to her eyes.

  “No. I’ve had them removed from all the big sites, there are a few I’m still working on, and, believe me, I’m not letting this go. You are too precious to me to let this go. You are not for sale, and your body is for my viewing pleasure only. There’s no way I’m stopping until every last one of those is nothing but a memory.”