Tormented Royal by Lily Wildhart

Chapter Twelve

Iwent out for a run first thing this morning, trying to burn off the funk last night left me in. Things have been too quiet, and that’s making me almost as jumpy as I was when I was being attacked almost daily.

Quiet usually means the calm before the storm, but after everything the guys and Blair have pulled so far, I can’t imagine it getting much worse. Even with Lincoln’s sideways warnings.

I get back to the house to find the gate open, and my stomach drops.

The gate should not be open.

I run up the drive, spotting the open front door. Fear trickles down my spine, and I curse myself for thinking things couldn’t get worse.

Moving as silently as I can, I enter the house, my heart beating so fast I’m scared it’ll be heard.

The place is trashed. The artwork is slashed and the knick-knacks and decor smashed, but I can’t think about any of that because Smithy was here.

If they hurt him, I swear to God...

I creep through the rooms, trying not to make a sound while hoping like fuck whoever broke in isn’t still here. The squeak of my shoes on the floors seems so loud that I pull to a stop, holding my breath so I can hear if anyone else is in here.

I try to keep a hold on the panic threatening to take over my entire body, but I need to find Smithy before I do anything else. That one thought is the only thing holding me together.

I stumble over one of the smashed statues, falling and cutting my palms as I do. I curse under my breath for being so loud.

Fuck it. If anyone else is here, they already know I am at this point.

“Smithy!” My shout echoes in the giant space, but when there's no response, my heart thunders in my chest. I hurry through the rooms and head for the kitchen, hoping Smithy is in the panic room under the island.

I find Smithy in the kitchen, face down on the floor, blood spilling from a wound on his head. “Shit!”

I rush toward him, trying to wake him. I shout at him as I shake him, but it’s no use, so I do what any reasonable person would do. I call the police, while trying not to sob and freak out that he won’t wake up.

When I hang up, I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself and roll Smithy onto his side, moving his arms and legs into the recovery position, making sure his airways are clear and that he’s still actually breathing.

Who the fuck would do this? And why would they hurt Smithy? He hasn’t done anything to anyone.

I look up and see a piece of paper stuck to the refrigerator.

No one you love is safe while you stay here. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Those fucking assholes. This can’t have been them, right? They wouldn’t have hurt Smithy. Would they? I see red, snatching the paper from the fridge and crumpling it in my hand. If the police see this, I’ll never hear the end of it. All I want is an ambulance for Smithy.

He has to be okay.

He can’t be seriously hurt because of me.

When the buzzer at the gate sounds, I make sure it's open wide as one cruiser and an ambulance come up the drive. The paramedics come in first, and I direct them to the kitchen. The officer pulls me to the side and asks a ton of questions I don’t have the answers to.

“Is he going to be okay?” I ask as the paramedics wheel Smithy’s unmoving body out of the house.

“He has a contusion to the head and has lost quite a lot of blood. They’ll be able to assess him better at the hospital. Will you be following?”

I nod, and the paramedic rushes out to join his partner. The officer asks me a question, but I don’t hear it as the sirens start up.

I can’t believe they hurt him.

Guilt churns in my stomach, more powerful than any rage I can feel. This is my fault. I should’ve listened to them. I could have stopped this.

“Miss Royal?” The officer calls my name, and I shake my head, pulling myself from my thoughts.

“Sorry, Officer, this is a lot.”

“Sure, I can imagine. Do you know if anything was taken?”

I shake my head again, clasping my arms around my waist, holding myself tight. “I’m sorry, I have no idea. I went straight into the kitchen and found Smithy… sorry, James.”

Just saying the words makes me feel cold. How is this my life?

“That's understandable, are you okay to walk through with me quickly before you leave for the hospital?”

I find myself nodding before I start walking him through the house. The main floor is completely destroyed. Anything that wasn’t bolted down has been thrown or smashed. The contents of the kitchen are spilled over the counters and floors. We head down the stairs to the basement, and I choke back a sob when I see the music room.

The place that was my dad's sanctuary, it’s… almost unsalvageable. The smell of urine makes me gag, and I leave, unable to look at it anymore.

Finally, we head upstairs, and I find much of the same. More destruction. My clothes aren’t shredded this time, but they are strewn across the room. The only things left alone are my dad's guitars hanging on my wall.

I nearly fall to my knees as relief floods me in waves.

“Everything seems to be accounted for, but I can go through more thoroughly later once I’ve been to the hospital. Is that okay?” I say to the officer, my voice thick with emotion. This has been one hell of a day, and it's not even eight in the morning yet.

* * *

My week has been a clusterfuck, but I refuse not to let today be a good day. Smithy was released from the hospital last night. He had a slight concussion, but other than that, the cut was his only wound. Though if you ask him, his pride was wounded more. The doctors wanted him to stay overnight, but the man is stubborn as a mule. So I ended up bringing him home.

While we were waiting for the doctors to finish their tests, I called in a cleaning company to sort out what could be salvaged from the house and throw away anything that couldn’t. It’s just stuff. It can be replaced, and besides, I didn’t want Smithy going home to that madness.

When I asked him who attacked him, he said there were five thugs but that he didn’t recognize them because they were wearing masks and gloves. Which I guess makes sense, but it doesn’t explain why my wall of guitars was left untouched or why nothing was actually taken.

It hurts my head just to try and make sense of it all. I can’t help but hope it wasn’t Lincoln and the others. Surely they wouldn’t hurt Smithy. But who else would leave that note?

I pushed him a little harder on the drive home, but he didn’t have anything else to say. I get it, he was tired, and he’d answered all the police’s questions as well as mine, but he doesn’t seem… angry enough about it? Maybe that's just my response to everything these days.

Then this morning, he demanded that I go to school despite everything that happened, so I made him promise to take it easy. It took some doing, but I threatened to have Pattie come and check on him if he didn’t behave. I’m not entirely sure why those two hate each other so much, but it worked, so I’m going to take the win.

Lincoln, Maverick, and Finley are suspiciously absent from school, which has the gossip mill all aflutter. Luckily, it means I’ve actually been able to relax—the thought of confronting them about what happened to Smithy fills me with anger and fear at the same time. I hate that the fear is there, especially when I’ve never been the kind of girl to cower, but something about those three and what they’re capable of… It puts me on edge. Catty pettiness from Blair and her girls I can cope with, but the boys… They know me so much better than anyone else here.

They know the real ways to hurt me if they want to.

And for some reason, they seem to want to.

So a day without them here is a good day, and I haven’t let it go to waste. Even circuits in Gym isn’t getting me down. Though that could be because Indi, the sunshine child extraordinaire, has done nothing but bitch and whine as we’ve worked the course together, and it gives me such life.

“If I do another squat, my thighs are going to explode,” she complains, and I can’t help but grin as I finish my round of burpees before sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“Want to swap? I will happily do your squat set if you want my burpees.”

“Not on your fucking life, my friend,” she practically hisses, and it makes me laugh out loud. She looks like she’s ready to collapse by the time East blows his whistle, calling an end to the lesson before the bell actually goes off.

“Thank fucking Christ for that. I hate Gym. Exercise is not for everybody. This body of mine was made for coffee, chips, and pizza. Not exercise.” She leans against the wall while I climb to my feet.

“I so feel that.”

“You have much going on tonight?”

I groan in answer. “I have to finish dealing with the house shit. I’m trying to work out what we need to replace to take some of the pressure from Smithy. At the same time, I have so much homework to catch up on. How can we only be like two weeks in, and I’m this behind already?”

“Same! It’s like the teachers want to torture us or something. Want to have a study date? I could use a few hours where Mom isn’t trying to talk to me every two minutes so I can work. Plus, I can help with the house stuff. Or try at least.”

“Sounds good, I’ll let Smithy know you’re coming over. Just remember the house is a disaster. I mean, the cleaners came in, and I’m sure Smithy didn’t rest today, but still.” I shrug a little, and once I reach my locker, I drop the man in question a quick message to let him know my plans. I get a smile emoji back, which, considering he didn’t text before I showed him how to last night, is a definite win.

I go to drop my phone back in my bag before I head to the showers. It buzzes before I put it away, and it’s like a surround sound of pings goes off. My stomach drops. Everyone getting the same notification from ReachMe is never a good thing.

Indi’s eyes go wide as she looks at her phone before looking back up at me. Her discomfort is instantly obvious as she bites down on her lower lip.

“What?” I ask, and she shakes her head, so I pick up my phone and open the app. The post just has a link in it. So I click on it, and immediately really wish I fucking hadn’t.

My screen fills with something from a porn movie… Except that’s my face… And my voice—did they record me in the pool house?

I close my eyes as the breathy sounds fill the locker room.

This can not be happening.

I know I’ve sure as shit never fucked the guy in this video, and I sure as hell never videoed myself having sex… That would require me having had sex, which I haven’t. Fuck my actual life. Whoever made this is a fucking pro.

Even though I know that it isn’t me in the video, shame and humiliation floods my system, and I want to fucking cry. My hands shake as I shut down my phone, shoving it into my pocket. I can usually keep my head held high, but despair filters through me. I haven’t even been here three fucking weeks. How is this my life?

“What a whore.”

“Nice tits, Octavia. Why don’t you show us since you don’t seem to mind baring all to the world.”

“Of course she made a sex tape. She’s nothing but trash.”

Their words hit their mark, and I struggle to breathe around the pressure that’s sitting squarely in the center of my chest. Why is this happening to me? There’s a buzzing in my ears, and my blood runs cold as my skin goes prickly. I need to get out of here. “Let’s shower at my house?”

Indi nods, bundling her shit into her bag almost as quickly as I am. I’m not usually one to run from bullshit, but this… This is too much. “Let’s go.” She wraps her arm around me, squeezing me quickly once, while everyone around us laughs and watches the stupid clip on repeat. I try to keep my head high as we rush from the school.

“Want to ride on me, Octavia?” someone leers, and Indi flips them the bird as she tries to get me out of here as quickly as she can. The taunts and jibes follow us all the way through the school, each one like another dagger to the heart.

These people don’t know me. If they did, they’d know I’d never do anything like that; but that doesn’t matter to them. It doesn’t make their words hurt or fill me with shame any less.

We leave the building and head toward Indi’s car. The shouts and catcalls follow us the entire way. I nearly manage to keep my tears at bay, until I catch Finley’s eye as he stands by his car. He wasn’t at school today, so why is he even here?

The smug look on his face tells me everything I need to know.

He did this.

I bite down on my lower lip to stop myself from crying harder. Why would he do this? Indi has her car unlocked before we even reach it. I climb in, blinking back my tears. She starts the car up and peels away from the school. We’re out of the parking lot before the first one falls.

What did I ever do to deserve any of this?

Indi says nothing the entire drive back to my house, and I whisper the code to her so she can go straight to the house. Once she pulls to a stop out front, her hands clench around the steering wheel. She takes a few deep breaths before turning to face me. “Do you know who made that bullshit video?”

“You don’t think it’s real?” I ask, shock coloring my voice. I might not be answering her question, but the fact that she didn’t even ask me if it was me has me shook.

She shakes her head and squeezes my hand. “I may not have known you long, V, but I’m pretty sure you’re not the type of girl who fucks on camera, even with the wild rockstar shit that happens. So no, I don’t think it’s you in the video.”

“I think… No, I know… It was Finley,” I say quietly, picking at the skin beside my thumbnail. I swallow what little of my pride I have left and finally tell her what happened with the three of them. Telling her every little thing that I’ve been withholding. It’s like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, but she looks horrified.

“What a fucking dick stain! The fucking lot of them. I am so sorry, V. About all of this, I wish there was something I could do… say… to make it better for you.”

“You’re here, and you’re my friend, in spite of everything. That’s what I need.”

“Then I’ve got you.” She clasps my hand and squeezes before she climbs from the car. I follow suit, finding a worried looking Smithy waiting for us.

He twists his hands in front of him, and I can’t tell if he’s worried about me or about what it is he’s waiting to tell me. I take a deep breath and try to prepare myself for whatever it is. He ushers us inside, and I know it’s bad when he pulls out the teapot, one of the few things that apparently survived the break in.

I slide onto one of the stools, and Indi does the same as we wait for him to pour us both a cup. I pull my phone out of my bag and turn it back on before placing it down on the counter as Smithy turns and looks at me, frowning. “I heard what happened, Miss Octavia. The lawyers are already working on getting it pulled down… but I’m afraid that it’s already online—more than just your school network. And that stupid gossip rag TV show, Celebrity Time, are threatening to pick it up for their news cycle. Obviously they can’t run the video, but they can run the story.”

“Of course they are,” I sigh, putting my head in my hands. “I wonder who leaked it? I mean, being on the school network is bad enough, but to go wide…”

“I’ve been speaking with a friend in the police to get this shut down. She believes she already has the source of who leaked it wide, and they’re working on finding out how it was posted to the school network too. Someone will be punished for this. I’ve also arranged for personal security too, just until we get this under control.”

“I don’t want that. I’ll hide out in here if I need to, but I don’t want someone following my every move ever again.” He nods, taking my wishes into consideration, even though I can tell from his frown that he disagrees with me.

Indi sits, practically shaking with rage, on the stool next to me. “This is such horseshit. Can they even play or print it? You’re still a minor!”

“The tabloids don’t care about that. They won’t play it… but the ‘nation’s princess’ in a sex tape scandal, even if it’s fake one, is hot news,” I explain, and she curses enough to make a sailor blush.

“My sentiments exactly, Miss Indi.”

My phone starts blowing up and I groan, covering my face with my hands. “What a fucking mess.” I look back up at Smithy, seeing the concern in his eyes and let out a sigh. “You know that isn’t me right?”

“Of course, Miss Octavia. I would never believe such things.” My heart warms at his words. His unwavering faith in me is fucking everything. Though my guilt over him dealing with this when he should be resting makes me feel sick.

I nod and look over at Indi, loving that she never thought it was me either. “I’m going to fucking murder someone. How fucking dare they!” My sunshine girl is gone, but I’m so grateful to have somebody this fucking angry on my behalf.

I shrug, hating how resigned I am to the fact that this is my life now. “This is going to be absolute fucking chaos.”