Hateful by Eden Beck

Chapter Twenty-Five

I emerge shaking and confused.The hallway is empty. Isolated. I tug my oversized hoodie over my head, transforming myself into my familiar, safe lump of fabric.

With nothing much else to do, I wander toward the infirmary with my hands shoved into my huge hoodie pocket. I might as well check on Heath … and the fact that it’s in the opposite direction of the entrance hall and any remaining crowd is an added bonus.

But soon my footsteps falter, and I slow to a stop in the middle of the hallway.

What am I thinking?

How am I supposed to talk to him now? Is he going to feel the same way about me now that I’m free to be a girl? Probably not.

More importantly, do I want him to?

I shuffle on the spot, trying to decide between going back to my room—if that’s even my room anymore—or heading to the infirmary when Jasper and Beck materialize at the end of the hallway. They’ve clearly just come back from the infirmary themselves.

I stand here, frozen as they spot me. For a second they both stare, unspeaking, unmoving.

The moment stretches on until, at long last, they set their faces and start heading purposefully down the hall towards me. I couldn’t move if I wanted to. I’m rooted to the spot. I don’t know what to say or do, so I do the only thing I can … and I wait to face them.

They don’t look angry, per se—or at least, Jasper doesn’t. Beck’s face is an unreadable mask.

Right up until he gets within grabbing distance.

They stop directly in front of me, Jasper avoiding looking into my eyes while Beck’s chest heaves and jaw works.

“How could you …” he starts, then has to stop and compose himself. He too looks away, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides for a moment before his head finally snaps back in my direction, eyes narrowed. “You made a fool out of us.”

I try to swallow, but my throat has gone dry. When I do manage to force out my next words, my voice comes out as a croak.

“I didn’t mean to. When Jasper found out—”

I’m not able to finish.

Becks eyes grow wide and he takes a stumbling step backwards. “You knew?” He asks, disbelieving, jabbing a finger at Jasper.

Jasper winces, but he says nothing.

Beck looks between the two of us, his mouth moving but not making a sound. He sputters and stammers for a moment before he begins pacing back and forth, running his fingers through his blonde hair.

I share a glance with Jasper, but he can still only barely bring himself to look at me.

I can see the look on his face. I know it well. He knows he’s broken Beck’s trust.

A trust that I’m guessing doesn’t come easy.

“What about Heath?” Beck asks, words finally coming back to him as he whirls to face me. “Did he know?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t think so.”

Saying it out loud makes the color rise to my cheeks again as I remember the way he grabbed my face earlier and kissed me. I still don’t know if he would have done that if he’d known who I am. What I really am.

Beck looks over to Jasper, who actually looks surprised. They both saw the kiss, I realize.

I guess I’m not the only one with questions now.

But that doesn’t seem to be Beck’s main concern at the moment.

“How is it that you know?” he spits at Jasper before turning toward me again. “How does he know and I—I don’t, and I—” He gestures mutely at his face. “Why’d you tell him?”

I know immediately what he means.

He means the kiss last semester, when he pushed me against the wall of the locker rooms and made out with me so fiercely it felt more like he wanted to devour me.

I cut my eyes at Jasper.

“I didn’t,” I say, staring directly into his eyes. “He found out on his own.”

Jasper’s mouth opens and then clamps shut, but he still says nothing. He just shoves his hands into his pockets and turns away bitterly.

“No,” Beck says, reaching out to grab a fistful of Jasper’s shirt right where it meets his collar. “I want the truth this time.”

Jasper sets his jaw. “I didn’t mean to,” he mumbles.

“Didn’t mean to?” Beck repeats incredulously, his fingers digging deeper into the fabric. “What the hell does that even mean?”

Jasper sighs and passes a hand over his face. “It’s not something I’m … proud of. Not something I wanted to talk about.”

“Well now’s the time to talk,” Beck spits.

“It was nothing,” Jasper says, trying and failing to shake himself free from Beck’s grasp, “just a misunderstanding.”

I’ve never seen red so quickly. Bile rises in the back of my throat as flashes of that night come flooding back in, unbidden.

“Just a … a misunderstanding?”

Jasper’s face looks stricken as I step forward. I keep my eyes on him as I address Beck.

“I’d say it was a bit more than that,” I snap, my eyes finally cutting over to Beck. “Jasper only found out because he tried to rape me.”

There it is.

I’ve finally said it.

That bile in my throat rears up again, threatening to choke me. For months now I’ve kept that in, kept it hidden—even from myself.

But saying it … saying it out loud has triggered something in me. And I’m not the only one, it seems.

Beck gapes at Jasper, and in turn Jasper glares daggers at me.

I stare down both of them. “Don’t be pissed at me,” I snap. “You’re the one who almost—”

“Stop,” Jasper growls.

“You almost …” Beck stands frozen, his hand still clenched like an unmovable marble fist in the fabric at Jasper’s neck. It looks almost like he’s started to choke him, but Jasper does nothing besides gulp uncomfortably in his friend’s grasp. It seems Beck isn’t able to bring himself to say it either. He searches his friend’s face, his lips turning up in a snarl.

My anger is no longer simply simmering, it boils over.

“That’s right,” I say, my voice some kind of feral growl. “Go ahead and ask him about it. But don’t you go and act all righteous now. Just because he tried that doesn’t make what you’ve been doing to me any better. You’ve been doing some shit to me, too.”

Beck’s mouth clamps shut. “I—I didn’t—” But he can’t finish the sentence, so I don’t know what it is he didn’t do. Instead, he turns to Jasper. “How? When?”

Jasper sighs heavily, regretfully. He gives me a pleading look, but I’m not willing to let him off the hook for this. Let his friends know what kind of monster he really is, what he’s really capable of.

It’s about time.

“It was at the dance before Christmas break.”

“The dance?” Beck chokes out. “So—months ago?”

Jasper nods, flicking his eyes up quickly to look at Beck’s face. “Alex had taken Olive to the dance, remember? Made me look like an idiot. I was … mad.”

“I remember that,” Beck says, nodding thoughtfully. “You were really mad.” He chuckles under his breath. “I thought you were going to kill him. Her,” he corrects himself, shooting me a wide-eyed look as everything begins to fall into place.

“He actually almost did,” I clarify. “He cornered me in a classroom and started beating the shit out of me.”

Jasper winces and turns away as Beck’s eyes shoot back over to me.

“What?”

“Yeah, but apparently death wasn’t bad enough for me. The only reason he stopped,” I continue, my eyes boring a hole in the back of Jasper’s head, “is because he didn’t find what he was looking for between my legs.”

My own chest is heaving as I look from one of them to the other. “So, do with that what you will.”

Beck’s expression is unreadable. He looks over at Jasper, then back to me. He shuffles awkwardly and tucks his hands into his pockets.

“You’ve gone too far this time Jasper,” he says, but his voice is barely above a whisper. Shame, either for himself or for Jasper, is plain on his face. Silence falls between us for a long moment that stretches on until Beck clears his throat, angling his body away from Jasper, blocking him out of the conversation. “And you’re really sure Heath doesn’t know?”

“I never told him,” is all I say. “But I don’t really think it matters.”

I shove my hands into my pockets and rock back and forth on the balls of my feet.

It doesn’t feel like I’m talking to Beck and Jasper anymore. I stand before them, a stranger, and that is … strange. For once, for the first time, I stand before them as myself.

Jasper might have known my secret, but now it’s different. And no matter how much my blood pulses in my ears, the rush of rage making my heart beat against the inside of my ribs doesn’t drown out the truth of the matter.

That truth being that my secret identity being revealed isn’t the most important thing on my mind anymore.

That is the only reason I don’t stalk off immediately.

“If the headmistress gets her way, Bleakwood won’t be here for much longer,” I say, after a moment.

“What?” Jasper and Beck ask in unison, Beck’s hand finally slipping from Jasper’s neck. Jasper’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as the redness slowly starts to drain from his face, but he doesn’t complain.

He knows at the very least that he deserves far more than Beck’s hand at his throat.

I nod at the both of them, letting out a long, defeated sigh. “She’s trying to bring down the school. That’s what she told me in the meeting.”

The two of them share a glance that Beck breaks first, his face turned up in disgust at his once close friend. “What can we do?”

I look down at my feet and shrug. “I honestly don’t know.”

We’ve only got a few weeks of school left. Heath is injured. Everyone knows I’m a girl. Beck knows Jasper’s attempt to assault me. And next year? There might not even be a next year.

And it’s all. My. Fault.

“All I know,” I say, “is that unless we want all of this to be for nothing … it’s going to be up to us to fix it.”

I look up into their faces and as I stand here, in front of the two of them, I know my earlier thought was wrong.

This is our fault. Us, together.

And if we’re going to fix it, we’re going to have to fix it together.

Fuck.

I am so finished with The Brotherhood.

But as it always seems to be, this hateful Brotherhood isn’t finished with me.