One day. The party was starting in exactly one day.
But after thinking on it for a long-ass time—and I do mean a long time—I figured out a major problem: this party was invite-only. I couldn’t just walk my ass in there like I owned the place. I had to get Nathan to invite me personally. I’d never talked to him face-to-face my entire time in college. Hell, this was going to be my first time ever speaking to the guy. But I knew exactly how to get a dude like that to do what I wanted while making him think it was his own free choice.
You challenge his ego. It’s elementary, really. If you’re dealing with a guy who has a massive ego and you want him to do something, you either stroke it or you bruise it. If you stroke it, they’ll play along because you make them think they’re superior. If you bruise it, they’ll do whatever it takes to prove you wrong just to reclaim their lost pride.
So during lunchtime, I pulled up. I walked clean over to his table while he was sitting there talking with his boys. I just stood there, staring right at him, without saying a single word.
Look how comfortable this nigga is...
the voice in my head whispered.
After everything he did, he’s just relaxing. He doesn’t even notice we’re standing right behind him. Do you know how easy it would be to just smoke him and walk off like it was nothing?
That’s called a false sense of security. People tend to forget this all the time, but you’re never truly safe the moment you step out of your house. Hell, you’re not even safe inside your own house if some real shit pops off. But people get comfortable. And getting comfortable is your biggest weakness. When you stop looking over your shoulder because you feel safe, you never expect anything to happen.
Honestly, that’s how school shooters operate. They lie in wait for the perfect moment to strike, acting completely normal, not doing anything out of character.
And then, at the very last second—
BOOM!
You’re either dead, or you’re lying on the floor wondering why there’s a brand-new hole in your body.
Then, one of his buddies noticed me.
“Who the hell are you?”
The rest of them turned around, their eyes locking onto me soon after.
“I need to talk to Nathan alone,” I said, keeping my face completely deadpan. “Do you three mind?”
Nathan scoffed, leaning back in his seat. “Bro, I don’t even know you. Why should I talk to you alone? If you got something to say, say it in front of everybody.”
Big fuck-up,
the voice in my head laughed.
“Okay, Nathan Rosario,” I said, raising my voice just enough for the surrounding tables to hear. “You must want me to talk to your boys about how I know you have two moles on both sides of your nut sack, huh?”
Nathan’s smug face completely shattered. His friends immediately looked at him sideways.
“Bro, what the fuck are you talking about?!” Nathan stammered, his face flushing red. “I don’t have no two moles on my nuts!”
“Yeah, you do,” I said, stepping closer. “In fact, you also have a very cute beauty mark near the tip, too. You know, the one that stretches right down to the middle of your—”
Nathan shot up from his seat, and his boys stood up right behind him. We were around the same height, but I had about three inches on him. He stepped right into my space, breathing heavy.
“Who the fuck are you...?”
“Careful now,” I murmured, looking down at him. “You don’t want your buddies to think you’re sweet already, right? I mean, you being this close to my face might give them the wrong idea about us. And I personally don’t want to be known as your lover.”
One of his boys stepped up. “Aye, yo. Let’s jump this fool, son.”
“That will be the last mistake of your life if you do that,” I said, my voice dropping into a flat, freezing tone.
Nathan looked down and noticed that my right hand was still buried inside my hoodie pocket, pointing a solid, heavy bulge right at his chest.
“You wouldn’t be that dumb, would you?” Nathan sneered, though his eyes darted back to my pocket. “To attack somebody who got the blinky?”
“Don’t pump-fake me—” Nathan started.
CH-CHKT.
Under the fabric of the hoodie, the heavy metal slide locked back.
“You were saying?” I asked.
Yeah. Don’t play me like I’m pussy. I’ll up this bitch right now and blow everybody down in broad daylight.
“But I’m not here to kill you,” I said, looking back at his boys to make sure they weren’t moving. “I just want to talk to you about something in private. And alone.”
“And what makes you think I’ll believe you?” Nathan spat, his chest heaving.
“Because if I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already and nobody would’ve seen me coming. And you don’t trust me? Your boys were literally just about to jump the hell out of me. It’d be stupid of me if I didn’t keep a strap on.”
Honestly, I’d asked Michael to let me borrow his piece before I came to campus. I didn’t plan on killing Nathan here, but I wasn’t going to let some trained MMA dude and his boys beat the fuck out of me in public, either. It would be an easy case to beat. They tried to jump me, and I was in fear for my life. Since they all had martial arts backgrounds, a fistfight was out of the question. Gunning them down would be textbook self-defense in court.
“...Or would you rather I tell your boys how I knew all of this? That would be even more juicy.”
Nathan gritted his teeth, looking over toward a quiet alleyway near the edge of the quad.
“Whatever...” he muttered, gesturing for his boys to sit back down. “Let’s walk over here. But you only have five minutes.”
“That’s all the time I need,” I said, keeping my hand firm on the grip inside my pocket.
Now I was alone with Nathan in the quiet alley. Your mind tends to race with all the possibilities when you have someone at your mercy. Personally, I could easily have just blown his brains out. One bullet, closed casket.
But I couldn’t rush into that so soon.
“So,” Nathan said, trying to sound tough, “what is it that you want to talk about?”
“Oh, that’s simple,” I said, keeping my hand steady on the grip inside my pocket. “I just want you to invite me to your party.”
“You’re threatening me with a whole-ass gun just to get an invite to my party tomorrow?” Nathan scoffed. “What kind of sense does that make?”
“Oh, it makes perfect sense. Either you invite me to your house party, or you die right here. And if you try to pull some slick shit at the party, I’ll pull up with bigger shit. The math is really not that hard.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “So either I let you walk into my house after threatening my life, or you’re gonna shoot my house up? That’s what you’re saying?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. But like I said before, I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to fight you. And the proper place and time is going to be at the party tomorrow, where you have those backyard fights.”
Nathan let out a loud, mocking laugh right in my face.
“Don’t you know who I am? Because obviously your research is kind of flawed if you honestly think you could beat me in a fight.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, completely unfazed. “All that matters is that I pulled a gun on you today. That’s going to motivate your little ego to beat the shit out of me in front of most of the school tomorrow. And I know you’re going to enjoy it.”
“You must know me pretty well. But you do know you’re not going to be able to bring the strap with you.”
“I’ll hold up my end of the bargain. You just need to hold up yours.”
“Say less,” Nathan muttered. “Pull through.”
I nodded my head and turned to walk away.
“But before you go,” Nathan called out. I stopped and turned my head, keeping my back facing him. “Who told you all of this?”
Don’t tell him shit,
the voice in my head growled.
He doesn’t deserve to know. Hell, I suggest you just expose him in front of everybody.
I could have done that... but I needed to test something first.
“It was Juliet,” I said quietly. “You know, your 'ex-girlfriend'?”
Nathan paused, and then he burst into a loud, ugly laugh. “Wait... wait, wait... HAHAHA! Bro, you’re mad over a bitch who let a guy fuck her within hours of meeting her? She falls in love, and you’re taking the side of that—”
He didn’t even get to finish the sentence. My body just moved on its own.
I slammed him against the brick wall, my left hand gripping his neck so tight his face turned purple. With my right hand, I whipped out my pocket knife, flicked the blade open, and pressed the edge hard against his windpipe. I pressed just hard enough to draw a thin line of blood.
Kill this nigga!*
the voice went absolutely wild.*
He doesn’t even regret it! Fuck all this fighting shit, put this nigga in a pack right the fuck now!!
“
Keep talking greasy and I’m not gonna fight you at all. I’ll just kill you,” I hissed, my face inches from his. “Matter of fact, pull out your phone.”
“Why?” he choked out.
I didn’t answer. I just dragged the tip of the blade across his shoulder, slicing through his shirt. It wasn’t too deep, but it was enough to draw blood.
“Do I LOOK like Batman to you?!” I roared. “Keep giving me lip and I’ll show you how Red Hood I can be. Now open your motherfucking phone!”
Nathan didn’t say another word. He unlocked his screen with trembling fingers. I snatched the phone from his hand, scrolling through the files with my left thumb. I wasn’t used to using an iPhone, so it took me a second to find where he hid things. But when I did, the pictures stared back at me.
Oh boy. If it was physically possible for blood to evaporate off my skin like I was in the Eight Inner Gates... it would have been evaporating so hard.
“Mmhmm. 'Whore,' my ass,” I whispered, my vision going red. “Fucking rapists like you always keep trophies. It’s always part of your MO.” I locked the screen and shoved the phone in my pocket. “Don’t you know what you did to her?! Do you have any idea what kind of psychological and physical pain you put her through?!”
“I—”
I slammed his head back into the brick wall.
“Shut the fuck up!! I’m talking and you’re going to fucking listen!”
He went dead quiet as I tried to catch my breath.
“I’m not here to make you say sorry,” I said, my voice shaking as hot tears of rage started running down my face. “Hell, if you say sorry to me, I might just kill you on the spot because you never wronged me. You wronged her! Don’t you understand that? Don’t you understand that you broke her?”
He stared at me, his eyes wide with genuine terror.
“I wasn’t even this mad before,” I whispered. “I was pissed, yeah. You took advantage of an autistic girl and treated her like shit. I can live with you being a dick. But when she said she wanted to break up with you... you had to let her know she was yours, huh? You had to prove that if you wanted something, you were just gonna take it. And you did. You felt like it was your right to rape Juliet.”
I let go of his neck and stepped back, wiping my face.
“But I’m not going to settle this here,” I said, turning my back on him. “Once I go to the party tomorrow, we can fight it out all you want.”
It took every ounce of willpower I possessed just to walk away. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I wanted to kill him so badly right then, but I managed to control myself, even if it was just barely.
I was honestly surprised he didn’t call the cops after I left. Maybe I bruised his ego enough to make him want to wait until tomorrow to get his revenge in the ring. Or maybe I just scared the absolute piss out of him. Either way, it didn’t matter. I got what I wanted.
Just like he got what he wanted.