Filed to story: Watch Me Win Alpha (Olivia & Ethan)
*Olivia* o off
The moment I entered the house, a strange smell of rotting meat hit me like a slap in the face. It took all of my restraint not to gag out loud or put a hand over my mouth. One time, I walked past a factory where they packed meat. Their garbage cans had the worst smell, w of them. Morbid curiosity made me look into the garbage on it was full of expired meat that they couldn’t sell. The horrible Kelly’s apartment reminded me of the meat factory garbage cans.
“What is that-” and
I cut off Aiden by hitting him on the arm and shaking my head. I knew that he was about to ask what the awful smell was. Thankfully, Robert had enough sense to keep quiet. Kelly’s apartment looked like it belonged to an eighty-year-old woman, not a girl in her twenties. The small apartment had orange shag carpet, cat themed knickknacks, and an old-looking floral couch that Kelly gestured the four of us should sit on.
She sat in a shabby-looking rocking chair in the corner of the room. “Sorry for all the…old furniture,” Kelly said, her cheeks turning red. “My grandma…left me this apartment. It used to be hers.”
My stomach dropped
I made eye contact with Ava, and she widened her eyes. I knew that the same thought was running through her head as mine. Did Kelly’s grandma pass away? Was her body still here? Was that why it smelled like rotting meat in her apartment?
“Kelly, what happened to your grandmother?” Ava asked hesitantly.
The young woman hesitated, and my stomach rolled from the stench as I waited for her to answer the question. The longer her silence went on, the more eerie her apartment seemed.
“Oh, she’s not dead or anything,” Kelly assured us after seeing our uneasy looks. “Gran just went to live with my uncle because she needs twenty-four-hour care. My uncle is a home health nurse and wanted to take care of his mom.”
My shoulders slumped, and Aiden, Ava, Robert, and I breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Usually, Ava would take over the conversation and questioning, but when I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, she seemed like she was at a loss for words. The smell seemed to be getting to her.
Thinking on my feet, I said the first thing that popped into my head. “You know, Kelly. That’s really unfair what Chloe did to you.” I gestured to her face. She frowned and nodded. “I’m really good at raising money. Maybe I can help you put together an online ad campaign to help raise money for surgery to help smooth out your scars…if that’s something you wanted to do.”
She immediately brightened at my offer. A smile spread across her face, making her jagged scars less pronounced.
“You know, you don’t need the surgery to feel beautiful,” I added. “You’re already beautiful even with your scars.” I paused. “Well, you’re gorgeous because of your scars because it shows people that you are a survivor.”
Tears formed in Kelly’s eyes, but this time, they were tears of joy. She beamed at me. “Thank you for saying that.”
“So, you knew Chloe in high school?” I asked gently, trying to steer the conversation in the right direction.
“We weren’t friends or anything,” she answered and crossed her arms. After I had brought up Chloe, Kelly’s body language was completely closed off.
“Were you friends with Russell?” Ava asked.
I shot her a look. I knew that it was too early to bring Rusell into the conversation, and sure enough, Kelly’s face grew red, and she narrowed her eyes at Ava.
“I told you I didn’t want to talk about Russell!” Kelly snapped.
The room was silent for a moment. Honestly, I was unsure of how to proceed.
“Please, we really just want to find out the truth about what happened to him,” Ava said soothingly. “We are here to find out a way to punish Chloe for her past crimes. We think that she is a danger to herself and others. You could really help us make her get the mental help that she needs.”
Kelly bit her lip, but it seemed like she was really considering telling us what we wanted to know.
“Fine, I’ll tell you,” Kelly finally said.
Yes! I wanted to jump for joy.
“But on one condition,” she continued.
“Anything,” Ava promised. “I just want to know what happened to my cousin. People don’t just disappear without a trace.”
Kelly looked around and leaned forward, taking care to lower her voice. “Whatever I say stays in this room, understood?”
The four of us nodded.
Kelly blew out a long, shaky breath and rubbed her hands on her jeans After a while, she was ready to tell us her story. “In my junior year of high school, the day that our final exams ended, I ran into Chloe behind the mall. She had heard that Russell and I were dating and wanted him for herself.” Kelly’s jaw clenched. “She wasn’t even actually interested in him. Chloe just wanted Russell because I had him.”
Wow, that sounded familiar.
“Chloe had two guys from the football team with her. They were dumb as rocks and always did her bidding,” Kelly continued. “They forced me to come to Chloe’s house with them. There, Chloe wanted me to call Russell, and when I refused, the two guys…they took off my clothes.” Kelly’s voice was full of shame, and she dropped her gaze.
Ava gasped, and Richard’s hands clenched.
“That’s awful,” I muttered.
Kelly nodded. “After I was naked, I knew that Chloe wouldn’t stop, so I called Russell. Kelly snatched the phone from my hands and demanded that Russell go on a date with her. Chloe told him that she would let me go if he agreed. Rusell thought that this was all just a big practical joke. So he said he would never in a million years go out with Chloe and then hung up.”
Kelly paused, and a dark look crossed her face.
“Can I get you a glass of water?” Aiden asked.
Kelly shook her head. “No…I just need to get through this. After Russell’s rejection, Kelly was humiliated. She took her anger out on me. She took a pocketknife out and slowly cut up my face. She tortured me for hours. Then, she let the guys bring me to the other room and…and hurt me.
“1
My stomach clenched, and my head spun. Kelly’s story of Chloe’s cruelty made me even more nauseous than the smell of her apartment did.
“I lost consciousness, and the next thing I knew, I was laying in a gutter twenty miles away from Chloe’s house,” Kelly said in a quiet voice. “A jogger found me and brought me to the hospital. When I was admitted, I found out that Russell went missing the same night of my attack.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth in surprise. Chloe was more dangerous than I’d ever imagined.
“Afterward, I was too afraid to report Chloe to the police because I knew of her family’s connections,” Kelly continued. “Chloe threatened my friends and family if I ever told anyone.” Kelly looked up at the ceiling, and I could see that there were more tears in her eyes. “Every single day, I regret not reporting Chloe to the police. Maybe if I did, I could have saved Russell. I could have at least gotten justice for his death.”
“I know that was really hard for you to tell us,” I said to Kelly. “Thank you for trusting us with that.” I turned to Ava. “Chloe must have murdered Russell for humiliating her.”
“Or she got someone to murder him,” Ava said.
“So, now you know my pathetic story,” Kelly said and clapped her hands, the sound echoing throughout the room.
“Kelly, you can seek justice for yourself and Russell,” I told her. “You don’t have to live with this burden anymore.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” she said, but I could see a look of hope in her eyes.
“Don’t worry about that,” Ava assured her. “We have a plan, and w promise to take the consequences if things go wrong.”
We had to spend ten more minutes convincing Kelly to help us, but finally, she agreed.
“So, how are we going to get revenge on that bitch?” she asked.
A surprised laugh burst past my lips. I was relieved to see that Kelly still had some fight left in her.
*Author*
While Kelly told her the tragic story from her past, Richard used his phone to secretly call Alexander. A stab of guilt hit him in the stomach for going against Kelly’s wishes about her story not to leave this room, but he had promised Alexander to share anything he learned today with him. At the end of the day, Alexander was his boss.
In his hotel room, Alexander listened to Kelly’s story. After she had finished, a sick realization came over him. From the research he had done, Alexander knew that Kelly wasn’t telling the whole truth. He wasn’t sure exactly how she was lying. He was just certain that she was being dishonest in some way.
When there was a lull in the conversation, Richard excused himself under the guise of going to the bathroom, but really, he just wanted to read the message that Alexander had sent him. Richard had to read the message twice to process it fully. His head spun with confusion could Kelly be lying? Her story and emotions had seemed so re Either she was an amazing actress, or Alexander must have the wrong information.
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