“And if we say no you’ll release the pictures all over the internet,” I said, a crushing feeling of defeat crashing over me like a ton of bricks.
“Still as smart as ever,” Michael sneered, his tone mocking as he slipped his phone back into his pants pocket.
I turned toward Richard, hoping that he might have an answer to what was happening, some kind of clever trick he might be able to pull out on Michael that would save us both from both embarrassment and possible disownment from our parents. Richard’s life would be ruined and his college football career over before it even had a chance to really start.
“What do we do?” I asked, my voice low, though I knew Michael could hear every word. I could practically feel him gloating over both of our misfortune. He had us right under his thumb—exactly where he wanted us with no foreseeable way out that didn’t ruin our lives.
“I don’t know, Jess,” he said, his eyes staring into the back of a high backed leather chair that Michael had taken to leaning on heavily. “I really don’t know.”
“Well, for starters, the two of you could get out,” Michael said, his voice filled with mocking cheer. “This is a house for the brothers of AEΩ, which neither one of you belong to. We pride ourselves on keeping out the garbage… though I could make an exception, if sweet little Jessica were willing to spread her legs a bit.”
Richard moved forward like a tiger about to jump in for the kill, his face a deep, dark red, his expression filled with rage. I barely had enough time to reach out and pull his arm back, stopping his just shy of slugging Michael right in the jaw.
“Don’t!” I shouted, looking right into Michael’s smirking face. “That’s what he wants.”
Richard’s body was so tense, each of his muscles ready to spring at a moment’s notice.
“He wants an excuse to leak those pictures,” I whispered, putting myself between the two of them. “We can’t give him a reason.”
“You are just so smart, Jessica,” Michael said, false admiration filling his voice. “You really should take her advice, Richard. After all, who knows how long something like fucking your own sister is going to follow you through life?”
“Let’s go,” I whispered, pushing against my stepbrother’s nearly frozen body. Slowly I felt him giving against my efforts until finally he moved back a step and turned. Richard didn’t say a single word, his jaw clenched shut the entire way out of the AEΩ house and out onto the street.
The silence was almost unnerving as I fell into step behind Richard, unsure exactly where either of us were going at first.
“You’re kinda scaring me, Richard,” I said, swallowing hard around the still present lump in my throat. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“My dorm,” he grunted, though he never turned his gaze back toward me as he walked.
“Why there?” I asked, my brow furrowing as I hurried to keep pace with him.
“We need to regroup and come up with some kind of plan.”
Chapter 16
Dick
“What now?” I groaned. “If we don’t get those pictures then we’re going to have that bastard looming over our heads for the rest of our time here. Those pictures are going to ruin us… especially if mom and dad find out.”
“I know,” she sighed, her head in head hands. “We are completely fucked.”
The two of us had gone back to my dorm after the confrontation with Michael at the fraternity to figure out what our next move would be. As it stood, Michael had the upper hand on us. The pictures themselves didn’t technically exist outside of his phone, though with the way things worked now, that meant that the pictures were also floating around in the Cloud, able to be retrieved regardless of whether that bastard’s phone was smashed. The only way to save ourselves was to find a way to delete those pictures from existence and hope Michael hadn’t been smart enough to make backups.
“There’s no way we can get those pictures,” I said, running a hand through my hair in frustration. “Not unless we suddenly learn how to hack into Michael’s phone. And I’m not sure if you noticed, but none of us are that good with computers.”
“I know that, Richard,” Jessica said, frowning at how upset I was getting. If these pictures got out, it would be the end of my football career, and I hardly believed that my dad would fund his son’s college if he knew what his step-daughter and I had been up to while we were away from home. “I probably know that just as well as you do.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, resting my face against my hands. “I’m just worried, that’s all. I don’t like being threatened, and I especially don’t like you being threatened, either. I just wish I had a solution, something that I could actually do to make all of this go away. But like I said, neither of us are that good with computers.”
I looked up from my hands just in time to see Jessica sit up suddenly, her eyebrows raised. It was like a light bulb had gone off over her head.
“What about Greg?”
“Greg?” I asked, frowning. “This is all Greg’s fault! Why would he help us?”
“I think we’re going to make him help us,” Jessica said, a smile creeping onto her lips. “Greg is a Computer Science major, and from what Becky kept saying about him, he’s like a Steve Wozniak-level genius. If we can convince him to help us, then we’ll be one step closer to being in the clear.”
“But the question is whether he will or not,” I pointed out again. “After what he’s already done? To us and to Becky? He’ll be lucky if I don’t beat the shit out of him when I see him.”
“You’ll just have to curb your violent nature,” Jess said as she pulled out her phone. “Becky ought to know what class he’s in right now. Once we know that, we can head straight over and persuade him.”
According to Becky, Greg would be held up in class for at least another hour, which gave us the time we needed to get ready and head all the way across campus and stake out the entrance to the building. It was late in the afternoon, the sun slowly sinking down toward the horizon when the time came for students to start streaming out from the doors the head off to who-knows-where.
I glanced down at Jessica’s phone to get another look at Greg’s picture. He was a mousy guy from what I could tell, with the typical nerdy look that I’d seen so many times back in high school. It was surprising a guy like that even had the balls to do what he did to Jessica and I. But that still left the matter of what had happened to Becky unattended.
“He should have been out here by now,” I said, arms crossed as the two of us sat on a bench near the computer science building’s double doors. “What if he didn’t go to class today?”
“We’ll stay for a little while longer, Richard,” she said exasperatedly, “then we can go look for him at his dorm. Becky was sure that he’d be here today.”
My impatience was beginning to wear on her, and I certainly didn’t blame her. I hated to wait on anything. I was the kind of person who needed to be moving and doing something to feel like I was making a difference, and sitting on a park bench sure as hell didn’t feel like I was getting anything done.
“I can go in and look for him,” I said, clenching and unclenching my fists anxiously. “Bring him outside and then we can talk to him more privately.”
“No,” Jessica said, waving the idea away, “we don’t want to start a scene in there. Let’s do this a little more subtly. If campus security sees you hassling some guy then you can kiss playing in the game goodbye.”
“Fine,” I muttered, turning my gaze back toward the entrance to the computer science building. “What if he runs?”