Completely Consumed (Addicted To You, Book Eight) Read online

  But I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I reached out and grabbed at the stack of quizzes the girl was holding out to me.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She just rolled her eyes and shook her head as if she couldn’t believe the idiots she was subjected to on a daily basis.

  I put one down on my desk, then passed the last one to the boy sitting behind me.

  If he was disturbed or annoyed by the fact that it was taking so long for him to get his quiz, he didn’t act it. He just put the paper down on his desk and got to work.

  I looked down at the paper in front of me. Twenty questions. Fifteen short answer, and five multiple choice. Easy. In high school, I would have owned a test like this without even studying. In high school, you could pretty much sleep your way through class and still figure out how to do well, as long as you weren’t a complete and total idiot.

  But as soon as I tried to answer the first question, I knew I was in trouble. Yes, I’d kept up with the reading, but I’d thought this was going to be a Mickey Mouse class.

  So it’s not like I’d bothered reading things more than once. If I’d known we were having a quiz, I would have certainly brushed up on the reading so that it would be fresh in my mind.

  I was only certain of about three of the first five questions, and the next five were dicey. The last five – forget it. They were from the chapter I hadn’t even read, and so I was completely in the dark. I didn’t even know what to write. I had to leave them blank.

  Thankfully, the five multiple-choice questions were a little easier. Having suggestions of what the answers could be jogged my memory, and I was pretty sure I got most of them right. But still. By the end of it I was fairly sure I’d gotten at least half of the questions wrong. Missing ten out of twenty questions was an F.

  A failing grade.

  I had never failed a quiz, or a test, or a paper, or anything before in my life. God, on the first day of kindergarten I had gotten a gold star on my paper for having the best printing.

  I felt like I wanted to cry.

  It’s just a dumb test, I told myself. It’s just one quiz that you’ll be able to make up. Maybe you can talk to Dr. Tropiano, maybe she’ll let you do some extra credit.

  I knew it was all true, but none of it was making me feel better.

  Besides, the grade wasn’t the point. It wasn’t the point at all. The point was that I was becoming someone I didn’t recognize. I was the girl who hadn’t done the reading, who showed up at class unprepared and was left scrambling and worried about how she was going to do.

  What had I been thinking? I’d spent my whole weekend consumed in a boy.

  Chasing a boy. A boy who had law enforcement at his apartment this morning, a boy who beat people up for a living and was constantly bruised and broken.

  A boy who wouldn’t let me in, no matter how hard I tried.

  When I was done with my quiz, I turned it in with the rest of the class, and then decided to leave. There was still going to be a lecture, but I didn’t care. What was the point? Maybe I would just flunk out of school. I could move back home to Ohio, or maybe I’d go overseas and get a job teaching children English or something. I read a book once about a girl who did that and she found it completely rewarding.

  When I got outside, the campus was quiet. Everyone was in class, and the next block of classes hadn’t started yet, so people weren’t wandering around the way they usually were. I debated between either heading back to my room and curling up under my comforter with a sappy Netflix movie or walking into the city and buying myself an ice cream sundae. It was a little early for ice cream, so I was halfway back to my room when my phone buzzed with a text.

  Justin?

  But it wasn’t.

  It was Carter.

  Hey– can u come to the science office? Need to talk to u – I’ll b here most of the day.

  Seeing Carter’s name on my phone filled me with comfort. Things might be weird with me and Justin and things might even be a little weird with me and school, but at least I still had my research assistant position. At least I was still doing something right.

  Suddenly, the idea of being in the science office was extremely appealing. I didn’t care if Carter put me to work doing all kinds of boring paperwork. The thought of being back in my room, which just a second ago seemed inviting, now seemed like a complete waste of time.

  I was Lindsay Cramer. I was valedictorian of my high school class. I wasn’t just going to roll over the first time I didn’t do well on a quiz. Look what happened when I messed up writing the paper for Dr. Klaxton. I was still able to get one of the research assistant jobs. Because I didn’t give up.

  It wasn’t because you didn’t give up. It was because Carter saved you. And the reason you almost messed that one up in the first place was because of Justin.

  I took in a deep breath and shook that thought out of my head. The past didn’t matter. All that mattered was the present. And right now it was time to find my solace where I’d always found it in the past. In work. In science. It was time to get back to basics.

  JUSTIN

  “You should have a seat,” the shorter agent said, after Lindsay had gone.

  “I’d rather stand,” I said. “What was your name again?”

  The two FBI agents glanced at each other, as if to say, this one’s going to be trouble.

  “My name is Agent Cairns and this is my partner, Agent Driscoll,” he said, gesturing to the taller man.

  “How do I know you’re really agents and not just impersonators or something?”

  Now Agent Cairns really was starting to look annoyed. His mouth puckered, but still he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet again. Then he quickly slid a business card out and handed it over to me.

  The card had an official looking seal of the Department of Justice on the top corner, and then in the middle, his name: Nick Cairns, and beneath that, his title: Special Agent. In the lower right corner was his contact info.

  “Call the number,” he said.

  I ran my thumb over the seal and shook my head. “I believe you.” I hated to say it, but it was true. The card was obviously real. It even had that polish to it that the really nice fancy business cards had.

  “Well if you get to wondering again, just call. It will bring you the DOJ’s main service number and then you can dial my extension, or even ask for me by name if it makes you feel better.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be calling it anytime soon.” Part of me had wanted to bust his balls, but another part of me had honestly been hoping that maybe this was all a big lie—

  an elaborate prank or maybe even a scam. Anything other than what it was—the truth.

  Agent Driscoll was watching me intently. He was not only tall, but thin.

  Immediately I thought to myself that he could be knocked out with one punch. Guys like him, with long, skinny necks could almost always be punched out with one solid hit to the jaw. Their necks didn’t have enough muscle to keep the head steady.

  “It’s obviously shocking to have federal agents show up at your door,” Driscoll said. “We understand that.”

  I folded my arms. “You said this has to do with the gym that I attend?”

  “It does,” Driscoll said, then looked to his partner.

  Nick Cairns smiled a little. He was short and stocky, and when he smiled he looked angrier than he did when he wasn’t smiling. “How much do you know about Quarry Davenport, the owner and manager?”

  I shrugged. “Not all that much. To be honest, I don’t really like him.”

  “Oh, yeah? How come?”

  I shut my mouth, realizing I’d already said too much. This is what they wanted.

  They wanted me to sit down and have a friendly chat and start relaxing, letting my guard down. Then they’d slowly pull information out of me, and before long I’d have given them enough to get me and the entire gym into trouble.

  But I wasn’t going to let myself fall for tha
t trick. “You don’t have to like a guy to be coached by him. In fact, sometimes it’s better if you don’t,” was all that I said.

  Nick’s grin widened. “You think we came down to your apartment to try and squeeze information out of you, Justin?”

  It was as if he’d read my mind. These weren’t just dumb, local cops trying to get me to dime out on my friend over some pot charge. These were FBI agents, which meant that whatever else this was, it wasn’t smalltime. And they weren’t here messing around.

  “I don’t know why you’re here. Maybe you could do me a favor and just tell me.”

  Agent Driscoll was looking at a few of the wrestling trophies that were in a display case in the corner of the room. “You wrestled in states?”

  I nodded, glancing at him. “Yeah.”

  “You must have been damn good.”

  “I was okay.”

  He straightened up. “You weren’t using PED’s back then, too, were you?”

  I didn’t even flinch. I looked that skinny fucker straight in the eye. “I’ve never used performance enhancing drugs.”

  He put up his hands. “It was just a question—relax.”

  Nick Cairns was watching me closely as I reacted to his partner. It was something like being in a fight against two guys at once. The second you tried to handle one punch from one guy, the next was cracking you upside the head.

  “Listen,” Nick said softly. “You know that Quarry is dirty, right?”

  I met his eyes and said nothing. I just swallowed. For some reason, I couldn’t lie to him. I wanted to. But something in me just wouldn’t let me do it.

  He nodded, as if to himself. “I figured,” he said. “Well, we know he’s dirty too, Justin. And he’s into a lot of bad stuff—worse than you might even guess.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “Everything,” Driscoll said from over Nick’s shoulder. He came striding up next to him now. The two of them were facing me like a couple of threatening parents scolding a little kid.

  “I don’t see how it’s any of my business,” I said. “I train at his gym but we’re not friends and he doesn’t tell me anything about what he does.”

  “If only it was that simple,” Driscoll said.

  “I think it is that simple,” I told him.

  He chuckled. “Maybe we know better than you how this stuff works, seeing as how it’s what we do for a living and all.”

  “Listen, if you’re just going to try and intimidate me, you probably should stop wasting your time.” I looked at them both, my eyes unwavering. “My job is fighting. I knock people out for a living. So I’m not going to piss in my pants because you come into my apartment and flash a couple of badges in my face.”

  “That’s cute,” Driscoll said, looking at his shorter partner. “We should write that one down, huh?”

  Nick Cairns was still watching me though. And he wasn’t smiling. “Yeah, we can write it down on the list of dumb shit that people say right before they get brought up on charges of racketeering, drug trafficking, and extortion.”

  A jolt of electricity went through my spine when he said that I could be charged with those kinds of crimes. It felt similar to when I was about to fight, and the adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream. Suddenly, it was as though I could see everything in crystal clear detail: the green flecks of brown in Nick’s pupils, the lines in his forehead—

  I could even make out every pore in his skin.

  He had slightly yellow teeth, probably from drinking a thousand and one cups of coffee over the years, sitting at his shitty desk while he figured out ways to hurt innocent people like me.

  I stared at him, feeling the first signs of pure rage in my body as I watched him looking back at me with his smug face.

  “You can’t charge me with something I didn’t do,” I told him. “I’ve never done a single dose of any kind of illegal performance enhancing drug.”

  “Justin,” he said, “you must know that everyone—I mean everyone—says that to us. Lance Armstrong denied it for a decade before he finally admitted it.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m telling the truth. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  But then I thought about how Quarry had watched me shoot up yesterday. Sure, I hadn’t actually done the steroids—I’d switched it out to water. But Quarry didn’t know that, so he could possibly testify at some point against me.

  The realization seeped into my bones.

  “You okay, Brown?” Driscoll asked.

  Nick Cairns was still staring at me, like a hawk watching a worm that it was about to snag. “You look really pale. Was it something I said?”

  Suddenly, for no reason I could understand, I pictured Lindsay’s face. Just thinking about her calmed me down. For a brief moment, I wished that I’d let her stay here for this. It would have been nice to have someone to talk to afterwards. “I’m fine,”

  I said, quickly regaining control of things.

  “Let me grab you a glass of water,” Driscoll said.

  “I’m fine,” I told him, more serious this time.

  He went to move past me toward the kitchen and I blocked his path.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked.

  “I said we could talk. I didn’t give you permission to walk around my house.”

  His forehead crinkled up as if he was surprised that I was behaving this way, but he dropped back a few steps. “Suit yourself, Brown. You seem pretty eager to be pissed off at the world.”

  I turned back to Nick once more. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  We looked at one another for what felt like a long while. Maybe he sensed I was telling the truth. But then he just shrugged ever so slightly. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it doesn’t matter if you did anything wrong or not, Brown. You’re a part of the Slaughterhouse gym, and when we take it down, everyone’s going down with it.

  Everyone.”

  “So if I’m toast no matter what, then why even bother showing up to talk to me?”

  I said.

  Nick turned to the taller man and gave him a slight nod, as if it was his turn to step in. Agent Driscoll came forward once more.

  “Listen to me,” he said, his voice softer than before. “We’re here because we know you’re relatively new to the group and you haven’t been compromised like some of the other guys.”

  “Compromised?”

  “You’re not as dirty as some of the others.”

  I thought of the guys that I trained with—Jimbo’s face came to mind instantly.

  Could he be dirty, could he be involved in some crazy drug ring? What else was Quarry even up to? I had no idea and didn’t want to find out. What I already knew was bad enough.

  “If I’m clean, than shouldn’t you be trying to help me?” I said.

  “We didn’t say you’re clean,” Nick chimed in. “Just that you’re not as dirty as the others.”

  Driscoll scratched his cheek, watching me. “We do want to help you, Justin.”

  I looked back at him, doubtful. “Doesn’t seem that way to me.”

  “I know it doesn’t seem that way. But the truth is, we’re here to give you a chance that nobody else is likely to get.”

  I waited for a long moment. “What kind of chance?”

  “A chance to keep your reputation,” Nick said.

  “A chance to be one of the good guys,” Driscoll added.

  “Good guys?” I smirked.

  “That’s right,” Driscoll replied. “We want you to work with us, tell us what Quarry’s doing, how he operates, help us collect more evidence. In exchange, you get guaranteed immunity.”

  “You want me to rat out my friends and my coach and help you build a case against them? Do you know what that would do to my reputation in the world of MMA?” I laughed. “You can’t seriously think I’d be dumb enough to do that.”

  “I think you’d be dumb not
to seriously consider it,” Driscoll told me.

  I watched his eyes, because I was used to figuring out a lot from looking a guy right in his eyes. As a fighter, I’d realized that the pre-fight stare down could tell you almost everything you needed to know about the opponent. It wasn’t so much that a weak opponent would look away—in fact, sometimes the weaker guys tried all the harder to stare you down.

  It was an energy thing. You could just sense what kind of determination was there, how much fear, how much pure rage. Sometimes, I simply knew the dude was going to quit after I hurt him once or twice.

  So I knew a few things about staring someone down.

  And when I stared down Driscoll, I saw that he was telling me the truth—at least, the truth as he knew it. He wasn’t just trying to scare me into cooperating.

  But that didn’t really change anything—did it?

  “I can’t do that,” I said, but now I looked away, suddenly not sure of myself anymore. Could I do it? Would it be wrong to tell the truth about Quarry, if it saved me from getting in trouble for something I hadn’t done?

  “Listen” Driscoll said softly. “You’ve got Nick’s card. Now you’ve got mine, too.”

  Another business card appeared in front of my downcast eyes. I took it, no longer scrutinizing it the way I had the first card. I nodded, but didn’t look at him. “Thanks.”

  “Give some thought to what we told you here today, Justin,” Driscoll continued.

  “You might not like it, but we played it straight with you. Either way, Quarry is going down and he’s going to take everyone and everything with him when he goes.”

  I watched as the two FBI agents exchanged glances, as if they were both thinking that I was a lost cause.

  “Don’t be stupid, Brown,” Nick Cairns said, and then they left.

  The door slammed and I just stood there, not able to move for a long time.

  ***

  It must have been an hour later when someone knocked on my door again.

  I had hardly moved a muscle, ignoring my phone and sitting on the couch in a kind of daze. I was stunned. It felt like my life as I knew it was over.