#Chapter 94: Cabin Fever — Part II
Nina
I woke up the next morning in a daze and not knowing where I was. As I cracked my eyes open against the light coming in through the window and started to get my bearings, I realized from the smell of the wood and the forest around me, in combination with the smell of campfire smoke and the sound of voices outside, that I was in one of the cabins in the forest.
But… How did I get here?
My head was pounding, making it difficult to remember exactly what had happened last night. I remembered coming to the party with Lori and Jessica… I remembered seeing Lisa and Justin talking to one another by the fire, and that they seemed suspicious… I remembered following Justin out into the woods…
Suddenly, my eyes widened and I shot up in bed as I remembered running into Ronan in the woods. Running into him, and then feeling an impact on the side of my head followed by darkness, was the only thing that I could remember. Had Enzo come and saved me? Did he bring me into one of the cabins to recover?
I looked around frantically for Enzo, but he wasn’t there.
In fact, there was no sign of Enzo anywhere.
But as I looked down at myself, I realized that I wasn’t wearing my clothes. I was dressed in nothing but my underwear. My jeans, my sweater, my socks, and my boots were strewn haphazardly across the cabin as though they had been ripped off frantically.
What had happened after I blacked out?
My head still reeling, I climbed out of the rickety wooden cabin bed and looked around for my phone, finally spotting it on the floor in the corner — thankfully, it was still intact. I opened it to see dozens of notifications from Lori, Jessica, and… Twitter.
I felt a lump form in my throat as I opened Twitter, pressing my hand over my mouth when I saw what had been posted about me.
There were dozens of pictures and
videos circulating of me, but not innocent pictures like the ones that had been taken in the past of Enzo and I months before. No, these were worse. Far worse, worse even than the pictures that Richard’s assistant took when she was stalking me.
And I didn’t remember any of them.
My eyes widened as I scrolled through the countless pictures of me walking back to the party hand-in-hand with Ronan, a wide smile plastered across my face as I leaned on his arm. Videos of me dancing with him by the fire, grinding myself on him erotically. Pictures of us pressing our lips together drunkenly, stumbling into this very cabin…
I let out an indescribable sound as my shaking hands dropped my phone onto the cabin floor, not caring if I actually broke the screen this time as I quickly ran over to my pile of clothes and started pulling my jeans on.
“No…” I whispered to myself. “No, no, no… I don’t remember any of that!”
Surely there was some sort of explanation behind this. Ronan must have done something to me, used some sort of werewolf spell on me. He, Lisa, and Justin must have set this up as a way to get under my skin — I was sure of it.
As if a lightbulb went off above my head, I picked my phone back up off the floor as I hopped around the cabin, pulling my socks on, and dialed Enzo. Surely he would have some sort of explanation for all of this. Surely he would believe me.
The phone rang… And rang. It went to voicemail. I tried again, and this time, it went straight to voicemail after just one ring.
Enzo was deliberately ignoring me.
I decided to leave him a voicemail.
“Enzo, I don’t know what happened, but I wasn’t conscious last night,” I said frantically, yanking one of my boots on. “Please listen to me. I don’t know what happened. Ronan came after me in the woods, and I don’t remember anything after that. You have to believe me. Please, please call me back.”
I hung up, my heart racing, and pocketed my phone before swinging the cabin door open.
“Well, well, well,” Lisa said from the fire pit. She stood with an evil smirk on her face and sauntered up to me as I ran down the cabin steps. “If it isn’t the whore who thought that she could steal my boyfriend.”
“Fuck off, Lisa,” I growled, storming past her.
“Aww, looks like someone got up on the wrong side of the cabin,” she said in a condescending voice, making her friends giggle.
I stopped in my tracks, feeling my hands curl up into fists at my sides as rage took over me. Without considering the consequences, as though something took over me, I spun around on my heel and stormed up to Lisa.
“You bitch,” I snarled, then slapped her as hard as I could across the face.
Lisa’s friends erupted into a chorus of gasps. Lisa, her mouth hanging open, raised her shaking hand to her reddening cheek. “You hit me!” she screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“You’re fucking insane!” one of Lisa’s friends said, running up to Lisa and wrapping her in her arms. “Get the fuck out of here!”
“I– I didn’t mean to–“I stammered, but it was no use trying to explain myself; I just needed to get away. I turned on my heel and took off, glancing one last time over my shoulder to see Lisa being swarmed by her friends… And she looked up at me with an evil smirk on her face.
Students pointed and laughed as I ran across campus, tears streaming down my cheeks. They took photos of me to post to social media, to make fun of me for being a “whore” even though they only knew half of the story.
I didn’t care, though. They could take all the pictures they wanted. They could laugh all they wanted. What mattered was that I knew the truth, and the truth was that I never slept with Ronan.
Unless… I did sleep with him, and I just didn’t remember him taking advantage of my body.
My sobs intensified as I came to this realization. I stopped in my tracks by the fountain in the quad, doubled over in mental anguish as my vision began to blur and my head began to reel.
Had Ronan sexually assaulted me?
The thought of it made me feel like I was going to throw up. And I did. Thankfully, I made it to a trash can, but the people around me only filmed that, too.
“Oh, go ahead!” I yelled when I was finished, wiping the vomit off of my mouth with the back of my hand and whirling around to face the other students around me. “Take all the pictures and videos you want! Go on! Make sure to really rub it in that I’m just a lunatic who doesn’t deserve basic human decency!”
Suddenly, as I was yelling at the amused students holding up their phones, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Was Enzo coming to help me?
It wasn’t Enzo.
It was Edward.
I wanted to scream, to run away, but I couldn’t. I was frozen as he looked down at me, his eyes glowing subtly with his grip tightening on my hand.
“Come along, Nina,” he said with a warm smile that only I could see the evil behind. “I think you need some help.”
