Paradise Blvd. Year One

Chapter Seven

He just looked at her with a slight smile on his face. "Tulip. Good morning."

"What's going on?" she asked.

He sat up. "You slept over."

"What happened?" Tulip started panting when she realised she wasn't wearing any clothes. "Lucien, what the hell happened here?"

"Whoa! Calm down, alright?" said Lucien. "Everything is okay."

Then, it came back to her, but in bits and pieces. She remembered him telling her everything was okay. She remembered him taking her to his room and stripping her down. She didn't want it, but she couldn't stop it. She remembered him throwing her on the bed and getting on top of her. She felt his body against hers. She felt him in her.

Tulip looked at Lucien. "What the hell did you do to me?"

"Just calm down," he said, grabbing her arm.

"No!" Tulip screamed. It was more than just a scream. It came out like an inhuman shriek, breaking everything that was made out of glass and throwing Lucien out of the bed and into the wall.

"What the hell?" Lucien exclaimed, but couldn't even hear himself. All he heard was the loud ringing in his ears and he looked at Tulip, who was just as shocked as he was, if not more.

Her eyes partially blinded by her tears, Tulip managed to get her clothes and ran out of the room. She put on her clothes and found her phone before starting the walk home. She felt wrong. Everything felt wrong.

•

Marceline picked up her phone as soon as she heard it ring. It was Lucia on the other end. "Why did you call?" she asked.

Lucia sighed. "Forest and Marion are busy. I'm sorry about what happened between the two of us, but we could really use your help here."

"Nothing happened between us, okay? And it's been a week, your secret's safe with me," said Marceline. "Troye's still not coming around?"

"No, he locked himself up in his room."

"But you can-" Marceline started.

"I wanted to respect his privacy," said Lucia.

Marceline sighed. "I'd really like to help, trust me, but I've got something going on right now and I can't drop it. Sorry."

"Alright, bye."

Marceline hung up and turned back to her laptop. She'd traced Esau's residence to a town called Village, and she was going through public records and newspapers to see if there was anything about him being aggressive.

"You're a hacker, now?" Veronica asked after she put her phone down.

Marceline scoffed. "I wish. These things are all up there and public. I wish there was a sex offenders list, it would make this quicker."

Veronica sighed. "I bet. I also bet you won't find anything, Esau seemed harmless. I've come across dozens of guys like them."

Marceline turned to her friend. "Did any of them threaten to fix you?"