59. Haven
Chapter 59
Haven
“You feel good, Haven? Enjoying yourself?” Ezra’s mouth is too close to my ear, but I’ve tried to push his arm off my shoulder like three times already. He just keeps putting it back.
Where’s Kai?
Why isn’t he stopping this?
But then I laugh, because Kai? Really? He literally just called me a slut.
Again.
For what? Letting me finger him?
I knew it was him.
Okay, I…hoped it was him. Fantasized it was him.
But that’s gotta count for something right?
I shove Ezra’s arm off my shoulders. “Melissa,” I manage through clenching teeth.
“What’s that? You do feel good? Yeah, of course you do. Everyone does. Even trailer trash little bitches like you. ‘Cos you know that’s what you are, right?” He chuckles, and the sound makes my skin crawl.
What is he doing? Taking me on a tour of the dance floor?
Is he trying to make Melissa jealous or something?
It’s not like we were ever on speaking terms.
I know what he did to Kai back when we were kids. I saw the marks. Kai would never snitch, but his eyes did all the talking back then.
Guess they still do.
Fuck, his eyes were so…so… God , he was angry back there.
And it’s so messed up, because I swear I thought he was going to kiss me. I was silently begging him to.
That was when I was still imagining it was him, of course.
Should have known.
Who else would know my body like that? Exactly where to caress, where to stroke, where to?—
God, I’m so horny again. What was in that Gatorade bottle?
My eyes latch onto the DJ. And that’s a bad thing, because he’s hot. Not as hot as Kai, obviously, but still…the way he’s dancing is giving me a clit boner.
Or maybe I still have one from what Kai just did to me.
Did I actually come?
A thump goes through my body, and my eyes fly open. When did I close them?
I’m staring at the crowd.
Why? How?
I turn my head. I’m on the stage, close to the DJ box. There’s no music.
But why?
My body is electric. Pulsing with current. Mimicking the thunder-wreathed clouds above.
It’s raining.
My hair is wet.
What’s happening?
“…Haven Lee!”
I turn at the sound of my name, and see Ezra nearby. Holding a microphone.
Why?
He winks at me, comes closer. Slides an arm around my shoulder. I shrug it off, but it’s back a second later.
Stop.
But my voice isn’t working. My body is limp, unresponsive. I’m just standing here, on the DJ deck, staring at a sea of glowing bodies.
Fuck, I’m so high. My jaw clenches, and I taste blood as I pull my lip into my mouth.
Ow.
“…tell us what it was like?”
Huh?
I hear my own voice echoing back to me, so loud I flinch. There’s a microphone by my mouth. I bat it away, and there’s a screech of feedback through the speaker system.
“The fuck are you doing, man?” someone calls out behind me.
But then the rain starts.
No, it’s always been raining.
What the fuck is happening?
I touch my hair, soaking wet. My trash bag, plastered to my body.
The fuck is?—?
“—No one is more deserving than you are. Can I get a round of applause for Haven Lee, everyone?”
The music starts up again.
No, it’s just clapping. A few yells.
Someone’s calling me.
Haven Lee.
Haven Lee.
Heavenly.
Little Miss Heavenly. That’s what I’ll call you. Because you’re a little angel.
Kai?
I whip my head around, but it’s only me and Ezra and the DJ.
The DJ looks angry. At me? I don’t want to be up here. I try to walk to the edge so I can climb off, but Ezra seizes the back of my neck, and pulls me back.
“Don’t be so fucking rude, Trailer Trash.”
I put a hand over my mouth. Was I being rude? What did I do?
Sorry.
But my voice still isn’t working. My legs are wobbly. There’s this achy, awful feeling inside me, and it’s the taste of body paint in my mouth, the burning on my lips, the way my entire body is tingling like I can still feel Kai’s touch.
What the fuck is going on?
“I wanted to present you with a token of our appreciation. Something for your pets. You love your little pets, don’t you, Trailer Trash? Kai told me this was your idea. So clever. But I’m not sure we got the right food for them.”
I don’t have pets. Dad didn’t allow it. They cost too much. Like me. He told me I cost too much with my food, and my books, and my clothes. But I got by.
I always get by.
Something slips around my throat, and it’s cold and not at all like?—
Kai
—a hand, pressing me against the tree, holding me in place as he fingers me into submission. But I didn’t submit, did I, the fucking asshole he?—
There’s a rattle, a tug. I can’t breathe, but then I can.
Someone—
Ezra
—shoves me to my knees, and I yell because it hurts, and the pain brings me to the surface of the glowing bodies and the lightning coursing through my body, the rain rushing over my skin.
I whip my head to the side.
Melissa. Hands on her mouth. Eyes like saucers. Why isn’t she helping me? She shakes her head. Closes her eyes.
“Gonna need you to check, Haven. Let me know if it tastes better than all the dick you’ve been sucking.”
Ezra plants a foot on my ass and shoves me onto my face. There’s a rattle, a clank, and sudden pressure around my neck. I scrabble at my neck, feel a collar tight against my skin.
Then the metal chain locked into the back.
“No!” I try to yank at the chain, but when I throw my head back, Ezra is standing over me with a snarl on his face, the chain wrapped around his fist.
“Be a good bitch and eat your dinner,” he grates. He puts out his foot, and there’s a metal scrape by my knees.
I look down, stare at the bowl full of wet dog food.
But I don’t smell anything. It should stink. Pet food always smells bad.
Am I dreaming?
Nightmaring?
What. Is. Happening?
“Eat it, bitch!” he yells, grabbing the back of my head and shoving me down.
And then he’s gone. And I’m tumbling, rolling. Body paint glows, and someone’s grabbing my arms. I hear thumping behind me as the DJ helps me to my feet, his eyes wide, angry, confused.
“Go,” he says, pointing. “Just go!”
Scat, bitch.
That voice propels me more than the DJ’s command. That voice, buried so deep, so far, so way way way way back it’s dusty and dry and powdery.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
My heart?
The music?
No.
I swing my head around, knowing, feeling him close.
Kai is on top of Ezra. Straddling him.
Elbow rising, falling.
Rising. Falling.
As he beats his brother’s face in.
Blood.
Fucking.
Everywhere.
I scream, surge forward, but I can’t touch him before I’m dragged away.
“No, stop, stop, Haven, no!” Melissa’s snatching me, her nails digging into my arm as she pulls me over the DJ stand. “Come on!”
Shouting. Yelling. A few screams.
But we leave it all behind, and then it’s just leaves snapping as we race through the foliage. Lights blur in my vision, because I’m crying?—
it’s raining
—and I can’t stop sobbing?—
yelling
—and then I’m flat on my face on the lawn, my fingers digging into the grass as I try to haul breath into burning lungs.
Melissa falls down on her knees beside me, grabbing my arms. “Come on, get up. We’re almost there.”
I shake her off, roll onto my back. Cover my face with my hands.
Can’t stop crying?—
screaming
—as the rain lashes my face.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
I surface from the depths of my ocean mind at the sound of Professor Rooke’s voice. Strong hands grip my wrists, drag my hands away from my contorting face.
“What did you give her?”
“Molly. She was fine, but then, fuck, he?—”
My fingers brush against a strong jaw that clenches at my touch.
“Get me out.” I grab his bow tie. “Out!” My fumbling hand finds the dog collar around my neck. “Off!”
“Breathe for me, sweet girl. Breathe.”
Melissa appears beside Bastian, her eyes dark, her jaw clamped closed. She wipes hair out of my face, bites her lip.
There’s a tug around my throat, an uncomfortable burn as Bastian drags the collar around.
His eyes narrow. “Where’s the key, Melissa?”
“I don’t know.” She glances around frantically. “He must have it.”
“Off.” I tug at the collar, whimpering. “Please, off.”
Then I’m bundled against Bastian’s chest, and the world is bobbing up and down, and he’s so warm that I curl against him, put my cheek on his heart and listen to it beat.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.