20. Juliet
20
JULIET
I t’s darker in the woods. Not surprising. What is surprising, however, is that the two men several yards ahead of me don’t act like they’re having a hard time at all making their way deeper between the trees. The girl stumbles along, throwing a glance back over her shoulder every once in a while even as she pauses every so often to gag and try to hold back the vomit likely arching up her throat. None of them notice me following, but I notice her expression when she’s not fighting the urge to puke. Anxious, even as she tries not to show it.
Her sharp, pitchy laugh sounds in the near silence of the shadows and she speaks. “A-are you guys trying to make sure I d-don’t crack my head open?” she asks, continuing with her nervous little giggles.
Poor girl. I can tell that, even in her inebriated state, she understands what they’re doing and she’s probably not sober enough to figure out how to stop it. I bite down on my lower lip and move faster. The three of them are a good distance ahead of me and even though I’ve had nothing to drink, the roots of the trees seem to jump out at my feet, tripping me up with each step forward. It’s probably why I didn’t manage to lose them completely despite them being so far ahead of me to start with. Panting and huffing with both annoyance and concern for the girl, I step over another ragged stump of a root and nearly go sprawling when, in the darkness, I don’t see the next one.
“ Fuck ,” I hiss a curse, catching myself upright on a near tree branch. My ankle throbs.
I jerk my head up a moment later, belatedly, to see if the guys caught wind that someone is following them. Fortunately, that isn’t the case since the two of them have now surrounded the girl like she’s the prey to their predator.
Moving a bit faster now, I hop over the next root and around another tree as the two guys back the girl further into the dark and up against a tree. How they haven’t heard me coming when I feel like I’m stomping madly through the underbrush is a mystery to me—though if they’ve had a lot to drink then that would certainly impair their awareness.
I send up a silent prayer that they are a bit worse for the wear drink-wise. It would be just my fucking luck that I decide to help some girl and get raped myself.
“R-rich, I don’t know, I-I’ve had a l-lot to drink.” The girl’s voice echoes back to me, her laughter completely gone, and in its place, fear. She appears to have forgotten the urge to puke as she focuses on the men surrounding her.
Unwilling to let them get on with their plans, I stomp down harder on the next branch underfoot in response, eliciting a sharp, loud crack that rings through the air. A gasp from the girl is followed by the sound of footsteps and rustling as the two guys ahead peer around a thick tree with matching scowls.
“What the fuck?” the shorter of the two says. “It’s just the Donovan bitch.”
I raise my eyes to meet his as I move towards him. “You haven’t seen me be a bitch, yet,” I tell him matter-of-factly. Carefully stepping over another branch, I advance on them.
The girl comes back into view as I finally catch up to the three of them and though her eyes are still a little glazed from all the alcohol she’s had, there's a familiar expression of relief on her face.
Damn. She must be in a bad position if she’s relieved to see me. Almost as soon as it happens, though, she covers it up and straightens away from the tree they'd crowded her against.
With a scoff that sounds more forced than not, she flips a strand of hair over her shoulder and scowls at me. “What do you want?” she sneers.
I roll my eyes. She doesn’t have to like me, but she sure is fine at pretending like I didn’t just save her ass. My annoyance at her attitude evaporates a second later as she makes the first smart decision since I watched her walk into these woods. The girl stumbles forward, using my presence as an excuse to leave the ring the two guys have formed around her without letting on what she’s really doing—escaping.
We might not be friends—she and I—but here, in this place, we’re both familiar with what it means to be female in a world that always wants to take something you might not be willing to give.
“Your friend saw you coming out here,” I lie easily, eyeing her with meaning. “She told me she’s been looking for you.” My gaze remains on her, even as I sense the men behind her shifting uncomfortably.
If I’d had to hazard a guess, I’d say they didn’t expect that anyone would know where the girl they brought out here went. To be fair, I don’t know if she’s even got friends at the party—but the less the guys know about our virtual aloneness, the better. Even if she is drunk, this girl can’t be stupid enough to call me on my lies though. Not with the way her eyes flick to the side without turning her head. She’s watching them just as I am, in her periphery.
The taller of the two with a shorn haircut and a shadow of stubble over his jaw sneers. “You’re not seriously telling me you know this chick, do you, Cara?” he demands.
Cara shrugs and glares over her shoulder at the guy. “Shut up, Rich. She goes to our school. Just because we have class together doesn’t mean I know her.”
We have class together? I’m not sure if she’s just lying through her teeth to get out of this uncomfortable situation or if we really do have class together. Whatever the case, though, the guys groan but take her at her word.
Cara doesn’t seem nearly as drunk as she had when first entering the woods, but even as she takes another step away from them—towards me—she stumbles and nearly collides with me. I reach for her only to have her hiss at me and draw back.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” she gripes, the words slurring slightly.
“Whatever.” I hold my hands up. “I just didn’t want your friend to lay into me. That’s all.”
“If it’s Janice, then she’ll come barreling out here at any moment to get you and I don’t want to deal with that cunt.” The second guy, not Rich, is slightly skinnier than his friend with longer hair that’s pulled into a ponytail at the base of his skull.
“She’s not a—oh fucking forget it.” Cara cuts herself off and shakes her head before she moves past me in a fury of awkward jerking movements. She doesn’t offer me a look of gratitude or whisper any words of thanks as she passes. She just stumbles farther and farther away, back in the direction of the farmhouse and the party.
I wait a beat, side-eyeing the guys to make sure they don’t try to stop her. When she’s far enough away that I can’t really hear her stumbling steps, I shift on my feet, turning back the same way.
“Hold up there!” I freeze as a hand locks on my shoulder.
I don’t even think about it. I just react—reaching up and latching on to his fingers and then keeping a hold of them as I duck out from under his arm, taking it with me. It’s the one with longer hair I see a split second before I yank down on his hand and twist it behind his back, jerking his hand and arm up his back until I know it hurts.
“What the fuck!” he bellows and I’m pretty proud of my reaction time. Or at least, I would be, if I didn’t try to shove him forward and trip over yet another twisted root on the ground. Instead of pushing him, I end up letting him go completely to catch myself before I land on my knees.
The other man laughs, a low grating sound. “I don’t think she likes you much, Josh,” he says, sounding amused.
Great, at least now I have their names. Rich and Josh. I straighten away from the two of them as Rich steps off the tree he’d had the girl—Cara—previously pinned against as Josh rounds on me with a scowl.
“Fucking bitch,” Josh spits, rotating his arm as if trying to relieve the ache there. “That hurt.”
“I promise you,” I snap back. “It won’t hurt nearly as much as what I’ll do to you if you touch me without my permission again.”
My heartbeat thunders in my ears. I take a step back and the two of them follow the movement with not just their eyes. The sound of leaves shifting under their feet seems to echo into the night. The gates holding back my adrenaline are shuddering, waiting to be opened.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” I say in warning, “I suggest you don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Rich asks with a sneer, his eyes moving down over my loose flannel and black tank. I’m not dressed to impress, but somehow, he must still find me worth looking at because his sneer turns into a smile. “We don’t want to hurt you.”
“Yeah, we don’t want to hurt you at all,” Josh agrees, his earlier anger at me dissipating quickly. “In fact”—he grins, sidling closer—“we’re more about pleasure than anything else.”
Blood rushes in my ears, the sound so incredibly loud. I flick a glance back. I’m too far from the party now for anyone to hear me if I scream … or to hear if they scream.
“Play bitch ass games. Win bitch ass prizes,” I grit out, the warning like acid on my tongue as I take another careful step back.
I reach out, feeling along a tree to keep steady. Something rough and hard bumps against the back of my ankle. It’s a bad idea to let my desires get the best of me here. These guys might be dumb assholes, but there are two of them and only one of me.
“Ah, come on. Don’t be like that,” Rich says, advancing forward. He offers me a placating smile but I know it for what it truly is—a fucking mask.
Everyone wears a mask in this world; I know that for a fact. I was raised in a masquerade of smiling faces and razor-sharp teeth. It’s where friends stab you in the back, fathers fuck you over, and mothers abandon their only daughters to the not-so-tender mercies of the world.
“Don’t even think—” I start to say but nearly bite down on my tongue a second later as Josh dives forward, fingers locking around my wrist.
Twisting out towards his thumb, I silently curse when instead of breaking his hold, Josh’s other hand comes up and wraps around my neck, thrusting me backward. A gasp startles out of my lips as my spine slams into the bark of a tree. The air rushes from my lungs on a wheeze.
“You should be grateful anyone wants you now, Donovan ,” Josh says my last name like a filthy curse. “Your rich prick of a boyfriend dumped you as soon as he heard about your dad.”
I curse and raise my other hand up against his chest. “I dumped him, dickhead .” I match his tone as I shove hard against his sternum. He doesn’t move, though that’s not much of a surprise.
My breath saws in and out as I try to think back to Cory’s training. It all flies out of my head—just like that. I thought I would know what I was doing when something like this happened. Now, I know the truth. I’m fucked. All those long weeks of working out in the gym and going up against trainers and sparring partners ain’t shit in the face of real danger.
All I have left is the festering anger inside—wickedly sharp and volatile. I could unleash it. It would be so easy to let it all go. To start swinging and see what happens. A small, invisible rope snags around it, though, holding me back.
I close my eyes and draw in a long breath even as the hand around my throat tightens marginally. What will happen if I finally just … let it go?
In a blink, I see what could happen. Blood spurts from Josh’s nose as I shove the base of my palm into his face. My knee slams into his groin and I relish in the soft whoosh of air escaping his lungs right before I grip the back of his skull in two hands and bring my knee up again. If his nose isn’t already broken from my first attack, it would be by my second.
Red on my fingers, wetness oozing down the side of my throat—a lingering spurt from his nose? I like that idea. Bathing in someone’s blood. Fucking them up and releasing all of the rage I’ve held in for so fucking long.
Good girls do as their mother tells them, Juliet.
Good girls listen to their daddies.
Good girls don’t ask questions.
Good girls don’t care if their boyfriend cheats on them.
Good girls forgive their best friend for fucking their boyfriend.
Good girls smile even when they want to scream.
Good girls don’t cause problems.
Good girls … get shit on by the world.
I don’t want to be good. Not anymore.
I blink again, and reality invades once more.
The image of me attacking Josh evaporates, and in its place, I’m right back where I was—with my back pressed against the unyielding bark of a tree and his hand on my throat.
Why don’t I want to let the rage go again?
“I always wondered what Prep pussy felt like,” Rich comments as he hovers over Josh’s shoulder. Josh squeezes my throat roughly. I don’t fight back. Not yet.
Instead, I eye them both. The two of them have got to be athletes at school, they're built big and thick, each of them a solid five inches or more taller than me. That doesn’t mean I’ll take this lying down though. No. I won’t let this happen to me. I can’t.
I force myself to take a calm breath, squeezing in as much air as I can around Josh’s hand as I stop fighting. I let my arms fall back to my sides. Spots of black and white dance in front of my vision. Out here, it’s so dark that the only way I can even see the two of them is because the moon is shining down through the treetops.
Cascading light spears through the leaves and over their heads and I spy a third man hovering in the shadows just behind Rich. My heart thuds rapidly against the inside of my ribcage. Fear spirals through me as well as the urge to maim. I’m not going down like this. I won’t let this happen.
The third figure is bigger than both Rich and Josh, though not by much. He’s taller than both, but his features remain in the shadows. His silhouette is all I can make out. I inhale sharply as he moves closer, silent somehow in the underbrush full of twigs and crunchy, dry leaves. A tingle of awareness creeps into my limbs. The third figure moves through the shadows like a wraith, silent and deadly. My heartbeat picks up speed, but before I can do anything—attack or scream—Rich is gone from behind Josh. He disappears as if he evaporated into nothing but thin air.
Shock slams into me a moment later. Not that his friend, Josh, even seems to notice. The idiot somehow takes my sudden stillness as his opportunity to bend down and brush his mouth along my throat. I barely feel it. My focus is on what’s happening behind him.
The third man—the shadowy stranger—reappears and lifts Rich up by his throat, the smaller man’s voice disappearing as he clamps down and silences him. He dangles there, back and forth, feet swaying just a few inches above the ground. A hysteric snort bubbles up out of my nose and I reach up, slapping a palm over my mouth and nearly smacking Josh in the face.
Oh, right. Him. I forgot he’s still there. Josh’s head lifts a bit and he scowls down at me, not the least bit aware of the peril his friend is in. Instead, he’s solely focused on me as he moves his mouth to my face. I turn my hand and push it against his mouth and chin, and using my back to brace against the tree, I shove him back.
“Don’t even fucking try it.”
Since Josh had dipped down to kiss my throat, his grip loosened and it makes it far easier to twist out of his hold. Reaching up and pinching the back of his hand, I spin out of reach, the sharp crack of a branch snapping under my sneakered foot.
Josh’s furious gaze meets mine. “Listen, you little cunt, I?—”
He doesn’t get to finish whatever he's about to say because a second shadow appears next to the first and a fist collides with Josh’s face. The abrupt attack sends Josh sprawling to the ground into a tangle of roots and curses.
I back up, hissing when something sharp slices across the back of one calf, digging into my jean-clad leg.
“What the fuck!” Josh barks as his friend coughs and hacks.
My gaze goes to the new men. The hoods both are wearing fall back, revealing a pair of familiar faces. The last I would ever have expected to be grateful for—or welcome seeing. Two of the Scorpion Kings appear as if formed out of the shadows themselves. What little light there is gleams on the murderous intent in their eyes.
Rich and Josh are so fucked.