Chapter 22 #3
“What?” A plainly spoken word. Asta. “What did you say?”
Dray’s grip on my neck flexes, like he’s reigning in his lashes of rage, fighting the urge to smack my skull right into the wall, crush me—
“You fucked him?” Asta’s voice is a pitch too high. It comes with slow, thudding steps on the rug, so I guess that one was bad enough that Landon switched sides—and let her go. “You fucked Eric in the blackout?”
Dray stares into my eyes, my soul, like nothing else exists—but his answer comes, “She only thought she did.” His eyes flash like glass blades, and his lips curl around his perfect teeth.
“But that wasn’t the first time, was it?
When was the first time you let him inside of you?
” His voice darkens with his twisting face, and all I can do is stay frozen, like to even loosen a breath too loud will end with my blood spilled.
I have seen Dray’s rage before.
I have stared into his eyes before…
But I have never seen this.
This is an abyss, a void reaching to suck me in and destroy me.
Dray doesn’t let me stay frozen.
His face shutters a mere second before he’s shouting in my face, “When did he fuck you?”
I flinch, cringing into the wall, my spine screaming as loud as my panicked shout, “London—in London… I’m sorry, it—”
The grip is gone from my neck.
My eyes snap open, and I expect to see my end coming down on me, but Dray has tugged away from me in a swift movement and intercepted Asta as she fucking lunges for me.
He catches her by the middle, one arm looped firm around her, and her flailing hands scrape and claw through the air, reaching for my twisted face.
I look to Serena, as though she has help, she has answers. But she doesn’t, and she keeps a safe distance.
At her sides, her hands flex then relax, flex then relax, over and over. She licks her lips nervously, swerving her gaze from me and Dray, then to Oliver—
He’s a blur of shadow moving for me.
And I’ve never felt so cornered in my life.
I press harder into the wall, hands splayed on the cold wainscotting, as though the wood will open up and suck me in, entomb me, and that’s still a better alternative than this ambush.
The wall doesn’t take me away.
And Oliver reaches me, snatching for the scruff of my sweater, and hauls me towards the phone booths.
“You want to defend that fucking waif?” Asta’s shrill cry lures in my stare.
She’s out of Dray’s hold now.
His stare swerves from me to Asta as she pushes by Serena.
Serena’s face is firm, tense, and her mouth is tight, as though Oliver’s command magicked her lips shut.
But the anger is in those eyes with the worry, the fear, stirring like storm clouds beneath her dark lashes.
Asta marches for Mildred—and snatches the newsletter from her grip.
The delight on Mildred’s face doesn’t even touch me. I only feel dread sinking my insides.
With the newsletter in her fist, Asta stalks towards Dray. She smacks the crumpled paper against his chest. “Take a look—and see who you’re defending. See what she has to say about you.”
The chill threat in her voice wobbles me.
Oliver is struck still.
His grip is steel on my sweater, unyielding, but his boots are rooted on the rug, and his steady stare is fixed on Dray.
My bones chill, like icicles forming along them, as Dray frowns down at the paper, the article he hasn’t even read yet.
Fucking Mildred.
Her whisperings, her delighted gaze rushing over the article, telling Asta all the highlights…
So Asta used the arsenal she had left.
Now, Dray backsteps into the wall at the headline alone.
The paper rustles.
He slumps against the wall… and he reads everything I said about him.
My heart is slow to sink, but it does, weighing down my chest, sliding through the sludge of my organs, until it hits my gut—and pins me.
Oliver’s words are wrapped in a whooshed breath, “Phone booth. Now.”
I don’t get a say in the matter.
Urgent, he yanks me along with him, my steps scuttling on the rug.
Maybe calling Father is the lesser of two evils.
I can’t stay out in the open now.
Oliver realises that, too.
The phone booth offers a false sense of security, of protection, of hiding from Dray.
Oliver rips the curtain open—
And tucked in the booth is a burly boy, still high school age, but the youth in his terrified eyes yawns on.
Oliver growls at him, “Get the fuck out of here.”
He does.
No hesitation, he’s kicking from the booth and sprinting down the corridor.
I watch him go, praying he’s running to find a master, someone who will end this, help me.
But what I see is nothing short of terrifying.
Dray lets the paper fall to the floor.
Distantly, I’m aware of the receiver lifting from the phone, the numbers dialled slow, but I can only see Dray.
His steps start gradually as he turns a frowned look on me—
I don’t pay any attention to Serena’s pinched face, the blend of worry and confusion, or that Landon is holding Asta by the arm again.
Dray hooks my stare, my attention, my existence, as his pace quickens with a steady determination, until he’s outright marching for me.
The grip on my sweater loosens.
Oliver clammers to get out of the phone booth, as if now just realising that Dray is upon me.
But Oliver is too late.
I manage a stagger—
Before Dray’s hand comes striking across my face.
The sound splits the corridor.
The walls tilt as the blow knocks me sideways.
The rug rushes up at me.
An eruption of heat swells my eye and cheekbone, then I hit the ground with a grunt.
A whisper comes down the hush of the corridor, “Oh fuck.”
It reaches me, but I hardly register it.
I blink on the tears clinging to my lashes.
The coarseness of the rug is harsh against my cheek. Droplets of blood fall onto the threads.
A daze clouds me.
Not the strike itself that knocks me silent, not the cracked pain splintering along my cheek or even the trail of blood forming at the corner of my mouth.
It’s that he did it.
He really slapped me, backhanded me off my feet. Right out in the open, too.
My fingers lift.
I touch them to the stinging burn of my cheek.
I touch blood.
A whisper of a breath escapes me.
I throw my gaze up at Dray, at the seething rage that hardens his face, that fills his chest with heaving breaths, and has his hands fisted at his sides, like it’s taking everything in him not to use his makut on me, not to blast me into oblivion.
A muttered curse draws in my sluggish gaze.
Asta is running down the corridor, right for me.
Dray’s jaw feathers as he takes a purposeful step back. A message.
This time, he’s not stopping her.
No one is.
I clammer to my feet, the walls bending around me. I’m barely upright when she barrels into me.
I fall back into the wall.
A portrait frame thuds, loud.
The impact grunts through me, but it’s choked when a knee comes driving into my stomach.
There’s a laugh somewhere, Mildred maybe, mere background noise before the sound of Velcro rips from my scalp—and I shriek the moment I’m yanked off my feet again.
Asta whoops my ass.
I’m ragdolled over the rug, punch after punch landing on me, my head, my neck, my shoulder, my back, and every shriek that rises through me is choked out with a blow hard enough to shove the air out of my lungs.
No one stops her.
No one intervenes.
Not until the pitched outrage of a teacher’s voice comes slicing down the corridor, “Why are you all gathered out here? Don’t you have someplace to be?”
Asta throws me into the hard wood of the phone booths.
I kick out at her running advance—but then she brings her snowboot down on me.
Right into my gut.
The choke sputters out of me, wet with blood.
Around the corridor, I hear scuffling, murmurs, hurried footsteps, then the master shouting, “What in the name of the gods are you doing? Break it up—break it up!”
I fall onto my side.
Arm wrapped around my middle, I wheeze through the winding strike she caught me with, watching as her steps slip over the rug, like someone has hoisted her up into their arms and dragged her away.
Then—like he suddenly gives a shit—Oliver crouches down behind me.
His mouth is slanted, as though he’s sad, as though he wasn’t standing by the booths and watching Asta mop the floor with me.
His hand firms around my arm before he guides me upwards to lean against the booth. “Are you alright?”
I wrench my arm out of his grip. “Fuck off. Don’t touch me!”
He shoots me a dark look but draws back a step.
I turn my watery gaze on Master Milton, charging down the corridor.
He passes right by Dray, leaning against the wall, his molten stare on me.
“Miss Craven, stand up,” Master Milton snaps. “Miss Strom, against the wall, now!”
My legs are unsteady under my weight as I stagger to my feet.
In a blink, Serena is beside me.
She steadies me, hands on my shoulders, and her gaze lures in mine.
“You’re ok,” she whispers, softly, and gives a faint nod. “You’re ok.”
All I manage in answer is a thick swallow, then a twist of my face as tears start to rise up.
“She fucking started it—” Asta’s shout is cut down, fast.
“Detention!” Master Milton shouts.
His voice is frazzled somewhat, and I doubt he’s too confident dishing out screams and punishments to a bunch of aristos seniors.
Still, he pushes on, aiming his accusatory finger at each one of us.
“All of you, detention, now!”
Landon has Asta pinned to the wall.
His flushed face turns on the master, baffled. “I didn’t do shit—”
“Detention!” Milton turns his purpling face on him and just screams the word with everything he has.
Landon’s mouth clamps shut, tight, and his nostrils flaring with a deep, steadying inhale.
“You two,” Master Milton strides for me and Serena, “infirmary.” Then he turns his glare on Oliver. “You, the tower. And you, Sinclair.”
My mouth purses at the reminder of Dray.
“Mildred Green, I did not forget about you.”
I trace his glare down the corridor to Mildred’s back. Obviously trying to sneak away.
Her shoulders tense and I hear the jolt through her back, like she spits out a curse before she turns her sheepish face around.
“You will join Mr Barlow and Miss Strom in the rink.” Master Milton commands, and Mildred’s scowl softens, she almost fucking smiles. “All of you, now!”
But no one moves yet.
Glances are flickered around, looks are shared, glowers connected—then Asta moves first.
She peels away from the wall and starts down the corridor. Landon follows her.
Dray turns a dark look on me—and I know that this isn’t over.
Oliver brushes past me, his shoulder too hard against mine.
Serena pauses to grab the crinkled newsletter before stalking for the staircase.
I follow her, quiet, my face throbbing.