“What the fuck!” I cry out in a shrill sob as a sharp, searing pain cuts into my shoulder.
I can tell by the size of the hands that Emmett won out over Vivian, which I want to take some small comfort in. He seems to be leaning toward taking it easier on me. After all, if I’m dead, he can’t fuck me. So, in a weird, twisted way, he’s on my side, right?
But it doesn’t feel like he’s on my side as a cold blade digs deeper into my skin. I try not to notice the way his hips press against my ass as I squirm beneath him, but I feel a hint of that familiar bulge from yesterday. He’s holding back, but he can only do so much. He’s getting off on pinning me down from behind like this.
I can’t believe my mind is even going there with the cold pain slicing into me deeper and deeper. A warm trickle of blood causes my skin to shiver and flinch as it trails down my side.
“What are you doing!?” I cry out again, jerking harder in their hold.
“This is a tracking device,” he responds coyly, tinged with satisfaction. “Tucked away under your skin. So, you could ditch your phone…but it’d be no use. We’ll still be able to keep an eye on you.”
I scream and cry, kicking more violently, as I feel the distinct tug of a needle and thread working its way around the incision.
“Now, do yourself a favor and don’t bother trying to get it out,” he rants like a mad s
cientist at work. “It’s too deep. You’ll never get it on your own. And I don’t have to tell you what would happen if you were stupid enough to try and get someone to help you.”
“A doctor!” I protest. “I’ll go to a doctor! Whether they work for you or not, they’ll have to help me!”
Vivian laughs wildly from behind Emmett. “You go to a doctor whining about tracking devices being implanted in your skin and they’ll have you committed!”
With a painful pull of a knot followed by the snip of scissors, they loosen their hold on me. My hand reaches to feel the wound, but it’s just out of my reach. And the more I try to stretch around to it, the more everything hurts.
“That’s all for now,” Vivian chimes with a deceptively innocent smile, looping her arm into Emmett’s before turning on her heels to exit the classroom. Trey, Vincent and Bernadette follow closely behind.
Emmett flashes one quick subtle look over his shoulder in my direction, but it’s unreadable. And I can barely stand the sight of him right now with Vivian draped back over his arm like nothing happened.
My chest heaves in hyperventilation as they leave me struggling to regain some semblance of composure. I have given up on trying to feel my way around the implant in my shoulder. My uniform is still ripped and I’m covered in bruises. My shin has turned black from where Vivian’s foot struck against it.
What was Emmett thinking, standing up for me like that? It may have been subtle, but it was a bold move on his part. One that leaves me even more confused than before.
I wonder if Vivian will continue their conversation about me later. If she’ll ask him about what I implied over our private encounters. I’m just happy I managed to do something that got under her skin for once…no matter how briefly.
But none of that changes the spot I’m in now. Once again, I feel stupid for getting caught up in this high school romance drama over the same guy who is threatening my life, with his girlfriend by his side.
I look around the room in disbelief, blowing sharp breaths through my cheeks as my fingers press to my temples. I try to collect my thoughts.
All I gathered from our little encounter is that my deadbeat dad is somehow responsible for the entire nightmare. The hell I’ve endured since coming here is all because of him. And now I’m expected to do something to get him to respond to the Elites. What that is…I have no idea. Not only do I not know how to pull that off, but I don’t even know how much time I have or what it is he’s responding to.
Regardless of all that, now my every move will be tracked. No escape.
Fuck. I can’t imagine things getting much worse than this, but I’m learning not to even dare to think such a thing. Before I could so much as blink, the Elites would be rushing back in here to find some way to prove me wrong.
I try to shake it all away as I snake over to the doorway, peeking out to see if anyone is in the hall. If I thought anyone would help me, I’d march right out in front of them with my wounds and distress on full display. But knowing it’d be no use; I decide to try and sneak to the bathroom with at least a tiny shred of my dignity intact.
Once the halls are empty and silent with the last few stragglers disappearing around the corner, I limp across the scuffed floors in between the walls of lockers. I stare ahead resentfully, blazing right past the trophy case commemorating the Elite scum who built this school.
But something about the case of school accolades stops me. I turn to the sea of carefully pinned metals and plaques and study the framed photos for a moment, skipping across the black and white faces in vintage sports uniforms.
I locate Theodore Nickelson in a few different places. Just another face in the rows of other clean-cut young gentleman. Thomas Jameson and the other Elites usually only a few spots away from him. My fingers graze the glass that rests in front of his face.
“It’s easy to find you in pictures,” I mumble under my breath. “Now if only I knew how to find you in real life.”
A renewed surge of rage bolts through me as I consider how absurd it is that some man I’ve never even met is so influential on my life today. The contribution of his sperm aside, he’s had nothing to do with me…that I’ve known of. But now it seems his entanglement with the Elites didn’t end whenever he left town. It was still alive and well and fucking up everything in my life.
My hand falls back to my side as I turn to continue my listless walk to the bathroom. The classroom doors shoot past the corner of my eyes, one after another, but I keep my eyes glued to the floor, noting the random bits of food wrappers and crumpled papers. The janitor up ahead will work his way to these things by the time I’ve reemerged from the bathroom.
Nothing in this ridiculous school stays dirty for long…at least not on the surface. The smell of his mop solution wafts through the halls, mixing with the lingering food smells from the cafeteria, creating the most nauseating aroma.