“Pick it up.”
I just push the book toward him with my foot. He grits his teeth and picks it up himself—and then hurls it at my face.
This is what it takes to snap me back to my senses.
I manage to hold in the very girly shriek threatening to rip from my throat as I bat the big, solid book away from me. Moving so quickly sends pain shooting up my ribs, making me actually cry out and bend over my desk. The textbook clatters to the floor, landing open with its pages bending awkwardly against the stones.
The professor looks up. “What was that?”
“Dropped my book, Professor,” Heath replies, deadpan.
Tears prick my eyes. The pain in my ribs begins to throb.
“Alex?” the professor asks.
I grit my teeth and look up, trying not to cry. “Yes sir?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. I—can I go to the infirmary for some pain medicine?”
“You may. Heath, go with him.”
Heath turns his eyes incredulously toward the professor, but I don’t have the patience to lament my fate. I just get to my feet and pull myself down the aisle between Heath and Beck’s desks to get to the door of the classroom.
Heath follows. Once we’re out in the empty hallway, he grabs my elbow hard, hurting me even more.
“It wouldn’t be this bad,” he snarls, “if you didn’t do this sort of shit.”
I look at him, still trying to limp my way down the hall. He comes with me.
“What are you talking about?” I mumble, my voice hoarse from tobacco and pain. “Why would I do this to myself?”
I falter as my ribs throb again, nearly tripping over my own feet. Heath pauses beside me and tugs on my elbow to turn me toward him. I get a nice long look at his sharp jawline, his almond-shaped dark eyes, his perfectly coifed brown hair—the perfect picture of a British schoolboy. Albeit sneering and angry.
But Heath just stares at me for a moment before shaking his head. “Forget it.”
He searches my face for a moment too long. He’s looking for something there. I’m not sure if he finds it before he steps back and grabs my elbow again, so hard that I cry out this time.
Without letting up on his grip, Heath drags me the rest of the way to the infirmary where I’m given more pain pills by a very wary-looking Ms. Weber. Thankfully, she makes me wait there until Heath grows too impatient to stay any longer. When he finally leaves, she watches the hallway to be sure he’s gone before sending me on my way to my second period.
Literature with Rafael, and thankfully, only Beck is in this class. He may be the wildest one of the three, but at least he’s just one of The Brotherhood. And at least he isn’t Jasper.
The ringleader. The instigator. And also the only one personally offended by me, thanks to his obsession with Olive … and Olive’s growing obsession with me.
I run into Rafael on the way to class, and without saying anything he knows I’ve had a rough morning.
“Oh, shit,” he sighs, pausing in the doorway to class.
I stand on my tiptoes to try to see past him into the classroom.
“What is it?”
He doesn’t answer, he just beckons for me to follow. As soon as I catch sight of the board, I see what he’s upset about. Written in thick dry-erase marker across the top of the board are the words SEMESTER PROJECT. Beneath it are listed several bullet points, one of which reads assigned partners.
I’ll just have to hope I get Rafael.
But with my luck … I think I already know where this is headed.