“Stop it!” Olive yells, glancing between my three attackers.
I, in turn, look up at Jasper. He’s got a strange glint in his eye as he orders Heath and Beck to pick me up again. Like Olive, they hesitate only a moment before they do. I slump back against them, weakened already, and stare resignedly up at their ringleader.
“He’s fine,” Jasper says breezily, grabbing my jaw and forcing me to look at him. “This is just a little bit of fun.” He grins down at me. “It doesn’t mean anything, right, Alex?”
I can’t talk. His fingers press into the skin of my cheeks, holding my jaw in place. His eyes take on a strange sheen, and his features contort, the smile slipping off his face. He looks like he did in the bell tower of the abandoned church.
It’s a look that chills me to my core.
“How hard would I have to squeeze,” he says thoughtfully, “to break your jaw?”
I feel a cold sweat break out on my forehead.
“Jasper, stop!” Olive yells. Is she crying?
Jasper lets go of my jaw to pull his fist back, and I’m able to yell out “Just go, Olive, I’ll be fine!” right before his knuckles smash into my cheek.
But it’s a blow that never comes.
The arms holding me let go at the last second, sending me skittering backwards into the trash bins behind me. I feel my body slide down onto the ground, the back of my head narrowly avoiding the edge of the curb.
Almost as narrowly as it avoided Jasper’s fist—now met only with air.
Even so, the wind is knocked out of me so violently that my vision spins. Blinking, the world swimming as my blurry vision struggles to clear, I notice the shape of Jasper being tugged further away.
His hand is held aloft, his muscles already tensed and ready to send another blow.
“C’mon, dude,” Heath’s voice says, sounding strangely far away. “Leave him alone. Let’s go.”
My ears are ringing, blocking out any other sounds in the alley.
Is Olive still here? I can’t tell. I’m shaking so violently that I think I can hear my own teeth chatter in my skull. I hear screaming and yelling, but I can’t make out whose voices they belong to. I try to sit up, but I immediately feel like I’m going to vomit again.
That one blow to the stomach was enough.
Enough.
I see figures struggling in front of me, and I vaguely wonder how long Heath and Beck can hold Jasper back. The look in his face is clear now.
He wants to hurt me. Really hurt me.
Someone touches my shoulder. I look up and into Beck’s face. He’s frowning down at me with … concern? Maybe? Or maybe I’m just truly delirious now.
“Go,” he says urgently. When I don’t respond, he shakes me a bit, then starts nudging me towards the end of the alley. “Go, now unless you want to get hit this time!” he says, grunting again as he shoves me a little harder.
I fall forward, and the jarring motion seems to bring me back to my senses just a smidge.
My legs wobble beneath me as Beck turns me in the direction of the end of the alleyway. I chance a look over my shoulder and spot something I didn’t expect to see. Heath and Jasper are fighting.
“Let me go, Heath!” Jasper screams, his face red.
“Chill out!” Heath snaps back. He’s bigger than Jasper and has him in some sort of wrestling hold. “What’s gotten into you? We never agreed to this.”
We never agreed to this.
So what then, did they agree to?
“Go!” Beck snaps, pushing me again. I stumble toward the end of the alleyway. I feel myself limping, but that’s the least of my worries. Some sick part of me wants to watch Heath and Beck defy Jasper. But the rest of me, the part of me that wants to survive the night, pries me away.