“Obviously,” I snap. “Since you’re still here torturing me.”
“I’m torturing you by letting you get revenge however you want?”
“Seeing you is torture,” I say. “Why can’t you understand that?”
His eyes harden. “Talk to them, Harper.”
“I’m not a masochist, either.”
He gives a little snort. “Don’t kid yourself. You can fight here without being a masochist—once. You keep coming back as many times as you did, you’re just like the rest of us.”
I swallow hard. He’s right. I fucking loved taking a good hit, the sting of it. It made me feel alive, mortal and invincible at once. I loved when he fucked me so rough I couldn’t tell where pleasure ended and pain started or the other way around. It made me forget why one was supposed to be better than the other. And I lived for the sweet ache of loving him, even knowing it made me a dumb bitch to keep going when I already knew he would eviscerate my heart and soul if I even made it out alive.
“Fine,” I say, pulling away from Royal. “I’ll face them. I’ve already faced you, and you’re the worst of them. I’m not going to kill them, though. Just like I wouldn’t kill you. But don’t take that as kindness or weakness on my part. I could do it. I’m not taking mercy on you because you deserve it, either. You don’t. I choose not to have that on me. That’s the only reason I won’t fight back the way you deserve.”
I turn around and march over to the pit, crouching to brace my hand on the edge and jump down in, like I’ve done a million times before. My feet hit the dirt, my knees unlocked, before I pop up to my full height. My heart beats fast, but it’s not because I’m pumped for a fight. I tell myself to breathe, tell my feet to move. I feel disjointed and uncoordinated as I stride across the pit and yank off the first guy’s hood.
Duke blinks at me with confusion. “Hey, Harper,” he says at last, offering me a hopeful smile. “You look like—different. Your hair and…” His eyes fall on my necklace, and he stops speaking.
I yank off Baron’s hood without answering, then hesitate at the last guy. The first guy I don’t know, the first one of the football team I’ll face besides the Dolces. Suddenly, my palms feel clammy, and my heart is stutter-stepping at a sickening, lurching pace. But fuck this guy. Fuck all these guys. They don’t get to have power over me anymore. I have the power here. Even if they weren’t tied, I have something none of them ever will. I have integrity, if only a little, and I have the bulletproof armor of not giving a fuck.
And I’m missing something they’d all die to protect—their reputations, their names, their secrets. I have nothing to lose, nothing for them to take. Which means they have nothing to use against me, no weapons in their arsenal. They can’t touch me. They’ve done their worst, so what can they do now?
I yank off the last guy’s hood.
Dawson Walton blinks back at me in the dim light, and my gorge rises to my throat. I knew he was a football player, but I didn’t know the depth of disgust I’d feel for him when I see his face. I can’t remember a single time he even spoke to me, but now I’ll always remember that he saw my naked body, touched me while I was helpless to stop him, pushed his bare cock into me with no condom, came inside me.
Something in my head thuds heavy and solid, and I feel a shift inside me, like an earthquake, the plates slipping and making the whole world stagger. I sway on my feet, and my fist connects with the side of his head so hard his whole chair tips backwards. He hits the floor and topples sideways, and my breath comes a little quicker. My heart is racing, but it’s found the correct rhythm at last, after months of being just a little bit out of sync. I didn’t know I was going to hit him until I did it, but fuck, that felt good.
I wouldn’t mind punching out the entire football team after all.
I glance over my shoulder. Royal’s sitting at the edge of the pit only a few feet away, his legs dangling in, my bag resting in his lap. I catch his eye, and I have to turn back quick so he doesn’t see me smiling. It’s just adrenaline. It’s not because I feel alive.
At least, I won’t let him know it. Fuck him. He doesn’t deserve credit for this.
I raise my fists and look from one of the twins to the other.
“Can you take your rings off first?” Duke asks. “I’m not saying we don’t deserve our lights knocked out, but those look like they’ll hurt like a bitch. You don’t want to mess up this pretty face, do you?”
“We didn’t fuck up your face,” Baron adds. He hasn’t said a word, but he’s watching me with that unnerving intensity that makes me want to look away.
I don’t.
“Really?” I ask. “Is that what we’re going with?”
I take out my phone and send a quick text. When I look up, the twins are sharing some look that carries meaning I don’t understand.
“Coach will bench us if we look like we’ve been fighting,” Duke says quickly. “And hey, you broke one of my teeth and my nose already.”
I remember my knee connecting with his face. The crunch when my elbow hit his mouth that night, as I fought to free myself. It’s such a small, insignificant thing compared to what they did.
“And that’s equivalent to tying me up and letting your whole football team rape me?”
They exchange another look.
“Tell her,” Royal grits out behind me.
“It wasn’t the whole team,” Baron says, nodding his head toward Dawson. “It was just the three of us.”