Page 16 of Monster Made
She tries to pass her, but Cass doesn’t budge.
“Can I go?” asks Piper in confusion. “I have a… uhm… a headache. Can you please let me pass?”
She’s a terrible liar, and Cass doesn’t buy it anymore than I do. She merely stands in front of the door, looking down her nose at her.
“Let’s just wait for Mr. Campbell to come back,” she says in a way that sounds like a suggestion, but that I very well know isn’t. “You’re going to need a lot of help if you don’t want to flunk science class. You’re the stupidest girl I—”
She breaks off her sentence at the sound of shattering glass. I’ve just grabbed the flask and slammed it against a nearby table. Both girls jump, and even the West High soldiers seem startled out of their dumb silence.
Meanwhile, Finn stands up slowly and comes to stand behind me. I have no idea if he means to help me or stop me, and frankly, I don’t care.
My full attention is on Cass as I hold the broken flask threateningly in my hand. She sees it, and her eyes widen almost imperceptibly, but Piper, after the initial crash, doesn’t notice a thing. She’s far too busy… flipping off her lab partner.
“Let me go,” she snaps, “you bitch.”
I can’t help the shadow of a smirk that tugs at my lip. But whilePiper probably imagines it’s her words that at last cause Cass to relent, I know it’s the broken flask I’m still holding threateningly behind her.
Cass rolls her eyes and steps to the side. “Fine. Whatever. Bye, loser.”
Piper’s answer is another middle finger, and then the silly, astoundingly oblivious girl saunters away.
I pause just long enough to hold the glass to Cass’s neck. “I thought I’d told you not to speak to her,” I growl.
Her eyes widen even further, but the next second, I realize she’s not scared of the glass at her throat. She’s scared because… I’m leaving.
“Wait!” she gasps. “Don’t go! You can’t go!”
I ignore her and rush after Piper, who’s angrily stalking down a very narrow and winding corridor.
I just have time to hear Cass cry out, “No, no, no! Finn! Get back inside! Stop!”
And then, there’s a loud thud, like the sound of a falling body. I glance back and see Finn on the ground, a syringe in his neck, while Cass looks on, her face a mask.
But I wipe the strange scene clean from my mind as I realize Piper is disappearing around a corner of the hallway. I hurry to catch up to her.
She doesn’t once look back, clearly lost in whatever thoughts are causing her to wear the goofy, victorious grin that I notice when I grab her again by the arm.
“Let me go!” she screams, trying to free herself from my hold.
Instead, I wrap my arm around her, squeezing her even more firmly, my other hand closed around the flask. I hurry her past several smaller doors before reaching a double one. I kick it open and exhale a relieved breath when I see that we’re outside.
Piper feels none of the relief that I do. She merely gazes down at the broken flask with its sharp, jagged edges, and questions,“What’s that?”
I don’t bother to respond. Instead, I let go of her just long enough to wrap a hand around her long red curls and pull her along that way.
“You’re hurting me!” she squeaks out.
Good.
I want to hurt her. I want to fucking hurt this idiot girl who nearly got herself killed. I’ll never leave another bruise on her face. But fuck, am I struggling not to give in to the urge to rip her hair out of her skull.
“Where are we going?” she gasps, as I drag her along toward the motorcycle I’ve parked a few streets away from Devil Tower.
I push her over the front of the seat, so her ass is up, which is the only part of her that I don’t want to kill right now. Though I really want to fucking punish it.
She deserves to get punished for the insane shit she just pulled.
“Quill!” she protests as I sit right behind her, lifting my leg to pin her to the seat.
