I’m thrown onto the floor on my hands and knees, and a foot comes down hard on my back. I’m fighting like crazy, but there isn’t much that I can do against a group of twelve.
I expect pain, most of all, the slashing of knives. That’s my worst fear. All of that blood …
When I try to scream, hoping to catch the attention of, well, anyone at this point, another foot is pressed down on the side of my face.
“Quiet. This doesn’t have to hurt unless you make it hurt.” Veronica pushes down harder against my skull as I’m jostled around, pulled and yanked and shoved. It takes me a minute to figure out what they’re doing. Are they … are they cutting my clothes off?!
A hot sharp lance sears across the back of my thigh, and I gasp in pain, unable to make anymore sound than that. My muscles are trembling as I press my palms into the floor, trying to dislodge the person whose foot is atop my back. No luck. I’m crushed even harder into the ground as another slice tears across my shoulders, my arms, even my ass.
“Keep fighting and you’ll end up with more cuts,” Veronica remarks absently, seemingly unconcerned at unleashing cruelty on me that I damn well know that I don’t deserve. What have I ever done to her? I’ve barely spoken a handful of words to this chick. The closest we’ve ever been to one another is when she was standing behind Lumen and giggling at all of her jokes. That’s it. I didn’t even know Veronica’s name until recently.
Still, that doesn’t stop the girls as they use their knives to slice up my uniform, tearing the fabric from my body with horrendous shredding sounds, even as blood leaks out to pool on the floor near my face. My whole body smarts; I’m not even sure it was fully healed from the last time this happened. I know for a fact that my nose and fingers aren’t, but I guess I didn’t realize how many of my bruises were still tender.
It feels like I’m lying on that floor for hours, but I know it can only have been a couple of minutes. As quickly as the melee started, it stops, and I’m left shivering, pushing myself up with my palms on the floor. My skin feels cold and hot all at once.
Looking down, I see blood smeared across my pale skin and a distinct lack of clothing.
I’m naked.
I’m completely naked and lying on the floor in the academy’s hallway.
“Look up, bitch,” Veronica commands, and my head flies up on instinct, just in time to see that she has her phone in her hand. She’s recording me. No. I wrap my arms around my chest out of instinct as the girls surrounding me laugh, forming a tight circle that should hide me from any passersby.
My uniform—even though it’s clearly in scraps—is gone. There isn’t even a piece of shredded fabric to hold over myself.
“Maybe daddy can use this to plug your image into his new app? He said he could find people on the dark web, right? Because that’s exactly where this video is going.”
I try to stand up, but hands push me down on either side, clamping on my shoulders and locking me in place.
“What a fun livestream this is turning out to be,” Veronica continues, her brown eyes blazing as she looks down at me. “Stand her up.”
There’s a shuffling sound behind me, and then the hands on my shoulders are gone, the pressure and the pain of those harsh fingertips releasing in a rush.
Black fabric appears in my vision, wrapping around me like the wings of some massive bird, and then warm arms follow it, bundling me up.
There’s a collective gasp, and I lift my eyes up to see Veronica staring at someone behind me. She backs up a step, but her phone remains where it is: still recording.
“Oh god, it’s you,” she says, her voice a breathy whisper. There’s a healthy dose of fear there, underlaid with something else. Respect?
“Yeah,” a voice says, and my heart soars when I recognize it immediately for who it is: Parrish. “It’s me.”
He lifts me from the ground and sets me on my feet, holding my waist with one arm as I look up at him. It’s his blazer that’s been thrown around me; I tug it close, hiding my nakedness from the girls as best I can.
Parrish glances down at me, but only for a second. His focus is on Veronica.
If I were her, I’d be afraid.
He looks fucking terrifying, a true king in his element. He might not like the Whitehall dynamic, or the way Medina’s high society works, but he understands it enough to take control of it. He’s the king of the academy for a reason. I turn toward him automatically, burying myself against his side.
