Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,36

of my father’s betrayal and what he did to me ignites a new wave of fury in me.

“Ah man, I fucking told you this would happen,” the girl says nervously but angrily at the same time as if she’s pretty pissed at me. “You’re so fucking dumb, Mia, I told you to stay away and get out of this town because I knew if they found you…” she trails off, but I get the message.

I look up at her through barely open eyelids, not really seeing her face as it’s cast in shadows. But her voice though, is extremely familiar.

She’s the girl I heard almost pleading for me to taken out of the freezer where I was lying on the floor, freezing to death. But more than that, this girl seems to know me.

But why can’t I remember her name?

Why are my thoughts sluggishly slow and impossible to piece anything together again?

“Who…who are you?” I sound like a drunk, old trucker with lung problems and on my way for dialysis at a crappy hospital, complaining about shitty healthcare as I go.

“Fuck, your memory is shit too,” the girl says. “Probably due to that nasty head bash. The drug they used to knock you out isn’t helping either.”

I try to move again, on the bed, but unlike before when Sean sat there, fully naked as his brother took pictures of us to send to Julian, this time, there’s a thin sheet covering my body.

I’m still cold, but at least I’m not as naked as I was before.

“Did… did you do this?” I ask, tugging at the sheet with numb, stiff fingers, painfully aware that beneath this thin layer, I’m naked and bruised up badly.

I can still smell the blood on me, and now that I’m not in the freezer, some of my nerve endings are thawing and with that… agony.

I moan, tears welling up in my eyes.

“Shh,” the girl says. “I know you’re used to bringing attention to yourself but for once stop or you’ll get us both killed in this slaughterhouse.” Slaughterhouse? Jesus Christ. “And just because I covered you, don’t go thinking it’s some kind of gesture or anything, bitch,” she whispers hotly. “I just grew sick and tired of watching your naked ass shiver and twitch every few seconds while you were knocked out.”

She’s rude this girl, just like someone else I—

“Kristine?” I croak out, hardly believing that it’s her.

“Bingo!” she says sarcastically, her voice still slightly trembling with fear and so damn low like she doesn’t want to be heard even though I’m sure we’re alone. At least for now. “It’s good to know you don’t stay down for long.”

“What-t are you d-doing h-here?” I stutter, my teeth chattering like the cold in trapped in my teeth and bones and there’s no way I’m ever going to be warm again. “Y-you shouldn’t b-be here.”

What is she doing here with them? With the people that hurt me, beat me up and threw me in some kind of industrial freezer in an attempt to fucking cool me down?

At my question, she looks down at me and the fear I see in her eyes chokes me up.

“Kristine, why are you here?” I repeat. She shakes her head, and I realize she can’t even talk as her throat works like she’s drowning in the words she can’t say.

She opens her mouth to say something but quickly snaps it shut, her lips trembling as if she’s trying not to burst in tears.

“Okay, where are we?” I ask softly, feeling like I’m talking to a wounded animal.

“In hell, Mia,” she whispers. “And this is all your fault!”

Not knowing what to say at first, I just blink up at her, my body shivering under the thin sheet, trying not to make a sound as my teeth chatter.

“What do you mean?”

“You caused this when you came barging into my house that time when you should’ve been far away from this shitty gilded cage town, Ice Queen,” she whispers vehemently, looking over her shoulders as if her time is running out. “They knew someone came and they forced it out of me until I had no choice but to give you up.”

Forced it out of her?

“What do you mean by that?” I whisper. “How did they—”

She shifts and it’s then that I really see her appearance. I gasp, my jaw dropping open painfully as her face becomes clearer.

“Oh Kristine,” I choke up and tears start falling down her face. Her battered, black, blue, and green face