Kings of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #1) - Caroline Peckham ,Susanne Valenti Page 0,173

rasped, my throat raw from swallowed screams.

“Shut the fuck up!” he bellowed and I stilled, trembling from head to toe, wondering how I was ever going to get out of this. Was this where I was going to lay for the rest of time? In some hidden grave in the woods?

“You won’t get away with this,” I blurted. “Everyone on campus knows who-”

“I said – shut the fuck up,” he snarled, reaching for something at his hip and producing a gun. Not just any gun. My dad’s gun. The Glock 19 pistol.

“Blake,” I breathed, my throat closing up as my heart beat harder and harder.

“She’s in a grave like this, you know?” he snarled. “Six fucking feet under because of your filthy fuck of a father.”

“I’m sorry,” I begged as panic seized me. “I know you lost your mom and I’m so, so sorry for that Blake. But you don’t want to do this.”

He laughed hollowly then crouched down, gazing at me with malice in his eyes. “You don’t know what I want,” he said in a deathly quiet tone. “And you don’t know what I’m capable of either.”

I quaked before him, frozen to my core in nothing but my panties and nightdress. “I do know what you want,” I choked out.

Blake blew out a sharp breath through his nose. “And what’s that?”

“You want me hurt,” I whispered. “You want to see me in pain, you want me suffering for what happened to your mom.”

“Maybe I’m done with the suffering,” he growled. “Maybe I want it over with.”

My lower lip trembled and I tentatively reached up to him, my fingers grazing his as I stretched up onto my tip-toes. “You won’t kill me,” I breathed, though I wasn’t sure if my words were true. I just wished they were with all my heart.

He slapped my hand away and I flinched, stepping back.

“She suffered for a week in hospital,” he growled. “She was infectious so they wouldn’t even let us visit her. I had to say goodbye to my mother through fucking FaceTime,” he spat, rising to his feet and kicking the earth so it showered over me.

I backed up against the opposite wall, tears washing over my skin as I stared at this broken boy.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I never had a mom, I can’t even imagine.”

“No, you can’t,” he snarled, his shadowy silhouette blocking out the light of the moon as he glared down at me. The gun hung loosely in his hand, his finger sitting on the trigger and my heart drummed a war beat in my chest. Despite all of my self-defence classes, nothing had prepared me for this. Being helpless. Weak. Unable to fight back.

“She was a good person,” Blake said, a cloud of vapour rising around him in the cold air. “She didn’t deserve to die like that. Alone. With no one there to hold her-” his voice cracked and he turned away from me, starting to pace.

“I know you’re hurting,” I said gently, praying he’d listen to me. “I know what it’s like to lose someone.”

“Fuck you!” he roared, his voice echoing back to us from the mountain. “Don’t lie to me,” he growled and my heart withered as I realised he was never going to listen.

“Please Blake,” I begged. “I’m not your enemy.”

He fell still and I couldn’t see his expression in the dark. I stood, shaky and tiny beneath him, everything I’d ever been and ever would be narrowing in on this moment. He could take it all from me in a single movement. Buy his revenge in blood.

He lifted the gun, aiming it down at me and my heart fractured. It was over. Done. And between the freezing air and the heated tears rolling down my cheeks, I found an inch of calm in it all. Jessica. She felt closer to me then than she had in such a long time, I could almost hear her calling my name on the wind.

I shut my eyes, not wanting the darkness to be the last thing I saw. I pictured the light days, the happy days, the moments curled in my dad’s arms with a story book resting on his knees. I remembered playing with Jessica in the yard, pretending we were birds as we flapped our arms and soared across the ground, really believing we were flying.

The heavy thud of boots sounded in front of me and my eyes flew open a second before Blake grabbed the back of my neck and