Kings of Anarchy (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #3) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,177

but as I looked in at the two of them, it was fairly obvious to me that his nurse was a pretty high factor in his cooperation.

Tatum was wearing a pair of booty shorts and one of Kyan's shirts with a knot tied at the waist to combat the heat in the room which had been cranked up when Kyan started shivering. As I watched them, she moved to straddle him, reaching behind his head to rearrange his pillows before massaging some menthol vaporub onto his bare chest for him.

Even while he was laying there fighting for his life against a deadly virus, Kyan still managed to raise his hand to squeeze her ass before looking back over at me with a smug grin.

"Asshole," I called and his smile widened.

I tried not to pay attention to the sickly parlour of his skin and focus on him flipping me off instead. He was still the same dickhead who had been my partner in crime for as long as I could remember. He’d been kicking asses for a hell of a long time before this virus came along and no doubt he planned on beating the shit out of this too.

"I hear blowjobs are real good for coughs," he said, loud enough for me to hear him through the glass and Tatum laughed, though I could see how hard she was fighting to remain calm and hide her fear for him.

"I think that's meant to be giving them, not receiving them," she replied teasingly. "But if you make it through today without coughing up any blood then maybe I'll give it a try."

"Deal, baby," Kyan said, grinning even bigger and looking my way again. "I just need to-"

A series of violent coughs cut him off and Tatum helped him lean forward, rubbing his back again and meeting my gaze as I pressed up against the glass to watch as he struggled and she tried to comfort him.

The sound of the coughs was rough and brittle and I could practically feel the strength of them in my own chest as I watched with a desperate wish that I could do anything at all to help him.

When he fell back against the pillows, he swiped a hand over his mouth and my heart stopped dead as I saw the specks of blood that he smeared across his lips.

Tatum sucked in a breath of alarm, her terrified gaze meeting mine as Kyan let his eyes flutter closed and lay panting on the bed.

She grabbed the steamer from the nightstand and Kyan groaned like he was in pain as she encouraged him to lean over it again. I watched them for several minutes as panic rose up in me so sharply I could have sworn that I was bleeding out all over the ground.

When it became clear that they'd forgotten I was even here, I backed away from the window.

I kept backing up until I couldn't see them through the glass anymore and then I turned and bolted.

I ran up the path towards campus as fast as my legs could carry me. I didn't slow down when my lungs began to burn and my muscles ached with the agony of pushing them so damn hard.

I raced through the trees and up the track that led to the cliffs, barely even noticing where I was going until I found myself sprinting towards the edge high up above the lake.

I leapt off of it without even pausing, a yell escaping me as my gut plummeted even faster than I did and I fell towards the grey water of the lake far below with my arms and legs wheeling.

I crashed beneath the surface and shot towards the lakebed as the icy cold water embraced me and adrenaline thundered through my veins, waking me up far more thoroughly than any other feeling in the world ever could.

When I finally stopped sinking, I swam for the surface, sucking in a deep breath as my head breached it and staring up at the sky and cursing each and every star in the heavens.

It wasn't fair. Kyan was too good to die like that. He was worth too much. But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The Hades Virus didn’t discriminate between the people it came for. I just needed to try and keep faith that he could beat it.

The only thing left to me now was the aching sense of certainty that I would make the people responsible for this pay.