Kings of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #1) - Caroline Peckham ,Susanne Valenti Page 0,98

beacon at knowing I only had a few more hours before I could make it out of here with Sneak and Bait. I just had to hold out a little longer.

Saint led me down the path ahead of the other guys, taking a right turn as we walked along by the lake. From a distance, we probably could have been mistaken for a couple taking a leisurely stroll. But up close, you’d see the murder in Saint’s eyes and the tension in my posture. There was certainly no romance here. Unless you counted Saint’s ongoing love affair with cruelty.

He turned suddenly to the left, making me stumble as he took me down a small track onto the narrow lakeshore. The stones shifted beneath my feet as he dragged me along then paused at the water’s edge. A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered the other night and my fingers involuntarily tightened around Saint’s hand.

He turned to me with a vicious smile, releasing my hand in an instant. “Scared, Barbie?”

“No,” I said immediately, my spine straightening as I felt Blake and Kyan closing in behind me. You should never turn your back on a wild animal, and right now, it felt like I was about to be pounced on and torn limb from limb by two of them.

Saint laughed hollowly then reached into his blazer pocket, taking out a deck of cards. He slid them out of the pack, shuffling them between his fingers and I swallowed as I waited for him to explain what we were doing here. He liked to torture me with menial, bullshit tasks, and I suspected I was about to be faced with another one.

Blake’s breath fluttered against the back of my neck and the heat of it sent a wave of warmth rushing down my spine.

I wanted to step forward to gain some distance from him, but I knew doing so would reveal how much he was affecting me. And I couldn’t let that happen.

“You’re going to play a game,” Saint said and I folded my arms as I waited for him to go on, my heart clenching tightly in my chest. “It’s called fifty two pick up.” He turned to the water, holding the edges of the pack between his fingers until the deck bent and the cards exploded from his hand, over half of them scattering in the water. They immediately started floating away and for a second my lungs wouldn’t work.

“Pick them all up and return the pack to me at dinner,” Saint snarled, invading my personal space and lowering his head so he was nose to nose with me. I could almost smell the charred lump of coal that took the place of his heart. “If even one is missing, you’ll be punished. And I’m not beyond putting you over my knee in front of the entire school, Plague. Remember that.” He shouldered past me, making me stumble back into Blake who immediately shoved me forward again, and I slipped on the wet stones and crashed to my knees. My skin split in several places and I hissed as pain spiked across my shins.

A thousand curse words wrapped around my tongue and I battled with all the might of an army to stop them from spilling out.

Keep quiet. Obey. Buy your chance at freedom!

I heard them walking away and glanced over my shoulder as they made it up to the path. Saint straightened his blazer as he headed off and his two lapdogs followed.

The second they were out of earshot, I let my tongue run wild, calling them every colourful insult I could come up with as I shed my blazer and kicked off my shoes.

Assbaguettes, cocksnorkels, muffwaffles, twathats.

I had to go after the cards furthest out in the lake first or I’d end up swimming to try and find them. And after the dream I’d had last night of drowning in this dark water, I was not gonna let it get to that.

I left my shirt and skirt on the shore then stepped into the water, gasping at how fucking freezing it was.

I growled under my breath, forcing myself to move deeper and deeper as my legs became more and more numb. I snatched cards out of the water with violent swipes, clasping them in one hand as I started counting them in my mind.

The only thing that kept me going was my plan for tonight and I pictured being in Sneak’s mom’s car, holding the vision in