Thea was on the ground, the cement beneath her was drenched, her hair swirled like snakes in the water puddled beneath her, and her face was bright pink with strange white-blue striations around her mouth—like she’d been deprived of oxygen or something.
I gulped at the sight, blinking like I could clear my vision of the image, but when I rubbed my eyes, she was still there. Still unconscious.
And my nightmare began.
I dropped to my knees, but a hand grabbed me and jerked me upright and back. “Let the Coach do his work.”
Blindly, I stared at the teacher, not even recognizing it was the vice principal, and I hurled at him, “Where are the EMTs? You need to get an ambulance!”
“Everything’s in hand,” he stated.
“Everything’s in hand?” I shouted back at him.
I wanted to be at her side, wanted to hold her and make her okay, but from the looks of the scene around me, I knew something was going on.
Something I didn’t like.
I jerked back from my teacher’s grip, and even though it killed me to walk away, I had no choice. Coach Ogden would carry on with his first aid, but it wasn’t what Thea needed.
The VP yelled something at me, but I ignored him, shoving through the crowd to get back to the locker room. Urgency rode me, but I knew, somehow, what was about to go down.
Thea wouldn’t die.
I knew that.
The school couldn’t afford that.
In a minute, I felt sure that another of the first aiders would make an appearance, but… it wasn’t enough.
As I started to run, I passed Cain and my gaze caught his. It was awkward for him, his head twisted to the side the way it was, but the second he knew I was looking at him, he smiled.
Fucking smiled.
The sick fuck.
My brain felt like it was moving too fast, but also, like I’d never seen with more clarity in all my life.
It didn’t take a genius to figure it out.
Cain had hurt Thea. Maria had too.
No surprises there. Maria was just as much of a twisted bitch as Cain was a twisted fucker. They made a lovely goddamn couple, two sick, bored fucks who were lost in their own apathy…
They’d hurt her. And fuck if I didn’t want to hurt them in turn.
And though they were being restrained, things were swept away in an academy like this one.
Even though my brain whirled at super speed, my body felt like I was moving in slow motion. When I found myself peering into my locker, I blinked. But I grabbed my phone.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Liam snarled, his hand on my wrist, his other trying to grab my cell.
It was the first time I realized I’d been followed, and I shoved him off me with my spare hand, and when he went for my phone again, I decked him. One fist straight to his nose. Blood instantly spurted, spotting my chest with it, and as he howled, I ground out, “Back the fuck off.”
He grabbed his nose like it had fallen off, but he didn’t whine past the initial blow. He tipped his head back and rattled, “Who are you calling?”
“The EMTs. The cops.”
“You can’t do that! They’ll go to jail!”
My vision cleared once more, everything speeding up so that the world was in sync again.
“Exactly.” Cain belonged in a jail cell, and I was going to make sure that happened.
When the cops turned up, the EMTs too, I watched as my brother and his girlfriend were hauled off to the station, and I was at Thea’s side when she was loaded onto a gurney and guided into an ambulance.
All around me, there were whispers.
But I didn’t care.
I could only focus on her. Could only see Thea. She was breathing and her color was better, but, according to Coach Ogden, who’d managed to resuscitate her, she’d only gained consciousness for around twenty seconds before passing out once more.
My heart was in my throat as I held her hand. My entire being ached to be in that bed, to take her place, for her not to have suffered at Cain’s hand.
I should have known.
I never should have brought her here.
Ducking my head, I waited. The journey to the hospital was swift, and I found myself in a waiting room surrounded by clusters of humanity who were bitching at the receptionists, howling from their own injuries, or just sitting there, looking as vacant as I felt.