When he hangs up and slips the phone back in his pocket I find myself slowly stepping backwards from him. I don’t want to be anywhere near him. I don’t know what he’s about to do, but I have a feeling that it’s not going to be good.
“You want to stay?” He cocks his head a little to the side, like this is all just a game and he’s enjoying himself. “You like Trinity Prep so much that you want to stay?”
I nod but start backing up. The way out of here is to my back. I’ve made the mistake of going down the wrong path once, and I’m not going to make it again. Eventually I’m going to have to turn around and run, and that’s when I’m really and truly fucked.
“I’m staying.” My voice wavers a little and I bite my lower lip, immediately sucking in a breath at the pain that shoots through it. Quinn is an incredible kisser, but he is not…gentle.
“Stay then. See how much you can handle. I’ve always wanted to push someone to their limits.” He’s walking after me now, and he cracks his knuckles, the sound loud in the silence of the clearing.
Nobody is coming for me. There aren’t any birds singing. No matter what he decides to do to me, nobody is going to know about it.
I can’t handle it any longer and I turn, running, trying to avoid roots and rocks so that I don’t trip. Immediately, I hear his footsteps behind me. He’s chasing me – and catching up.
Chapter Seventeen
I don’t make it more than twenty feet down the path before Quinn hits me from behind, his arms wrapped around my waist, his entire weight shoving me off balance and throwing me to the ground.
Instinctively, I throw my arms out in front of me to block my fall, and that’s where I make my mistake. My right hand hits the ground at a bad angle, and I feel my wrist shatter before the pain hits.
The rest of my body follows, and I collapse on the ground with Quinn firmly on top of me, his full weight pushing me into the dirt so that it’s hard for me to breathe. I manage to suck in a breath, though, and that’s when I start screaming.
Immediately, he rolls off of me and flips me over. I grab my right wrist with my left hand, my fingers on fire, my hand feeling like it’s going to fall off.
“You broke it!” I’m sobbing, tears dripping off of my chin, but I choke out the words. “You bastard! You broke my wrist!” The pain is excruciating, but it’s nothing compared to the feeling of dread that sinks through my body when I realize what it means if I can’t paint.
“No.” His voice is low and his face is pale. “You broke it. You fell on it.” Scrambling to his feet, he reaches down and pulls me up by the elbows. Just moving my right arm sends shooting pain from my fingers to my elbow, and I scream again, falling into him.
He catches me, his strong body holding me up and preventing me from ending up on my face in the dirt.
I’m sucking in deep breaths now, trying to keep from passing out. The pain is biting and cold. It’s unrelenting, and I can barely stay on my feet with the way it’s throbbing.
“You shouldn’t have run,” Quinn says, stepping back from me and slowly letting his eyes graze over my body.
I had thought that there was compassion in his voice, and I whip my head up to look at him. There’s nothing in his eyes now. They look as hollow as his laugh earlier. I would have sworn that I saw compassion there earlier, but…I must have been wrong.
The shooting pain in my wrist jerks me back into the moment and I suck in a hiss, trying to fight off the darkness that’s threatening at the edges of my vision. If I pass out now then there’s no way that I’ll be able to get out of here. Quinn will leave me here in the middle of the woods.
“Please help me.” I reach for him, but he takes a step back. My feet suddenly feel glued to the ground. They’re so heavy that lifting them and walking after him is completely out of the question. There’s no way that I can reach him if he won’t meet me halfway. “Quinn. Please.”
“Now you want to beg?” His voice is hard. There’s an edge to it that I haven’t heard before, and it makes me look up at him in surprise. “Now? Not when I could have actually helped you? You really are a stupid little cunt, aren’t you, Abigail? And to think that I thought that there might actually be more to you than that. I was wrong.”
He turns and I’m suddenly afraid that he’s going to walk away and leave me here. “Quinn, wait! Please don’t leave me here.”
I drop to my knees. I’ve never experienced a pain like this before and it’s making it difficult for me to think straight. The aching and throbbing hasn’t died down and I have no idea how I’m going to walk the rest of the way back to the school.
I can’t go to the headmaster. He made it clear that if I show up in his office again that I’m kicked out. I have to get to Madeline.
“Will you please just send Madeline?” If Quinn won’t help me by assisting me out of the woods then maybe he’ll have some pity on me and send me my best friend. She’s the only person I can trust any longer. Not that I thought I could trust Quinn, but I never thought that he’d hurt me like this.
“She won’t come.” He hasn’t turned around or slowed his steps, but his voice is clear
