“You can still let me go.” It’s a hail-mary, and I know it, but I’m willing to give it a shot.
In response, she laughs, throwing her head back and laughing so loud that a bird takes off from the trees near us. “Are you fucking stupid? I can’t let you go now! Not when I’m so close to getting what I want! You have no idea what pressure I’m under, and then you just waltz in here like everything’s find and threaten to ruin it all. You are, by far, the stupidest bitch I’ve ever met, you know that?”
The last thing I want is to hear how much she hates me, but just like with Quinn, I wonder if keeping her talking will save me. At the same time, I look over her head back to the clearing, wishing that someone would come for me.
It’s unlikely that that person would be Quinn, but there’s always a chance that he may come through.
And what? Save me?
He’s much more likely to hold my head under the water while Madeline laughs.
Fuck. If I’m looking to my bully to save me, then I really am fucked.
“Okay, let’s go.” The words surprise both me and Madeline, but she doesn’t waste time standing around waiting to see if I’m going to change my mind.
“Great. Go.” Reaching out, she shoves my shoulder, and I feel a bit of the dirt shift under my feet. If she’s pushed me too much harder then I would have fallen for sure.
It’s the only thing that may save me.
I grit my teeth and dig in my heels, knowing that by not moving she’s going to get pissed. If I don’t move then she’s going to push me again to get me on the path, and that’s when I’m going to have my only chance to get out of this mess.
“Did you not fucking hear me? Move!” Madeline pushes me harder this time and my feet slip out from under me, just like I knew they would. Instead of falling on my ass, I twist my body and reach for her, planning to pull her down with me.
My fingertips slide down her legs but I can’t get a grip. When I hit the ground, all of the air knocks out of me and I land on my wrist again, writing in pain.
It doesn’t matter that I’m slowly sliding down the path.
It doesn’t matter that she’s walking along behind me, biding her time.
With my broken wrist I’m really no match for her. I never thought that she was particularly strong, but there’s an anger in her that I can’t hope to beat. I don’t want to keep begging, but I sure as hell don’t want to die.
Crying out, I push off of the path with my left hand and try to lunge at her, but she sees me coming and is too fast. Her leg snaps out and she kicks me in the chin, throwing me back onto the dirt.
“Why won’t you just give up?” Her voice echoes through the woods as she screams. If we weren’t so far from the quad, then I could hope that someone would hear me.
But would they even come for me?
The realization that I’m about to die hits me like a ton of bricks and I collapse on the ground, breathing hard. My face is planted in the dirt of the path, my chin aching to the point that I can’t even open my mouth. This is not how I ever thought that I would go.
Not how I thought that my time at Trinity Prep would end.
I’ve read before that, when you die, your hearing is one of the last things to go. That even when people are on their death beds, they can still hear their loved ones talking to them. It’s always sounded like a bunch of shit.
But I swear that I hear footsteps coming down the path towards us. And even though I’m not dead, or dying yet, really, I can’t help but think that maybe someone is coming to save me.
Really, though? There’s nobody at Trinity Prep who would put themselves on the line for me.
I want to push off of the ground so that I can see past Madeline and look for my savior, but my right wrist is no longer working and my head aches so bad that opening my eyes feels like torture. The dirt in the path is cool and soft, and it feels much better to just rest my head.
That’s why I don’t see what happens.
I hear it, though.
And the sounds that I hear are ones that I’m going to remember for a long time. I’m going to hear them in my nightmares.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The sick smack of flesh hitting flesh is one that I’ve heard before, but recently I’ve been on the receiving end of it. Hearing someone else get hit is a refreshing change of pace, honestly.
“What the fuck!” Madeline’s voice cuts through the silence of the woods and I force my head off of the ground, looking up to try to see what’s going on. All I can see from here are her feet, and she takes a step back towards me, obviously trying to get away from whoever is attacking her.
Another smack and her ankle rolls, slipping on the loose dirt and the rocks, and I watch with horror and fascination from my place on the ground as she slides past me, screaming in pain.
“Who told you that you could do this?” I know that voice. My blood runs cold when I hear it, but a warmth spreads from my core throughout my body. It’s Quinn, and the fact that he’s here when I’m about to be murdered by his sister scares the shit out of me.
His feet are next in my line of view, running past me to reach Madeline. Twisting my body, I turn
