“What you did to earn your places amongst the Unspeakables,” Tatum said angrily, almost shouting as genuine hurt shone on her features. “All of those fucked up things you did to deserve this fate.”
Freeloader’s lips popped open and most of the other Unspeakables recoiled. We didn’t usually make the crimes of the Unspeakables public knowledge and we banned them from speaking about them to protect the people they’d hurt along the way to earn their place in their club of outcasts. It wasn’t right for the girl Bait had abused to have her name dragged through the mud alongside his, or for any of their victims to suffer the same. So aside from a few cases like Squits where a big group of people had been affected by their crimes, not many people knew exactly what the Unspeakables had done to deserve their fates.
There was a murmuring in the crowd behind us as everyone leaned close to listen in, desperate to unearth these secrets like the hungry sheep they were.
“It’s not as bad as it seems,” Freeloader muttered. “I did a bad thing, but I’m not a bad person-”
“What about Pigs wanting to kill those innocent animals?” Tatum demanded. “What about what Deepthroat did?”
The girl in question lifted her chin at her name and had the fucking audacity to step forward.
“I’m not like the rest of them,” she insisted and a low growl rumbled in my chest, but Saint’s hand landed on my arm to warn me back. This was Tatum’s fight and we were going to let her have it.
“You’re one of the worst of all,” Tatum spat, the pure, undisguised hatred on her face impossible to miss as she sneered at the girl who’d assaulted me.
“Why?” Deepthroat demanded, practically shouting. “Because I liked a guy and he got a bit drunk one night and threw himself at me? Who the fuck punishes someone for giving them a blowjob anyway? You weren’t there that night, Tatum, and I don’t know what he told you, but he was gagging for it, begging me to do it. And then the next morning he just flipped out on me like an utter psychopath and tried to make out that I’d-”
Tatum punched her so hard that I heard her nose break over the scream that escaped her. Deepthroat fell back into the mud and all of the students surrounding us started shouting in excitement as Tatum leapt on her, beating the shit out of her with a feral cry of rage as Deepthroat screamed for help beneath her.
But no one tried to help her. Not one single person could have gotten close even if they’d wanted to.
My blood lit with excited energy as I watched our girl set her wild side loose, my heart thrashing beneath my ribs as I tried to take in the fact that she was doing this for me. That all of that rage and heartache and beautiful fucking fury was on my behalf.
I let her throw a few more punches before moving forward and dragging her upright again, pulling her back before she killed the bitch and gave all of us a fucking nightmare to fix. There were way too many cellphones pointed this way to contain that shit. Though I had to admit I’d had more than one fantasy about killing that whore before now.
“Fuck all of you,” Tatum spat, tears spilling down her cheeks as she glared around at the Unspeakables, her gaze fixing on Bait in his white mask as she shook her head in horror like she was just now seeing all of them for the first time. “The Night Keepers have gone too easy on you if you want my opinion. And I hope you all rot in hell for the things you’ve done.”
She yanked herself out of my arms and strode into the sports hall with the three of us following behind her without a word.
Tatum didn’t stop until she’d reached our usual spot at the very back of the bleachers, dropping down and staring ahead as we moved to take our seats around her.
I couldn’t keep the grin from my face as I sat on her right and I pulled her bloody hand into mine, running my thumb over her knuckles and smearing the blood to coat her skin.
“You see, beautiful,” I breathed, leaning in to speak in her ear so that my words remained hers alone. “You’re just as dark and dirty as the rest of us when you need to be.”
“Is that a good thing?” she murmured, ignoring the looks the rest of the students were shooting us as they took their seats and looking right into my eyes instead.
“Yeah, baby. That’s a really good thing,” I promised.
These days I felt like my skin was itching almost all of the damn time. Like I couldn’t sit still and I needed something to help me take the edge off every minute of every day. There were a few exceptions. Like when I managed to snare Tatum in my arms, make her smile, taste her kisses…or other parts of her body. But those moments were always fleeting, stolen, unsure. Like I was capturing the girl I’d met way back at the start of term every now and then, finding her off guard and slipping past her defences for a brief time. But they always came to an end. And I didn’t even mean because she kept cock blocking me and leaving me aching for her. No, they came to an end before that happened. When she looked at me for long enough to remember all the
