Page 130 of Stormbreaker

“Get out or we’ll make you get out,” Silla says, and it’s obvious she means it.

I back up another few steps. “Fine.” I can’t take on six people alone. Maybe I’ll appeal to Stevie, though I know she can’t do anything to help. I reach for my bag, but they close in around me.

They have no intention of allowing me to walk out of here without a scratch.

“I’m leaving,” I promise. “I won’t come back.”

From the corner of my eye, I notice someone lift an arm, a flash of brown fuzz catching my attention. The blood drains from my limbs along with a soft, panicked breath at the sight of Brick clutching Teddy in his massive grip.

He grins as a snide chorus of laughter circles through my attackers.

Silla advances, placing herself directly in my path, invading my space. “Aw, the widdle Fiama princess had to bring her widdle teddy bear to school,” she says in a baby voice that definitely isn’t cute. “How adorable.”

“Give me that,” I say.

The words spill from my lips of their own accord, and I’m a fool because I’ve just revealed my hand.

“Come and get it,” Brick taunts, his ugly face spreading into a sneer.

It’s a trick. Obviously it’s a trick, but I reach for this last thread of an old life anyway. I’ve lost everything in the past few weeks. My friends. My family. My fiancé, even if I didn’t want him. I’m even slowly losing my best friend.

Teddy is the only connection left to who I was.

Brick laughs and then tosses it to another guy on the far side of the room. They all join in the game, maneuvering around me until I’m surrounded as they hurl Teddy back and forth.

I should walk out of here. I should go to a teacher—someone who might help. But who? Fiama’s professors won’t care, and Aria’s will feel the same. I think of Henry, but I don’t want to bring this burden to him.

But I also can’t leave yet. I can’t let them do something to Teddy. I understand it isn’t logical—he’s just an old toy—but I can’t let them have him. If I lose this, then I worry I’ll never find myself again.

So I stand helplessly, my fists clenching as they make a sport out of taunting me. I spin around and around, trying to keep the bear in my sight. But they pick up their pace, quickly shuffling him among their hands.

Anger boils in my veins, blurring my sight.

The sound of a hideous riiiip fills my ears, and I spin around. “No!”

Brick is laughing, and Teddy is now headless, sheared through the neck. My surroundings turn distant and hollow, like I’m falling into a deep hole. Another rip, and I glimpse soft limbs and white cotton spilling to the floor like tumbling snow.

“No,” I gasp as horror burns up my throat, and then I’m being shoved. I don’t even have the presence of mind to realize they’ve pushed me past the door.

“Give him to me!” I scream, setting off another round of mocking. Still, they push and shove, and I’m jostled among them as I reach helplessly for Teddy, who’s probably lying in a million pieces on the floor.

“I told you to get out,” Silla says again, and then she shoves me in the chest. I’m weightless. I don’t even realize I’m falling until my stomach lifts into my throat and I hit the floor. No, not the floor. Stairs. Because I’m rolling, bumping, plunging to the echoing sound of cruel laughter.

A sharp pain bursts in the back of my head, and then everything goes black.

48

My eyes blink open, red haze bleeding across my vision. Someone jostles me, and I groan. Then a pair of arms lifts me up.

With a whimper, I let my head fall against someone’s chest.

I know that scent.

Fresh breezes and warm sunshine. Green apples.

I slip in and out of consciousness as I feel him carrying me upstairs, followed by the steady cadence of a long hall. I recognize the sterile smell of the med wing and hear the hiss of the door as it slides open before I’m carefully laid on a bed.

Shadows move in the periphery of my vision. Hands touch me. Someone rips off my coat, my shirt. My arm throbs with its own heart.