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“Becca,” she corrected automatically. Her voice was breathy, her hands still clenched in fists.
“For god’s sake—” His eyes slid left. “Just get in the car.”
She scrambled into the driver’s seat, her hands fumbling for the seat belt. Just when she wondered if he was going to get in, he yanked the back door open and almost fell into the car.
“Drive.”
Her foot smacked the accelerator and the car shot forward, swerving toward the building. Her heart beat on the back of her tongue, and she yanked the wheel. The car fishtailed before straightening out.
Chris swore. “Drive without killing me.” He coughed. “I should have clarified.”
She swung the car out of the parking lot and onto the main road, accelerating like a bank robber. Her breath was loud in the confines of the car. Houses whipped by, but she had yet to pass another vehicle.
She barely hesitated at the stop sign at the end of Old Mill Road, screeching through the turn.
“Hey.” Chris’s voice was quiet. “Take it easy. Their car was on the other side of the cafeteria. You can slow down.”
She eased her foot off the pedal. “What did they want? That one guy doesn’t go to our school.”
“Not anymore.” He paused. “Thanks.”
ER 1
The self-defense class had been a waste of sixty bucks.
Becca hadn’t felt like a victim going in, but she sure did now. When she’d seen the flyers around school advertising a three-hour session with a “women’s defense specialist,” she’d been eager to sign up. But the instructor—really just some college kid named Paul—had been texting half the time, happy enough to pocket their cash in exchange for halfhearted instructions about body blocks and eye gouges. She’d lose another Saturday scrubbing kennels to make this money back.
She’d left her cell phone in her locker, so after class she went to get it. Her best friend had left fourteen texts about some drama with her mom, so Becca stood in the shadowed corridor to write back. Quinn wasn’t exactly patient.
The night air bit at her flushed skin when she slid out the side door, making her wish she’d brought a heavier jacket—but at least the promised rain had held off. Darkness cloaked the now empty parking lot, and her car sat alone near the security lamp in the middle of the cracked concrete.
This was exactly the kind of situation Paul had warned them about: secluded and solitary, offering little visibility. But Becca welcomed the darkness, the silence. She almost wished she smoked, so she could lie on the car’s hood, flick a lighter, and make up names for the constellations while nicotine burned her lungs.
You should be so cool.
Her key found the lock, but the door handle to her aged Honda refused to release. She muttered the obligatory prayer, but nothing happened. Sometimes it took a curse.
Then she heard a muffled shout, a distant scuffle on pavement.
She froze, more curious than afraid. A fight? Here? She saw the combatants, just at the edge of the security light over by the east wing. Three guys fighting, two on one, it looked like. One caught another in a headlock, and the third swung a fist at the captive’s midsection while he struggled.
They weren’t saying anything, making the violence cartoonish and unreal, like watching an action movie on mute.
The kid in the headlock twisted free, his liberty quickly rewarded with a fist to the head, sending him into a stagger. Another punch brought him to the ground.
Then he didn’t move. One of the other guys kicked him in the stomach.
She heard that. And the sound made her remember that she was just standing in the middle of a parking lot, watching.
Becca dropped beside her car. Breath whistled into her lungs. She didn’t want to open the door and have the sound or the light draw their attention. She’d call the police. An ambulance. The whole frigging cavalry.
She thrust her hand into her bag for her cell phone.
Dead.
Damn Quinn and her fifty bazillion texts. Becca swore and punched the phone against the pavement. The cover snapped off, skittering away under her car.
Helpful, Bex.
