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CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
KYLER
My head was poundingas I drifted back into consciousness. My whole left arm felt like it was on fire too, and my stomach and chest were killing me. Everything was fuzzy, but as the memories started to filter through my mind, my heart started pounding.
* * *
Another kick landed on my stomach, and I yelped in pain. My eye was swollen halfway shut, I was pretty sure I had at least one broken rib, and I felt nothing but pain in every cell of my body. Not just physical pain, but the kind of soul-deep agony that drained me and zapped me of any will I had left to fight the inevitable. I was going to die here tonight, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Max and Coach Jefferson had been taking turns beating the crap out of me and taunting me, telling me what they were going to make Ian watch them do to me, but they hadn’t actuallydoneanything they were threatening. It was like part of their torture was making me wait for it.
I’d only just found my strength and seen a glimpse of the life I could have, and now it was all about to be stolen from me.
A rustling in the trees caught my attention, and bile rose in my throat, making me expel the contents of my stomach all over the ground.
Ian was here. Ian was here, and he was going to have to watch his football coach and one of his teammates violate me in the worst possible way before they killed us both. I wasn’t naïve enough to think they’d actually let us live after this. And it was all my fault. If I’d just kept my mouth shut and not told him anything, none of this would have happened.
“Walter Jefferson and Max Taylor, this is the police!” I heard Kyra call from the cover of the trees surrounding us. “I want you to let Kyler go and come out with your hands up!”
“Fuck!” Coach Jefferson growled. “I should have known that fucking pussy wouldn’t listen!”
He looked back and forth, like he was trying to figure out how to get himself out of this situation, and then he looked directly at Max.
“Finish her,” he barked.
And then he ran deeper into the woods without another word, just like the coward he was.
“Looks like your boy-toy can’t follow instructions, Ky,” Max hissed as he pulled that godforsaken pocketknife that he carried everywhere out of his pocket. “Too bad Juliet won’t get to say goodbye to her Romeo before she kills herself.”
And then he cut the bindings on my wrists and sliced a deep gash on the underside of my left wrist. I cried out as the stinging pain radiated all the way up my arm, and I felt the warm, sticky liquid seeping out onto my skin as he stood up and ran off in the same direction Coach Jefferson had gone.
* * *
My breathing came in short gasps as I opened my eyes and looked around.
“Ky,” came my favorite voice in the world.
I snapped my head in the direction it had come from and found Ian sitting there with bloodshot, puffy eyes, like he’d been crying for hours.
“Ian,” I murmured. “How long have I been out?”
“Just a few hours,” he said, taking my right hand and bringing it to his lips for a kiss.
“What…what happened?” I asked.
“What do you remember?”
“Max grabbed me from the school parking lot,” I sighed. “He must have hit me over the head, because when I woke up again, I was in some wooded area outside.”
“Jefferson’s property,” he supplied.
“Max started to…to pull down his pants, but Coach Jefferson said not to,” I told him. “He said…he said he didn’t want to wear me out before you got there because he wanted to make you watch. Then he took the pictures and sent them to you. They kicked me in the ribs and hit me a lot, I think just to keep me weak and hurting, but Coach wouldn’t let Max do anything else because he really thought you’d just listen to what he said. And then when the cops got there, Coach Jefferson ran off and Max cut my wrist because he was trying to make it look like a suicide, and then he took off too. I sort of remember Kyra calling for medical, but I passed out pretty quick. Did they catch them?”
He nodded. “Um, Max is back in custody. And Coach Jefferson…he’s dead. He pulled a gun on a police officer, and they fired back. I just…I don’t get how I didn’t see it. I’d known the guy for a year, and I never had any clue.”
“No one did, Ian,” I said softly. “It’s not your fault. It’stheirfault, and only their fault.”
There was so much pain written all over Ian’s face and a few tears brimmed in his eyes, but they didn’t spill over. My heart broke seeing him like this and knowing it was my fault for bringing him into this. If I’d just kept my mouth shut, none of this would have happened.
