AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Finlay knew nothing.
He never told her.
He kept his word.
“Do you know I encouraged my dad to invest an extra billion into the business? An extra billion we didn’thave. All because of your fake words. Abillionpounds — something you’ll never understand, you cheap little scrounger.”
I’m muttering in pain. My eyelids have slid shut. I can’t focus on Li’s words, which is probably a good thing.
She crouches down in front of me again, her pretty face vicious and twisted.
“Politics is a boy’s game, Jessa.” Her voice is kindly in a way that sickens me, like gorging on too many sweets. “They have time to play politics while we have to carefully set up a good life for ourselves.” She grips my hair again, yanking me forward off the wall. I whine beneath her cruel fingers. “And you so very nearly took that life away from me.” She slams me into the wall, needles of pain slicing up my bones, shattering me like shrapnel.
I’m broken.
I’m slumped against the wall like a forgotten ragdoll.
If only Iwereforgotten. Li resumes her torture, beating me up, kicking me into a pulp. I try to find comfort as I lie in the fetal position, but Li digs her heels into me, turning me over with the top of her boot like I’m nothing more than an insect. She levels further kicks at my exposed body.
“Youdeservethis,” she spits, and then repeats it until it’s rattling inside my head.
I deserve this.
“Let this be a lesson to you,” Li pants, sounding much less composed as she gets stuck into her torment. There’s glee in her voice now, like she’s savoring this. “You fuck with the rich, the rich will fuck back so much harder.” Each pound of her boot against my body begins to feel rhythmic, an anguished melody based around the gurgling of my plea-scratched throat. “Consider this a favor, and maybe thank me later.”
Hot blood begins to spill onto the cold stone floor. At some point, my nose feels as though it’s burst open. My cheek rolls in the bright red liquid, smearing it across my skin. Whenever I swallow, all I taste is a metallic tang. My eyes shut, gluing themselves together with thick tears.
I don’t know how long it lasts. I don’t know how much I endure. But the last thing I hear is the sound of spitting before wetness slides down my cheek, and the world turns dark.
* * *
“Maybe you could stop getting into this kind of predicament,” an irritatingly cheerful voice tells me. “How many times is it you’ve ended up here? Five? Ten? I always knew girls were weak but it’s getting pathetic now.”
My eyes flutter open. Beside me, Rory is casually munching on a bunch of grapes. I note with a belated fascination that he holds them strangely, dangling them above his face and using his lips to pull them from the stem, as though he’s some kind of ancient god whose servants have gone wandering. Dazedly, I watch the pale column of Rory’s throat work around the grapes.
“Danny brought you some grapes,” he says redundantly, offering me the near-empty stem of one. A single red grape remains. I turn my head to the side, the thought of eating enough to make me want to throw up.
The world feels… woozy.
My voice is almost a whisper when I ask, “What happened?”
Rory finishes the last of the grapes and leans forward onto my bed. “My girlfriend thrashed you. I wish I could have seen it. I bet it was pretty hot.”
My blink is slow and deliberate, as though one eye is swollen and it takes effort to move it. “Sore.”
“Well, yeah, you would be. She’s a black belt in karate and tai chi. All the great martial arts.”
I frown, but it hurts to be anything other than purely expressionless. And that’s difficult when Rory’s around, because most of the time he seems to talk complete and utter crap.
“So has she been suspended?”
“Of course not. Why would she be? There’s no proof she did it.”
The pain I’d already been feeling hardens and sharpens like crystals of ice. I get detentions just for breathing; Li doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist for beating me black and blue. Fuck this school.
There’s no sympathy in Rory’s voice, either. Not that I expected it, but even for him, this gloating at my bedside seems like a dick move.
“Why are you here?”
