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“Have a long look, bitch,” he sneered.
Her breath caught when she noticed pale-gold rings in his irises she was sure hadn’t been there before. Danger prickled down her spine.Contacts, she assured herself.
“Oh, that’s right,” he said and pressed closer. “We’re gonna have so much fun once we get back to town, and I make you my bitch.”
Her logical mind noted that they weren’t planning to murder her in the woods, but her heart was still pounding; she was still breathless and full to the brim with the knowledge that this was fucking bad.
“Or you could just let me go,” Violet forced out against the pressure on her neck.
“Why would I do that when this time tomorrow you’ll be back at my place, my own little whore? We’re gonna have fun, and we’ll see howinterested in meyou are after I breed you and let all my buddies on you too.”
Violet had kicked him before he drew another breath, boot landing expertly between his legs. She only had a second to grimace at her temper, then, for the second time that night, a fist hit her face.
Time blurred down to breaths. She pushed against the hands holding her and doubled over when he struck her again. Violet clawed at the fingers that tugged at her clothes and bit and yowled her fear and her rage. Some distant part of her wondered if she ought to scream? What filled the air between pauses for breath was more of a roar.
A rock beside her elbow caught her attention, and it was thoughtless to scrabble to get a grip on it, then smash it into the nearest face. Almost instantly, a boot landed firmly in the middle of her chest to push her back down and settled atop her throat. She breathed, heaving cold air into her burning lungs, and looked up into three pairs of matching yellow-ringed eyes.
“Come on, man, you know the rules. You’ve got to claim her first.”
The boot pressed harder.
“Jason, seriously.”
“He’s right, bro. Let’s just take her back and save this for tomorrow night, all right?”
The friends were starting to sound nervous, Violet noted, though the majority of her mind was consumed with the struggle, concerned with surviving this. Breathe in, breathe out. The trickle of blood she could feel in her hairline, and the wound that was warm and wet on the side of her shin.
The forest around them was quiet. Her grip on the boot at her throat tightened, a shot of dread and regret spilling through her. If they killed her out here, she’d never see Lila again.
“You boys lost?”
Pinned to the forest floor, she couldn’t look around, but the voice was deeper, older, rang with authority, and for the first time in her life, Violet was glad to bump into what she hoped was a cop.
The clearing was frozen for a long moment. Her heart hammered and she struggled for every breath against the pressure on her throat.
“Help,” she wheezed out, rushing on, “they grabbed me from a club, I just want to—”
A blunt impact to her ribs stole the rest of her breath and doubled her over in pain, although blessedly, the boot was gone, and she could breathe. She was sober, she realized, breathing through the throbbing ache down the right side of her chest, cold and dehydrated, tired and hurting.Get the fuck up, she sneered silently at herself before the first wet of tears could prick her eyes. Lila needed her, and there was no way she was dying in some godforsaken woods in the middle of nowhere.
Violet staggered to her feet, blinking in the dim moonlight that filtered down through the canopy of bare tree branches and thick evergreens. Four shapes stood a few feet away, the boys and someone larger. He was a head taller than any of them, and twice as wide, and suddenly, she wasn’t so sure he was a cop, after all.
She didn’t stay to ponder it. Still fighting for her breath, she limped fast toward her car, torn between speed and trying to be quiet.
“Hey,” a voice said, right as her fingers touched the cold, metal door handle.
Then quiet went out of the window. It was a scrabble to yank open the door and throw herself down inside. Her foot was already on the gas pedal while her hands clawed desperately at the ignition, the cup holder, and the seat beside her, because all she needed was the key, just the fucking key, and she could leave all this behind.
“Hey, now,” that voice said again, and she refused to look up, still desperately searching the seat, the ignition, the cup holder, and the dash, over and over again, Her brain stuck in the same loop as if it might change the outcome.
Strong hands took hold of her arms, but they weren’t rough like the boys had been all night.
“They’ve got the keys, come on.”
No keys. No keys. No escape.It ricocheted inside her, and crushed down on top of the hurt, the cold, the fear, and all the adrenaline that had been singing in her blood promising she could escape.
Violet hated that her eyes were wet when she looked at him. Some older guy who looked like he belonged on the fucking screen with Captain America and the Hulk, huge and dark haired with fine shadow on his cut-glass jaw. He was the epitome of conventional handsomeness.Barf.
“You have to help me,” she told him, feeling something break inside her. She’d beg if that’s what it took to leave, to live.
