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Did Felix bring me home? Why would they do that, after the torture they inflicted?
Letting out a shaky breath, I tug my shirt back down, swinging my legs over the side of my bed. I was absolutely terrified last night. I never knew their pranks to be that scary… that… lethal. I figured they were regular pranks that went a little too far. This one could have killed me. If I was just a little bit closer to the edge of the cliff, I might have hit the wall.
Snapped my neck.
Broken bones.
My mind flashes to right before I fell off the cliff, to the random woman staring at me. It’s like she wasn’t from this time. Her white dress looked old, with its poufy sleeves, worn and stained with dirt. The way her broken face watched mine, it was like she was trying to tell me something.
That, or she was death, ready to greet me.
“Shit,” I whisper with a shaky breath, rubbing my hands up and down my arms to warm the chill that seems to be ever-present in my body.
A knock raps softly at my door, and it creaks open, my mom’s head poking through.
I try to straighten my face, but I’m too slow, or my mom is too intuitive, because she narrows her eyes at me, her gaze trailing down my chest and arms, to my legs, and back up again. I raise my sheet over my shoulder to cover the broken strap, but I’m afraid she already noticed.
“Is everything all right?” she asks slowly.
I nod, absolutely refusing to tell her what happened. She’d lose her mind if she knew what the guys have done to me.
She narrows her eyes, stepping into my room. Her hand grips the doorknob, and she watches me with suspicion. “Where were you last night?”
“I was home. Everything is fine.” I avert my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest. “I do have to get ready. I’m meeting with the girls soon. Do you mind?”
She lets out a sigh and intakes a large breath. “Your lies taste bitter, Hazel. And this entire room smells like pine and Lake Superior. I’d be careful what you allow to infect your mind, or you may find yourself down a road you can’t come back from.”
I bite my lower lip, nodding my head as I refuse to connect my eyes with hers. I can see her purple socks from the corner of my eye, her toes curling before she retreats, closing the door behind her.
The moment I hear the click, I race to my white dresser, pulling on the golden knobs. I grab the first outfit I can find before pushing the drawer shut with such force it rocks against the wall.
My bare feet slap against the hardwood as I walk to my door, opening it quickly and darting across the hall into my bathroom. I close the door, pushing the middle of the knob to lock it and drop my clothes on the floor. The laminate counter sits in front of me, with our oversized oval mirror hooked to the wall. Glancing at my appearance, I instantly cringe.
Shit, I look like hell.
My face is brown with soot, my hair knotted. I bring my hand up, pulling a broken twig from the tangles, dropping it into the sink.
As I take my dirty clothes off, depositing them on the ground, my fingers expand over my stomach, over the cut. It’s clean, not dirty like I saw last night. Did he clean it for me?
He put my clothes back on…
My heart gallops across my chest, and I squeeze the edge of the counter as I lean forward, my head dropping between my shoulders. I could come to so many different conclusions, but I refuse to. Because the moment I think he has the tiniest soft spot in him, he turns around and hurts me.
Felix isn’t a nice man. He’s my enemy.
If he dressed me, it’s probably because Atticus told him to. He’s the nicest of them all, if you can even call him nice. Malik is harsh and quiet, rude, and a little scary. Felix, he is just dangerous all around. He has an energy about him that is filled with so much rage, like he’d snap your neck without thinking twice. Levi sits somewhere in the middle, a little silent, and not so cruel, but the moment he hates you, you’ll know it forever.
These men are all fucked up, and I’m dealing with the worst one of them all.
Yet, he dressed me, cleaned my wound, and put me back in bed.
What does it mean?
I can’t think about it. I can’t allow my mind to wander, for my hopes to stray. I grab them, shoving them deep into the recesses of my mind, locking them up tight.
It doesn’t matter if he had a moment of kindness, because last night he nearly killed me. They nearly let me die, and they terrified me, degraded me, tore me to shreds with their eyes.
My eyes lift to my own in the mirror, narrowed with resolution.
