Page 81 of Snake

Nim

We drop Romi off at her house and watch her walk up the drive. I’ve stopped touching my hair, because Mason said if I did one more time, he’d tie me up. And I believe him. There’s a tight, anticipatory hush in the car’s cab, the quiet rumble of the engine muffled through it.

“Do we have a plan?” Mason asks Knox, then Silas. Mason is in the back with me, Silas in the passenger seat. His arctic blue eyes caught mine once when Knox took a corner sharper than usual, and since then he’s been staring out of his window, holding onto the ceiling grip like he’s worried for his life. Even now, he doesn’t acknowledge Mason’s question or my very existence.

Thanks, Eliza. I honestly thought I’d gotten Silas past the point of hating me, and then she went and cut off my hair.

I feel like everyone’s making just a little too much of a fuss over this whole thing. I mean, it’s just hair. But then...for fuck’s sake, the bitch cut off my hair!

I’m exhausted, but I feel so wired I’m surprised I don’t arc off everything like a live wire.

“No plan,” Knox says glumly. “But at least we have somewhere to go.”

Mason frowns at him. “Dude, I’m not going back to my house now. And if your sisters catch wind of us going to yours, they’d be—”

“Not there,” Knox says, putting the SUV into reverse and grabbing the back of Silas’s headrest as he turns to look through the back windshield. “Somewhere...else.”

My skin prickles at the way he says it, but when he looks in my direction, he gives me a small, secret little smile. Christ, that makes me prickle in a whole different part of my body, and in a good way.

Mason says nothing, just leans back and lets out a long sigh as he rests his head. Then he rolls his head to the side, staring deep into my eyes for a moment before his gaze roams my face, then my hair.

I toy with it, and then quickly drop my hand into my lap. He reaches out and tries to tuck a lock of it behind my ear, but it just slips out and hangs alongside my face again. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers. I think he meant it for my ears alone, but both Silas and Knox look at him. Knox in the mirror, and Silas by peeking at him from the corner of his eye.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Of course it is.”

There’s silence after that until Knox turns on his indicator and starts up a hill. Mason lifts his head, frowning through the windshield and then ducking his head. “Where are you going?”

“Only one place at the end of this road,” Knox says.

“Exactly.” I can’t make out if Mason sounds angry or surprised. Maybe both. “So what the fuck—”

“Now who’s being the control freak?” Knox locks eyes with him in the rearview mirror, and Mason glares at him before slowly sitting back in his seat again. “We need this,” Knox says. “At least, here, we’ll be safe.”

“Safe,” Silas says through a huff, a stiff smile on his mouth like he’s bemused by the concept. “Nobody’s ever safe in this world.”

After that dreary announcement, the cab is silent again.

Then I see it. It flickers through the trees as we wind our way up a steep hill. Knox turns down the radio, letting in the sound of churning water.

A waterfall.

“Hart Falls,” Knox says, his eyes already on mine when I glance at him in the mirror. “It’s much prettier from up here.”

Right, because the last time I saw it, I was on my knees in front of all three of them, their cum streaking my face. That was right before they dragged me back to Cinderhart Academy and made me their toy.

“So what now?” I ask sourly. “Do you have a little cave up there or something? You three going to take turns jerking off on me again?” It’s the exhaustion speaking. The frustration.

Even when I fight back, nothing changes. I can knock down one bully, two, three...and more will always stand up in their place. I tear my eyes away from Knox, pushing both hands into my short hair and running my fingers through it. It’s long in the front, short in the back. It feels thick and soft, but so fucking weird.

“Yeah, we’re taking you to our little cave,” Mason says. He sounds just as tired. Just as fried. I can blame him all he wants, but apparently, I’m some kind of bully magnet. If it wasn’t them or Eliza, it would just be someone else.

I guess you have two types of people in the world. The ones who get kicked when they’re down...and the ones who do the kicking.

Doesn’t take a fucking rocket scientist to figure out which one I am.

“You’ll like it,” Knox says, and now there’s the suggestion of a smile in his voice. “It’s cozy.”

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