Page 34 of Forbidden Lessons

I go limp, and start sliding to the ground.

Kai drags me back up, flipping me around.

I still feel dazed, like everything’s moving in slow motion. He’s a blur against the night sky. But I can still feel when he grabs my face.

When he tilts my head back.

When a hand slides to the back of my neck.

“Haven?” There’s a tinny echo in his voice. “You get to heaven yet?”

A long exhale of warm breath on my face, then quick puffs as he speaks with his mouth so, so close.

“You’re hurting me,” I moan. Confused, frustrated, my face aching.

“Think this hurts?” he whispers furiously, his fingers tight on my jaw. “You set foot in that school again and I’ll hurt you so good you can’t fucking breathe.”

“Why are you doing this?” It’s a whimper, because that’s all I can manage, and I don’t know how else to make him stop.

“Think I didn’t have questions, huh?”

“Questions?” Even through the foggy, aching pain, I try to understand. “Ask me. Ask me anything.”

He laughs. Brittle, cold. “Why are you such a pathetic whore, Haven?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I don’t know…I don’t know what?—”

“You sure grew up fast, Miss H.”

Then there’s that warmth on my face again. But it’s not the air from his lungs.

It’s his tongue.

Sliding over my chin, my cheek, the tip of my nose.

“Sweetest poison I ever tasted,” he murmurs.

Then my body is slipping to the floor because there’s nothing holding it in place anymore.

Kai is gone, leaving only the memory of his tongue on my skin.

And an echo of his cruel words.

I’ll hurt you so good you can’t fucking breathe.

Chapter 11

Haven

There’s a haze over the sun. It washes out the colors on the entrance of Agony Hollow College. Like my experiences this past week have drained all the color from my world.

It’s one in the afternoon. I’ve been standing in this same spot for over an hour, trying to work up the courage to go inside.

I’ve only been awake since eleven. I hit my head so hard last night that I was terrified I might have a concussion, so I refused to let myself go to sleep…although, honestly, not waking up feels like an easy way out.

The cap on my head is itching where it rubs against my forehead. It’s yellow, the AHC logo in black prominent on the front panel. It was part of the promo merch they handed out when I attended the Social Grant event earlier this year. That, the tote bag, and a bunch of AHC merch.

My phone died again. No alarm to wake me up when I eventually succumbed to sleep. So, yeah. I missed another one of Professor Rooke’s classes.

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