Page 204 of Forbidden Lessons

What thefuckis going on?

“I wanted to present you with a token of our appreciation. Something for your pets. You love your little pets, don’t you, Trailer Trash? Kai told me this was your idea. So clever. But I’m not sure we got the right food for them.”

I don’t have pets. Dad didn’t allow it. They cost too much. Like me. He told me I cost too much with my food, and my books, and my clothes. But I got by.

I always get by.

Something slips around my throat, and it’s cold and not at all like?—

Kai

—a hand, pressing me against the tree, holding me in place as he fingers me into submission. But I didn’t submit, did I, the fucking asshole he?—

There’s a rattle, a tug. I can’t breathe, but then I can.

Someone—

Ezra

—shoves me to my knees, and I yell because it hurts, and the pain brings me to the surface of the glowing bodies and thelightning coursing through my body, the rain rushing over my skin.

I whip my head to the side.

Melissa. Hands on her mouth. Eyes like saucers. Why isn’t she helping me? She shakes her head. Closes her eyes.

“Gonna need you to check, Haven. Let me know if it tastes better than all the dick you’ve been sucking.”

Ezra plants a foot on my ass and shoves me onto my face. There’s a rattle, a clank, and sudden pressure around my neck. I scrabble at my neck, feel a collar tight against my skin.

Then the metal chain locked into the back.

“No!” I try to yank at the chain, but when I throw my head back, Ezra is standing over me with a snarl on his face, the chain wrapped around his fist.

“Be a good bitch and eat your dinner,” he grates. He puts out his foot, and there’s a metal scrape by my knees.

I look down, stare at the bowl full of wet dog food.

But I don’t smell anything. It should stink. Pet food always smells bad.

Am I dreaming?

Nightmaring?

What. Is. Happening?

“Eat it, bitch!” he yells, grabbing the back of my head and shoving me down.

And then he’s gone. And I’m tumbling, rolling. Body paint glows, and someone’s grabbing my arms. I hear thumping behind me as the DJ helps me to my feet, his eyes wide, angry, confused.

“Go,” he says, pointing. “Just go!”

Scat, bitch.

That voice propels me more than the DJ’s command. That voice, buried so deep, so far, so way way way way back it’s dusty and dry and powdery.

Thump.

Thump.

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