Page 177 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

He slaps her cheek so hard, her head snaps to the side. “Bad bitch,” he says.

Chapter 36

Nim

I collapse onto the sand, my fingers digging deep into the powdery gray substance. I know I should be getting up, defending myself, maybe even trying to run...but I can’t.

I’ve never been this humiliated in my life. Thisterrified.

I feel...broken.

It doesn’t matter what I do, they’re too strong. How can someone like me fight one monster, never mindthree?I could have tried to hurt them. I mean, for fuck’s sake, they had their goddamn dicks down my throat, but I knew they’d punish me even more.

Despair keeps me down.

Shame hangs my head.

And terror forces my eyes to the sand when three dark shadows enter my field of view.

But they don’t grab me and shove their dicks inside me, although I know they can all see my bare ass and my still wet pussy with Mason’s letterman’s jacket riding up my hips.

I guess they only like it when I fight back. And right now, I don’t have a flicker of energy left in me.

Mason’s huge hands slide under my body. He lifts me effortlessly, flips me over, and cradles me to his chest. The other two accompany him as he takes me over to the shallow stream that splits around the island where they defiled me. When he bends down beside the black, rocky bed, I’m convinced he’s going to drown me.

I struggle weakly until Knox reaches out and strokes the top of my head where it dangles over Mason’s bulging bicep. That touch is so unexpected, so fuckinggentlethat my terror dissolves into fog.

Silas shrugs off his leather jacket, takes off his shirt, and crouches beside the river to plunge it into the clear water. His skin is pale, untouched by the sun. Absolutely flawless, not a freckle or a scar to be seen. He hands Knox his wet shirt, and stays where he is, rinsing his hands in the water like he can’t seem to clean them.

Knox comes over with the wet shirt, and dabs it softly against my face as Mason holds me.

If it hadn’t been for his dead black eyes, the gesture might have been comforting. But it’s not. If anything, it feels like they’re cleaning up a crime scene.

I’ve never tasted cum. I don’t want to ever again.

When my face is deemed cleansed, Knox hands Silas back his shirt without taking his eyes off me. Then he strokes a thumb over the curve of my bottom lip. Mason holds me a little tighter, and brushes a strand of hair from my face.

“Youarea bad bitch,” Knox says calmly, not a flicker of emotion in his jet-black eyes. “But you’reourbad bitch now.”

Chapter 37

Nim

They don’t give me back my clothes. All I’m allowed to wear as they lead me through the parking lot and back into Cinderhart Academy is Mason’s letterman’s jacket. It’s a message. A blatant declaration that I’m theirs. That theyownme.

The jacket’s so big, my hands get lost inside the sleeves, but it might as well have been transparent because I feel naked as the day I was born when they parade me through the courtyard that bleak Saturday afternoon. There aren’t a lot of students around, and I couldn’t be more thankful, but ultimately it doesn’t matter.

Word of this will spread. Maybe, in some versions, I’ll be naked anyway. Or just in my underwear. Maybe I’ll be collared.

I can still feel that strip of leather around my neck. I thought Knox was going to strangle me with it. That theyallwould. Choking me with their cum, cutting off my breath with that choke chain. Maybe finishing me off with their hands around my fucking throat.

And then they’d bury me in that soft, gray sand.

It would have been a mercy.

In the days and weeks to come, I’ll probably bebeggingfor such a swift, merciful death. Like the one they gave that guy in the woods. Three strikes. Brutal, but efficient.

But I’m their toy now.

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