Page 42 of Soulless Rivalry

But when a car came swerving right in front of us a few feet away from the entry to the woods, we came to a brutal halt. I could feel Sinem’s hand start to shake in mine and I squeezed it for support.

The car was an old black Sedan, nothing special and pretty old. The exhaust pipe was making a whistling noise that, for some reason, added to the chill of the situation.

When the front doors opened and two guys who looked a little older than us got out, all four of us took a step back. There were no shops or houses where we stood, only the trees in front of us and the road behind us.

I tried hard not to panic but it was nearly impossible. Men were scary enough on their own, but add a secluded setting and what Old Berthie had told us and one of us might pass out before they even started beating us up.

When a third guy got out of the car clutching a fucking baseball bat, I was ready to throw up. There was no doubt what Berthie had said was true.

“Well, well.” The one who’d been driving smiled.

He had long, reddish hair and a mustache and stood at about 5’10, which wasn’t that tall for a guy but still taller than all of us. “Look what the cat brought in.” He grinned in a way that could only be described as creepy and continued making his way to us, his eyes trained on Sinem.

While he walked, I snuck a look at the two goons who stood with him. One was smiling like a fool, putting yellow crooked teeth on display. This one was extremely tall and buff, but I had a feeling he wasn’t the sharpest.

The last one looked like the most normal of the bunch. He was glaring at us, a look of deep hatred etched onto his face. He had brown hair cut short and green eyes. He was taller than First Guy but a couple of inches shorter than Stupid.

My attention was brought back to the first man when he came to a stop right in front of Sinem and me, still huddled together. His eyes wouldn’t leave her face; he looked like he couldn’t get enough of her looks and she looked like she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. She looked scared out of her fucking mind.

I wasn’t far behind, but after years of living with bullies, I knew how to hide it.

All of a sudden, he grabbed her jaw, pushing his index and thumb deep into her cheeks. Sinem whimpered, both in surprise and hurt and that’s when my brain started working again.

I pushed him away with all my strength, which wasn’t much but still enough to cause him to let go of her and stumble back a step.

His eyes then found me in a glare while I ushered Sinem behind me.

“We don’t want trouble. We’re on our way back to—” I never got to finish it, because the next thing I knew, First Guy backhanded me with so much force I was afraid he’d dislodgedmy jaw. I lost my balance and fell to the ground, all under the shocked eyes of my friends. Briar was the first to come out of her trance and threw herself on the ground next to me.

One hand holding my shoulder, the other gently cupping my aching jaw, she made me look up at her.

Her honey eyes were full of tears and I tried smiling at her reassuringly, but the movement only made me realize that my lip was bleeding.

Mia, ever the pacifier, tried smoothing things over. “Please. I promise, we don’t mean troub?—”

“Shut up, you cunt!”

She immediately clamped her mouth shut but I could tell it cost her. Mia wasn’t used to anyone disrespecting her. She was the daughter and granddaughter of powerful men, and people always addressed her with respect, always.

“Do you know who he is?” First Guy pointed behind him, to the one holding the bat. His eyes were vacant, so full of hatred I didn’t think he could see us.

The girls shook their heads, but I kept mine still.

“His name is Finley Deivers, ring any bell?”

Again, Briar, Sinem, and even Mia were confused and motioned with their head that they had no clue what he was getting at. But I knew exactly who that psycho was.

“He’s Ashleigh Deivers’ brother.”

At the mention of her name, Finley’s eyes found mine and he snarled, “You keep her name out of your mouth, bitch.”

“Your people took his sister and her best friend, and now we have no idea when we’ll see her next. Or if we ever will.”

I bit my tongue because mentioning how she was dead and the school was trying to hide her murder would only get us in more trouble. In a way, they were right in thinking that the Academy was responsible for her disappearance.

“You rich fucks think you can come here every year, use all our resources, trash our island, and then go back to your merry lives once the school year is over. You corrupt our sisters, use them, and then discard them like trash. Still, we stayed quiet for years. But you took it too far this time. We’re not going to stay put while you heathens fuck us over anymore.”

“Last time I checked, we were not the ones defiling your sisters,” I spat, the anger I had been trying to tame down suddenly boiling over. “But since you’re real courageous men, of course you’d use us as an example.”

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