Page 48 of The Venom We Bleed

JULIET

It’s darker in the woods. Not surprising. What is surprising, however, is that the two men several yards ahead of me don’t act like they’re having a hard time at all making their way deeper between the trees. The girl stumbles along, throwing a glance back over her shoulder every once in a while even as she pauses every so often to gag and try to hold back the vomit likely arching up her throat. None of them notice me following, but I notice her expression when she’s not fighting the urge to puke. Anxious, even as she tries not to show it.

Her sharp, pitchy laugh sounds in the near silence of the shadows and she speaks. “A-are you guys trying to make sure I d-don’t crack my head open?” she asks, continuing with her nervous little giggles.

Poor girl. I can tell that, even in her inebriated state, she understands what they’re doing and she’s probably not sober enough to figure out how to stop it. I bite down on my lower lip and move faster. The three of them are a good distance ahead of me and even though I’ve had nothing to drink, the roots of the trees seem to jump out at my feet, tripping me up with each step forward. It’s probably why I didn’t manage to lose them completely despite them being so far ahead of me to start with.Panting and huffing with both annoyance and concern for the girl, I step over another ragged stump of a root and nearly go sprawling when, in the darkness, I don’t see the next one.

“Fuck,” I hiss a curse, catching myself upright on a near tree branch. My ankle throbs.

I jerk my head up a moment later, belatedly, to see if the guys caught wind that someone is following them. Fortunately, that isn’t the case since the two of them have now surrounded the girl like she’s the prey to their predator.

Moving a bit faster now, I hop over the next root and around another tree as the two guys back the girl further into the dark and up against a tree. How they haven’t heard me coming when I feel like I’m stomping madly through the underbrush is a mystery to me—though if they’ve had a lot to drink then that would certainly impair their awareness.

I send up a silent prayer that they are a bit worse for the wear drink-wise. It would be just my fucking luck that I decide to help some girl and get raped myself.

“R-rich, I don’t know, I-I’ve had a l-lot to drink.” The girl’s voice echoes back to me, her laughter completely gone, and in its place, fear. She appears to have forgotten the urge to puke as she focuses on the men surrounding her.

Unwilling to let them get on with their plans, I stomp down harder on the next branch underfoot in response, eliciting a sharp, loudcrackthat rings through the air. A gasp from the girl is followed by the sound of footsteps and rustling as the two guys ahead peer around a thick tree with matching scowls.

“What the fuck?” the shorter of the two says. “It’s just the Donovan bitch.”

I raise my eyes to meet his as I move towards him. “You haven’t seen me be a bitch, yet,” I tell him matter-of-factly. Carefully stepping over another branch, I advance on them.

The girl comes back into view as I finally catch up to the three of them and though her eyes are still a little glazed from all the alcohol she’s had, there's a familiar expression of relief on her face.

Damn.She must be in a bad position if she’s relieved to see me. Almost as soon as it happens, though, she covers it up and straightens away from the tree they'd crowded her against.

With a scoff that sounds more forced than not, she flips a strand of hair over her shoulder and scowls at me. “What doyouwant?” she sneers.

I roll my eyes. She doesn’t have to like me, but she sure is fine at pretending like I didn’t just save her ass. My annoyance at her attitude evaporates a second later as she makes the first smart decision since I watched her walk into these woods. The girl stumbles forward, using my presence as an excuse to leave the ring the two guys have formed around her without letting on what she’s really doing—escaping.

We might not be friends—she and I—but here, in this place, we’re both familiar with what it means to be female in a world that always wants to take something you might not be willing to give.

“Your friend saw you coming out here,” I lie easily, eyeing her with meaning. “She told me she’s been looking for you.” My gaze remains on her, even as I sense the men behind her shifting uncomfortably.

If I’d had to hazard a guess, I’d say they didn’t expect that anyone would know where the girl they brought out here went. To be fair, I don’t know if she’s even got friends at the party—but the less the guys know about our virtual aloneness, the better. Even if she is drunk, this girl can’t be stupid enough to call me on my lies though. Not with the way her eyes flick to the side without turning her head. She’s watching them just as I am, in her periphery.

The taller of the two with a shorn haircut and a shadow of stubble over his jaw sneers. “You’re not seriously telling me you know this chick, do you, Cara?” he demands.

Cara shrugs and glares over her shoulder at the guy. “Shut up, Rich. She goes to our school. Just because we have class together doesn’t mean I know her.”

We have class together?I’m not sure if she’s just lying through her teeth to get out of this uncomfortable situation or if we really do have class together. Whatever the case, though, the guys groan but take her at her word.

Cara doesn’t seem nearly as drunk as she had when first entering the woods, but even as she takes another step away from them—towards me—she stumbles and nearly collides with me. I reach for her only to have her hiss at me and draw back.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she gripes, the words slurring slightly.

“Whatever.” I hold my hands up. “I just didn’t want your friend to lay into me. That’s all.”

“If it’s Janice, then she’ll come barreling out here at any moment to get you and I don’t want to deal with that cunt.” The second guy, not Rich, is slightly skinnier than his friend with longer hair that’s pulled into a ponytail at the base of his skull.

“She’s not a—oh fucking forget it.” Cara cuts herself off and shakes her head before she moves past me in a fury of awkward jerking movements. She doesn’t offer me a look of gratitude or whisper any words of thanks as she passes. She just stumbles farther and farther away, back in the direction of the farmhouse and the party.

I wait a beat, side-eyeing the guys to make sure they don’t try to stop her. When she’s far enough away that I can’t really hear her stumbling steps, I shift on my feet, turning back the same way.

“Hold up there!” I freeze as a hand locks on my shoulder.

I don’t even think about it. I just react—reaching up and latching on to his fingers and then keeping a hold of them as I duck out from under his arm, taking it with me. It’s the one with longer hair I see a split second before I yank down on his hand and twist it behind his back, jerking his hand and arm up his back until I know it hurts.

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