Page 7 of Break The Ice

“I love you, Raider Raines,” Callan sings in a high, squeaky voice, imitating the humiliating memory of Emily Summons, who took my faux interest as a love declaration and reciprocated by singing a love song to me over the PA. Poor Dwayne was humiliated and spent the last two years of high school beating me up.

“It’s worse!” I shout and wince at the sudden silence.

“Worse than that?” Callan asks in concern. “What could be worse than that?”

I scramble off the bed, watching as they rise and follow me. Callan pulls on a pair of pajama pants while Kit pulls on boxers.

“Raider-”

I hold up a hand and look up at the ceiling, struggling with the burning in my eyes.

“Whatever it is, it will be okay,” Kit murmurs with so much compassion that I just know I don’tdeserve him.

I let out a sob and shake my head. “I can’t fix this. Nothing can fix this.”

Kit reaches out, grabbing my face. He’s shorter than me but so much bigger of a person than I am where it counts.

“What is it?”

“It’s better if I show you.”

I turn and lead them out, looking at the floor when Wren opens his door and raises a judgmental eyebrow.

“Raider?”

I flinch and walk past him.

Callan and Kit follow me into my room and, by the scent of the pomegranate that fills my bedroom, so, too, does Wren.

I stop, staring at the open closet door.

Fear skitters up my spine.

Kit moves around me, searching the room. He looks back at me and shakes his head.

“What?”

Callan, though, is slowly moving past me, his mouth opening and closing, eyes locked on the source of my intense shame.

“Raider,” Callan freezes, swallowing hard. “Oh, no, what have you done?”

Wren pushes past me and stops dead, staring into the dark hole. He cuts his gaze back to me, and all I can see is the disapproval in his eyes.

Yeah, I let you all down. I know it.

“You’re meant to fuck them, not tie them up and put them in closets.”

I look back at the dark rectangle of my undoing. She glares back at me.

“Who is that?” Kit shrieks. “Who is she?”

“Oh, Raider,” Callan almost whispers.

“Hello, whilst I appreciate how novel this is, I haven’t been to the toilet in hours, and I’d really like to go.”

Her voice cuts through the compounded shock in the room.

“Untie her, right now!” Callan barks at me.

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