Page 31 of Defiant Beta

“How’s your car at starting?” I speak quietly out of the side of my mouth.

“Me?” Mercy asks.

“Yes, you.”

“Uh, it’s old, so not great. Sometimes it’s stalls.”

I briefly close my eyes. “I was afraid you were going to say that. You’re going to drop your bag and run like hell to those iron gates. Press the call button. Start screaming that you are being attacked and climb it if you can.”

“W-why w-would I do that?” she stutters.

The guys stalk toward us.

I search for any weakness I can exploit to give Mercy a chance to get away. “Because it might be the only chance you survive this.”

“And you?” Mercy whispers.

I have no weapon to speak of. Just a small bottle of perfume tucked into my bra.

“Me?” I eye the guys stalking toward me with smirks so confident that I know I’m going to enjoy this. “I’m going to give them hell.” I shove Mercy back toward the gates. “Go!”

She drops her bag and bolts across the parking lot, back to the gates.

The guys pick up speed, the one with the taser shouting, “Hey!”

I shift to my side, pull the perfume from my bra, and hold it down, waiting.

I duck to avoid the taser aimed at my chest.

I dodge the blond guy trying to grab me and spray the perfume directly in his eye, taking extreme pleasure in his yell of pain.

The other blond guy lunges at me. I spray perfume into his face, spin, and then…

Crack.

All the lights go out.

Chapter 10

Levi

I stay out of sight,watching Delilah from a distance as she mutters, curses, kicks piles of leaves, and stomps her way to the front gate.

She is never still. Or quiet. Or motionless.

Every time I see her, she’s chatting with someone, laughing with someone else, rocking on her heels, always in motion.

I try to imagine her sleeping, then I make myself stop because I remember how good she looked in spandex.

She’s not truly my student, and I’m not her teacher, but the things I had wanted to do to her after that fencing lesson are not thoughts I should have been having in a school.

And I watch, tucked behind a tree, first amused, then reluctantly impressed as she scales the front gate on her own.

When I see far more of Delilah’s body than I should, I adjust myself in my pants.

She’s stuck.

I step forward to free her trapped leg. Damn Vincent’s order to stay out of sight and make sure she leaves the campus.

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