Page 72 of Freestyle
It’smylastclassof the day, and it’s right before dusk. Having a night class wasn’t my plan, but that’s the thing about plans. They change. My head is ducked down, reading an email from a professor about an assignment that’s due when I feel it.
Someone grabs me.
Arms wrap tight around my waist, another set locking my wrists, and I scream loud, raw, instinctive.
“No, get off me!” I thrash hard, heart punching against my ribs. My vision tunnels.Alberto.He found me.He found me.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Everything goes red.
“Rowyn, Rowyn,it’s us!” a voice snaps, close to my ear.
Gray.
The other grip eases, but mine doesn’t. My body is still burning, still fighting, still panicked. My feet hit dirt, and my hands slam into his chest. I pull away like I’ve been scorched.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I bark, stepping back, dragging air into my lungs like it’s poison.
“We didn’t mean—” Gray starts, arms raised like I might strike again.
Phoenix doesn’t speak. His eyes are on me, but I won’t meet them.Can’t.
I wrap my arms around myself instead. Too tight. Too raw. Everything presses in like it knows my secrets now.
“I thought you were him,” I whisper, realizing all too late I let that information slip.
It lands hard. Their bodies go still, shoulders tense, but I try to shake it off before they can ask questions they don’t have a right to ask.
Gray’s voice cuts through the silence like a blade.
“You thought we werewho, exactly?”
I stop walking.
The question hangs heavy, laced with something I don’t want to name. Concern. Confusion. That low throb of guilt they think I don’t see.
I clenchmy jaw and stare ahead, not turning around. My body’s still trembling, and that pisses me off. I hate that they can see it.
“Let it go,” I snap.
But they don’t. I hear the crunch of leaves as one of them, probably Gray, takes a step forward.
“You screamed like you saw a ghost,” Phoenix says, quietly. Too quiet. “We need to know what that was.”
No. They need to feel better about what just happened. I need to keep breathing.
My fists curl at my sides.
“It’s no one,” I lie. Too fast. Too sharp. “Just nerves.”
“Bullshit.”
That’s Phoenix again. He thinks he knows me, but it’s doubtful. I turn then, slowly, just enough so they can see my eyes in the dark.
“Fine,” I bite out. “You want the truth?”
I let the words drop like stones.
“I thought you were someone from my past. A monster.”
