Page 156 of The Casualty of Us
I narrow my eyes at the sound of the voice this time. Something about it familiar enough to have me trying to match it with a face in my head while closing the last of the distance between us. I come up on him just as he turns around, giving me a clear look for the first time, and my stomach drops as I stop suddenly with his name slipping out.
“Thomas.”
“Ophelia.” He looks me up and down quickly in a way that makes clear he’s not my biggest fan before snapping, “I said we were fine.”
“Right.” I frown, looking past him and only making out a head of black hair before another moan fills the air. “And like I said, if she’s sick—
“God, I said we’re fine.” A hushed laugh leaves him that has my heart missing a beat. “Now why don’t you go back inside and stop being such a nosy little bitch?”
I suck in a sharp breath, adrenaline feeding the pumping of my heart until my hands are shaking, but I still force my voice out to spit back, “I’m not the little bitch here.” Reaching pasthim, I grab the girl’s arm to pull at her, getting enough traction to see—
Oh, fuck. It’s Bethany.
“What the fuck is your problem?!”
He pulls back on her with the angry whisper, and my gaze whips up to him, bile immediately shooting up my throat because I know she wouldn’t come out here with him. I just know it.
Plus he cares enough to still whisper. Me on the other hand…I fill my lungs with as much air as possible before screaming, “Give her to me!” Hoping that we’re still close enough to draw someone’s attention from the Ruins and quickly doing it again. “Help!”
He drops one side of her, grabbing my wrist before I can suck in my next breath and ordering roughly, “Shut the fuck up.”
“Let go of me!” I try to pull away, but his fingers just tighten more, making me gasp before planting my feet and screaming again. “Help!”
And when he tightens them again, I can’t help the little whimper that escapes as he calls out over it in a panic. “Just shut up and you—”
“O?”
Kyler’s voice hits my ears, and this time when the bile works its way up my throat, I can’t quite tell why at first. Only that it has me tugging on my wrist hard enough to feel the bones grind while trying to grab for Bethany and still scream. “Fucking help!”
Everyone’s limbs seem like they’re everywhere as we all stumble a step, and I gasp as something in my wrist twists.
“O, wait—” Kyler tries to calm me down, voice coming closer but still not visible yet. “Be quiet. Don’t freak out—”
“Help!”
“What the fuck is going on out here?!”
Lisette’s scream has my body sagging with relief for a beat before I renew my fight, grabbing for Bethany just as Thomas looks back into the forest, and it suddenly clicks. Exactly why Kyler’s voice bothered me so bad. It’s the direction it’s coming from.
The direction is wrong.
My wrist slips free on the next tug, and I immediately grab for Bethany’s other arm just as Thomas jerks back around. Somehow ending with me taking his elbow to my cheek just as he lets us both go, and we fall to the ground. The rock I tripped on making a second reappearance in my Halloween night to hit me hard on the back of my head. Knocking me the fuck out to the sound of Lisette screeching like the hounds of hell. “Those are my girls!”
Quickly followed by Graham shouting a second later as everything goes black. “Someone get me Oliver Fitzroy!”
“I will fucking kill you!”
“Calm down—”
“You hear me!?” Ollie’s voice hits my head like a blow. “You’re fucking dead!”
Loud. So, so loud.
“Not if I kill him first.”
So loud and so angry.
“And I’ll make it fucking slow too! Make sure you feel it like the piece of—”
