Page 161 of The Casualty of Us
“What the fuck happened to her?!”
Hayes’s shout is the only thing I catch before the sight of O in Graham’s arms has me feeling like the world has quite literally stopped spinning. Her cheek is red and swelling already with blood that seems to be coming from the back of her head and covering his arm. It has my heart feeling like it’s about to give out in my chest, unable to even comprehend anyone laying a finger—
“What the fuck happened to her?!”
Hayes’s roar cuts through enough to have me blinking and coming back around as Graham immediately passes her over to him. Unable to stop the way I’m gasping for breath part out of panic and part from how we hauled ass over here, but my heart just keeps clenching up painfully with each one.
“I don’t know,” Lisette cries from next to where a few other people have Bethany, and my stomach churns at the sight of her knocked out too. “Ophelia was screaming for help—”
“Why was she even out there?!”
I don’t even try to stop Hayes from yelling, knowing that he’s being too obvious, but—
She’s bleeding. Fuck. She’s bleeding, and I can’t—
“She had to pee!” Lisette practically sobs.
“Sutton is almost here with help,” Marley announces, gasping herself as she jogs up with Holden not far behind.
But Hayes looks like he’s about to start fucking breaking as he stares down at my sister. “Why—”
“Thomas was out there with them.”
Everything in me stops at Graham’s words, and I fully come back to reality with them, no longer caring about how it seems like my heart is going to burst and zeroing in on him. “What do you mean?”
He glances back, and I follow his line of sight to see a couple of the linebackers from the team standing on either side of the guy in question.
The one who looks shifty as motherfucking hell right now.
“It was sketchy as fuck, man,” Graham starts to whisper. “He says that Bethany was puking and he was helping her, but O was screaming her damn head off for help—”
I’m on him before anyone can stop me.
Taking Thomas to the ground with the sound of shouts all around us, I drive my fist into his face. Needing him to pay for hurting her. Needing to let it all out. Knowing that if something is really wrong with her, then my world will not be okay in any way.
His head snaps to the side with my next hit, and I pull my fist back to keep going when arms wrap around my middle. Lifting me off him despite how I’m trying to reach still and clueing me in that it’s probably one of the linebackers. Graham’s shouts for me to stop are muffled by the way my pulse is thundering in my ears right before Marley pops up in front of me.
“Oliver!” Her hands wrap around my cheeks with her face pinched up, green eyes somehow still wide as she shouts at me.“Your sister needs you, so stop being an idiot who’s going to get in trouble—”
“What is going on here?!” Sutton suddenly shouts.
Oh fuck.
I pushopen the door of our dorm, pretty sure I’m on the verge of puking after this night. Quite literally having gotten everything I wanted only to have it taken away from me seconds later and knowing that the eventual fallout from this is going to fucking suck. Plus…I feel like an absolute piece of shit right about now. Especially considering that O is already hurt and now everything with Marley is fucked up too.
Dammit.
Hayes’s door is already cracked and waiting for me to check in on her, making me really wish that I would have come here to begin with. Even if my trip to her dorm had one of my dreams coming true…I would have rather waited for it to end more happily.
I push open the door to find Hayes pretty much pretzeling my poor baby sister. Every one of his limbs is somehow on top of where she’s tucked into his bed, and his gaze is unmoving on her face. It has me rolling my eyes even as some of that tension in me eases because it’s so obvious how fucking in love with her he is. At least when they’re together like this. They’ve done a surprisingly good job of keeping things chill in public so far, besides tonight’s display in front of the admin building.
It was weird at first…but also good, I think.
She needs him.
He gives her something that I’ll never be able to, and while that was definitely an oddly shaped pill to swallow at first…he makes her happy. I can see that too.
She’s lighter when she’s with him. Not as bogged down by the stuff in her head. Quicker to smile and laugh and less hesitant to just be herself in general.
