Page 54 of Dirty Love

“What are you two doing?” Mark asks, snatching my collar when I dip my head to try and get around them.

Fuck.

“He just tried to shove his tongue down my throat,” Jasper lies, hiding the knife behind his back while he spits on the floor at my feet. “You’re fucking sick, man.”

“What the fuck, Nicky?” Austin frowns, pulling his head back in disgust. “Are you really a fag?”

“No—”

“Bullshit,” Mark bites out, sneering at me while he pushes me towards Parker. “If the rumors aren’t true why do you look so fucking scared right now?”

“I’m not,” I tell him, but my voice is shaking and so are my hands, my face soaked with tears while they trap me in the middle of their human circle. “Kade…”

Nodding at each other, they walk towards me and I scramble to pull my phone from my pocket, sobbing for real this time when I realize it’s not there.

How is it not fucking there?

Just then, footsteps echo at the end of the hall and the four of them move as one, pulling on my clothes while they shove my head into the locker room door. It opens at the force of it and I trip over one of their feet, but I don’t fall because they’re holding me up, dragging me to the row of showers in the corner.

“Let go of me,” I growl, kicking my legs out with my arms twisted up behind my back. “Let go!”

They don’t let go.

My nostrils flare and I fight like fuck to get away from them, but they’re stronger than me and we all know it.

It’s finally happening.

My brother’s worst nightmare is coming to life and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

“Did you really think we were gonna let this shit go when you’ve watched us get naked in here?” one of them hisses, but I can’t tell which one he is when they’re all talking at once, making me dizzy while they toss me back and forth between them.

“Which one of us do you wanna fuck the most, huh?”

“I bet it’s Parker.”

“It better not be me,” Parker throws back, smashing his elbow into my jaw before he kicks me to the floor. “My dad’s gonna kill me when he finds out I’ve been friends with a faggot my whole life, you disgusting little shit.”

My nose cracks against the tiles and I try to scream, but all I can do is gag on the blood in my mouth, struggling to breathe with this blinding pain tearing through my skull. I spit one of my back teeth out and lift my shoulders up to my ears, instinctively protecting my head while they kick me in my ribs, my back, my face, so hard that I can feel my bones breaking, my flesh being torn open by their bare hands and feet. Still tearing at my clothes, they make fun of my scars and sneer at the purple marks all over my body, beating me even harder when Jasper points out that they’re hickeys, not bruises.

“Kade…”

“Kade,” someone mocks, pulling my hair to hit me in the face, over and over again until it’s wet with blood and spit. “Your brother doesn’t give a shit about you anymore, dipshit. If anything, he’ll thank us for doing this for him. You’re nothing to him, Nicky.”

I almost laugh at that, but I don’t.

I can’t.

He eventually drops my head and my eyes begin to fade at the edges, seeing nothing but dark, blurry shapes moving about around me. I throw up without moving a muscle and rest my cheek against the dirty drain, wishing I could speak so I could beg them to hurry up and get it over with.

It hurts too fucking much, and I’d rather die.

I’d rather feel nothing.

I don’t feel nothing, though.

I feel every excruciating second of being beaten to death, and the last thing I see before I finally get my wish is Jasper standing in the corner, winking at me while he sucks on the middle finger he had in my ass.

I hope he dies, too.

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