Page 53 of Vengeful

"I am, bro, calm your tits," Parker told him.

I sat down beside Lila and put my arm around her. "Are you all right?"

"I thought I had some idea what to expect during these trials," she said. Her brow was furrowed with a deep frown. "Now I don't. I can't help feeling there's no way I'm going to survive this. Maybe I should walk away right now and never look back."

"You would always look back," I told her. "You'd always wonder what might have happened. If you walk away now, you'llspend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. If that's what you want, you know we'll support you, but I don't think it is."

"Would you really have fucked another woman if I asked you to?" she asked. She looked at me evenly, clearly seeking an honest answer.

"Sweetheart, I would do anything for you," I assured her. "I wouldn't have enjoyed a moment of it. And I would have felt like the biggest asshole in the world for doing that to you and her. But if it was necessary…"

She smiled faintly. "Lucky it's not necessary then. Because I really would have had to kill her."

I smiled back. "I believe you. If any man who wasn't already in this room touched you, I'd kill him. Unless you didn't want me to. In which case, I'd be fucking conflicted, but I'd still go with whatever you want."

"I love you," she told me.

"I love you too," I replied.

"Okay, I'm in," Parker sounded excited. "Anyone want their grades changed while I'm here?"

I raised an eyebrow at him.

"No? Okay. Let's see here. Student information. Past trials. Missing, presumed dead. Deceased students. Deceased staff. Dining hall menu for the next two months. Oh, we should definitely check that out. I hope pizza is on there."

"Parker," Hunter said warningly.

Parker glanced up. "What?" He looked back down. "Repairs to the building. Dusk Bay campus progress. Here we go, trials for this year." His hands moved over the keyboard quickly.

"Due to numerous deceased persons being found at the trial site, the trial site has been abandoned. Presumed compromised. Huh, you don't say? Alternative location is out in the middle of fucking nowhere." He glanced up again. "It doesn't actually saythat. Just the address which happens to be out in the middle of fucking nowhere."

"We got that," I told him. "Is it the place you thought it was?"

Parker glanced back down, eyes shifting back and forth as he read across the screen. "Sort of, but it's a lot worse than that."

CHAPTER 19

LILA

"You've got this."

Everyone else on the bus gave me and Chloe a wide berth, leaving the seat beside me open for Slade. If I was honest with myself, I'd admit everyone was giving everyone space and wary looks. A few with obvious alliances stayed in small groups, but most kept to themselves.

There was no way I was the only one thinking how nasty as fuck all of this was.

I placed my hand over his, where it rested on my thigh.

"I don't feel like I've got this," I admitted. "The odds are, I'll be dead in a few hours."

"You will not," he said firmly. "I'll make sure of that. And if I don't, you will. Or the twins will. Between the four of us, we'll make sure nothing happens to you."

"Nothing better happen to you three either." I looked over at him and wondered for the millionth time why he was with me. He was so fucking gorgeous, smart and skilled. He could do better than me. If I tried to tell him that, he wouldn't listen. Stubbornness was something we all had in common. It would either keep us alive or get us all killed.

"We already know Hunter and Parker are invincible." He smiled. "What you might not realise yet is, so are we. We must be, to have made it this far. Right at the end of your first year at Brutham. Of all the students who started, these are the ones who got to this point." He gestured around the bus.

Thank fuck it wasn't a truck.

He lowered his hand. "Most of these students will make it to the end of the day. That greatly increases their odds of finishing their degrees."

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