He'd better be okay.
He'd better?—
"You drive like you have fuckingrabies," Plague snarls, because of course he does. Even hanging upside down in a totaled SUV, he's gotta be critical.
At least he's alive.
"Are you fucking serious right now?" I snarl right back at him, fumbling with my seatbelt. It's locked tight and there wasn't much room to begin with. "Do you ever stop being such a goddamn Virgo? We're upside down in a ditch, dude! Now isn't the time for your performance review bullshit!"
There's a pause. Then, in the most offended tone I've ever heard from him, he grits out, "What do you mean, aVirgo?"
"What?" I finally get the seatbelt undone and drop awkwardly onto what used to be the passenger door. Everything hurts. "Are youNOTa Virgo? Because only a Virgo would bitch about shit like that when we're upside down in a fuckingditch?—"
"I am, but that doesn't mean anything! Horoscopes aren't real, Whiskey!" he snaps.
"Spoken like a true Virgo," I grunt, trying to orient myself enough to get my shoes against the front windshield.
That shuts him up.
The windshield's already covered in a spiderweb of cracks and it only takes two hard blows from my heel to kick the rest of it out, little cubic chunks raining down. Smoke's starting to fill the cabin—not good—and I can hear Plague struggling with his own seatbelt next to me.
"Can you get out?" I ask, panting.
"Working on it," he grits out, his long hair brushing the roof of the SUV as he twists in his seat. There's a metallic snap and then he's moving with his usual catlike grace despite having just been tumbled like laundry. "Go. I'm right behind you."
I roll onto my stomach and drag myself through the window frame, ignoring the glass and metal biting through my jeans and jacket. My back screams in protest—definitely pulled something—but I manage to haul myself halfway out onto the dirt.
When I look up, all I see is Valek's Italian leather shoes.
"Shit!" I try to scramble back into the SUV, but he grabs a fistful of my hair and drags me all the way out. I manage to twist around to sock him in the jaw, but he's on top of me in a flash with his knee driving into my solar plexus. All the air rushes out of my lungs with a whoosh.
His face hovers inches from mine, silver eyes wild with fury. "Why theFUCKdid you two freaks follow me home?" he roars, the blade of his switchblade pressed against my throat.
Plague grabs Valek by the back of his leather jacket. He throws him against the SUV with adrenaline-fueled strength. "Get the fuck off him!"
"My hero," I croak.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Valek lunges at Plague with his knife, but Plague just sidesteps and drives an elbow into his ribs. Valek retaliates with a quick uppercut straight to Plague's jaw, momentarily stunning him. I scramble to my feet and bull-rush the motherfucker, slamming into his waist. We roll down the ditch in a tangle of limbs and he strikes out with his blade, slicing open my brown leather jacket like he just tried to fucking gut me.
"That's my favorite coat!" I snarl, pinning him under my substantial bulk and wrapping an arm around his throat, squeezing until his neck creaks. "Andmy favorite fucking alpha!"
Valek breaks my hold with a move I don't even see coming, flipping me over his shoulder. I hit the ground hard and suddenly he's on top of me again, his hand fisting the front of my shirt.
"Go. Home," Valek snarls in my face before suddenly releasing his grip on me with a shove and walking backward up the ditch. He swipes the blood dribbling from his split lip with the back of his hand, growling under his breath in Russian, then points the tip of his knife at Plague and me. "If I catch either of you idiots fucking around again, you're dead. Understood?"
"Understood," Plague says in a flat tone.
"Sure," I grit out through my teeth. "Got it."
I've never been a good liar, and I can tell he doesn't believe me from the way his lip curls at me before he turns back to his sedan, but he doesn't push it.
His spinning wheels kick up a cloud of dust that makes me cough as I haul myself to my feet and stomp back up the side of the ditch, spitting blood into the dirt. My leather jacket's fucked and my shoulder feels like someone took a sledgehammer to it. But I'm too pissed to care about any of that shit right now.
I crack my aching neck and throw up a middle finger I hope the knife psycho sees as he speeds off down the mountain road.
"Are you alright?" Plague asks, coming up alongside me.
