They’d justleftme.
I’d spent the last twenty minutes since they’d left trying to get down, twisting and grabbing, but the axe handle stuck out just far enough that there wasn’t anything for metograb. I kept expecting to fall, to collapse onto the ground—which was a good six feet away—but the fabric was holding up surprisingly well. I’d yelled for help, but it was late on a weekday. It had been almost half an hour and no one, not even campus security, appeared to have heard me or walked by.
And I was starting to lose feeling in my thighs.
Apparently Ideservedthis. At some point I’d pissed the universe so veryoffthat it had created Terri Bishop to punish me. Though this time he hadn’t even stuck around to laugh at my suffering. He’d justleft.
This wasn’tlike high school all over again.
This was worse.
Tonight had started out like any basic bullying experience—they’d found me on my way home and Terri had made some jokes about my outfit, going allMythBustersabout how far my leggings would stretch. But once he’d gotten me up here ...
Terri’s little posse and their girlfriends had laughed and jeered, the sounds loud enough to echo down my spine. But Terri had only stared. Smiling, silent. And when one of the girls had tried to take a selfie with my legs, he’d said:“Don’t be stupid, this never happened. Did it, Flinch?”
And they’d left.
It was almost like Terri wasn’t using me to entertain and impress other people.
It was like hurting me was thepoint.
I whimpered softly and stared despondently at the ground so far below my pointed little shoes.
“Whoa, is someone there?”
I froze. Well, to be honest, the upper half of my body froze. Everything else dangled as uselessly as before.
“Over here!” I called, my voice breaking with enough pathos to serve the needs of every rescue dog in LA County.
“What— Oh my god.” Whoever seemed to be addressing my situation rather than myself hadn’t stepped into the vague circle of light shed by a nearby streetlamp. All I could make out from the silhouette was that the lifeform addressing me was a Dorito-shaped human. “Are you okay?”
“No, not really,” I managed, stifling a moan as speech illogically caused my body weight to shift again, bringing forth pain from exciting new areas.
Mystery Man stepped into the light, handsome and clearly concerned. On second glance,handsomedid not do him justice;gorgeousbarely started to cover it.
His wavy black hair and the way it fell around his face reminded me of classical Greek statuary, buthotter. Much of him was hot: his large soulful eyes, strong yet cherubic features that when arranged into such a look of apprehension on one’s behalf, would inevitably cause one’s knees to react liquidly whether one had feeling in them or not. I could hear mine sloshing around somewhere below.
“What happened?” His voice was warm, sexy.
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!
“Upbringing, mostly,” I said hoarsely. “The translation of fear into hate on one side, and overcompensation for self-consciousness on the other. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
“Skyler Evans.” He smiled at me a little thinly. “And you?”
“Robin Finch.” I waited for the cringe of sympathy and answered it with an appreciative smile. “That’s nothing, my middle name is Peregrine. Any chance you could help me down from here? I didn’t exactly have a vasectomy planned for this evening ...”
“Oh, right! Sorry!” He moved forward immediately and held me by the waist, which would have been a lot more exciting if I’d actually been able to feel his hands. I’m a pretty small person, and I am aware of and resigned to this fact, but I still felt the display of effortlessness with which he lifted me up and off the Viking axe-handle that held me captive was bordering on tasteless.
Worst was that as blood rushed back to the rest of my body, the pins and needles stage set in with a vengeance, and I gripped his arms desperately. Those lovely large blue eyes gave me a questioning look as he continued to hold me aloft. “How long were you up there?”
“A while ...” My voice broke spectacularly as I waited for fifty percent of my body to return from the ethereal plains of Numb.
I heard a sympathetic hiss—my eyes were shut tight—and Skyler gently set my feet on the grass. He kept a hesitant hold on my waist, making sure I stayed upright.
“Who did this?”
“I’d say—” I coughed. “—two future lawyers and one future senator.” Between the physical crisis my body was dealing with and my brain’s attempts to comprehend that I had apparently been rescued by Batman, I was about to fall over. “You don’t mind if I lean on you, do you?”
