Her hands smack into my shoulder blades with enough force to throw me into the cluster.
The girls shriek with the impact, and a head knocks off mine before I stagger upright.
I whip around, a lump trapped in my throat.
The room quietens.
Games pause, conversations halt, until all I can hear are the fireplaces crackling, the rustle of clothes as people shift to get a better look, and my own heart thumping in my ears.
Mildred’s face is blotchy from the cold, her braid coming undone, her cheeks bright and furious. She’s panting, as though she’s run all the way up the slopes after us.
My pulse spikes.
But for a long while, she fights her heaving breaths, that rage billowing through her, and just stares at me with those unhinged eyes.
I expect a hit. A fist to curve through the air and collide somewhere on my skull, my nose, my mouth, my temple, anywhere.
But no punch comes.
Mildred’s fists are balls at her sides, knuckles white, but the wild glare she slides to the poker table tells me all I need to know.
She’s holding back—because those are the rules now.
And Dray is watching.
The cards are gone from his grip, the sleeve of his sweater shifting over his wrist as he flattens his hand on the felt table and slowly pushes himself up from the chair.
Oliver mirrors him.
Out the corner of my eye, they step out of the curtained pocket of the room.
The fires crackle.
Someone breathes too loud, raspy, like they are recovering from a cold. Another sucks on a hard sweet, like a boiled butterscotch drop, and I hear it clatter against teeth.
But my pulse is an underwater thumping in my ears, because Mildred hasn’t backed down yet.
Her wild stare swerves back to me, her legs tense and stance rigid.
Even with Landon inched up behind her, as if ready to grab her if he needs to, I don’t feel all that safe.
I wait for her next move.
I consider her as sharply as she does me.
It’s a fucking stand-off.
Until Mildred makes her move.
And it’s all words.
Not her strong suit.
“They’ve taken you in and you think that changes things?” Her cheeks flush hot. “It doesn’t change what you are. You’re still a fucking waif. Even with your new friends who still hate your fucking guts, you arenothing.” Her thin lips curl. “You will always be nothing.”
Mildred fucked up.
She was always better at violence than insults.
