She stops abruptly, head dipping low. I hear her swallow, hear her gag, but she loses the fight and pukes noisily on the forest floor.
Even that doesn’t dampen her spirits. She pushes to all fours, dragging a hand over her mouth and picking right up where she left off. “You’d tell me I wanted it, right? Ideservedit. Yeah, Kai. Your slut got what she deserved. “
My heart just stopped its pounding, but it starts up again at her accusation.
“Not there. Not anymore,” she whimpers, dragging herself over to a tree and propping herself against the trunk. “Nobody’s there. Nobody to see little Haven Lee,” she sings in a cracked voice. “No one but silly little me.”
Her drunken song trails off as her chin drops onto her chest.
“No one to see…little…me…”
A chill that has nothing to do with the rain creeps up my spine as I stare at Haven’s slumped form.
Jesus fucking Christ.
How to even begin unpacking that shit?
I knew Haven had demons—fuck, the skeletons in our closet used to have play dates together—but this?
“Shit,” I mutter, running a hand through my soaked hair as I step out behind the tree.
I can’t leave her out here in the rain. The temperature’s dropping, and she’s passed out cold. She could fucking die of exposure or something.
Moving on unsteady legs, I approach her still form.
“Haven?” I tap her cheek, grimacing when I notice streaks of yellow bile on her ice-cold skin. “Hey, Haven. Wake up!”
She doesn’t stir.
“Fuck,” I mutter, whipping wet hair out of my face with a flick of my head.
The last few minutes sobered me up a real treat.
Enough to know I can’t carry her back to Greek Row. It’s too early—too many eyes to catch a glimpse of me with an unconscious girl in my arms.
There’d be questions.
Possibly another visit fromDeputyThatcher.
Campus is only a hundred yards away. Campus security patrols every half hour. If I bring her closer to the main building, someone is bound to find her.
I gather her into my arms, and carry her through the trees, back toward the flood lamps.
I’m almost to the edge of the woods when headlights sweep across the grass. A security cart making its rounds.
Shit.
I duck behind a tree, letting Haven’s body slither down mine and propping her against my chest so her arms and legs don’t stick out.
…what is it about you that renders me incapable of doing the right thing?…
Rooke’s words echo in my mind, and I hate that I understand them now.
Haven didn’t turn me and him into monsters, she just took off our choke collars.
I set her down gently beneath a pine tree, close enough to the path that security can’t miss her. Her skin is ghostly in the moonlight, lips blue with cold.
Before I can stop myself, I press my lips to her forehead.
