I perch cautiously on the edge of the sofa, sitting as far away from him as possible so he has to lean across to show me his phone. The short black skirt I’m wearing rides up my thighs, so I sort of drape the blanket over my legs.
I swear, if I get fleas…
Blake doesn’t seem to notice how reluctant I am to get near him. If he does, he doesn’t care.
“It’s not porn is it?” I ask reluctantly, squinting to make out what’s happening on the screen.
“No, it’s from the Rain Dance. Check.”
Oh, fuck. Is this where Ezra collared me? I wave my hand, turning my head away. “I don’t want to see?—“
Music thumps out through the phone, tinny and distorted. But a second later it cuts off, the sound of a hundred voices talking all at once, someone shouting, then more and more.
What the…?
I turn back, morbidly curious.
And my heart sinks right into the fucking bowels of the earth.
Whoever’s holding the phone is either shaking or being jostled as they try to focus on the DJ stand, where two figures are visible.
One on his back, the other straddling him.
Kai.
He’s punching Ezra.
Punching him so hard, so viciously, that it looks like he wants to drive his brother’s head through the stage floor.
My hand goes over my mouth. The crowd is growing quieter now, everyone in the shot staring at the stage like they’ve been hypnotized. A few people are yelling, some to call the cops, others to get Kai off Ezra before he kills him.
But I can’t look away as Kai’s arm rises and falls, rises and falls, rises?—
“Fucking rough,” Blake murmurs, taking the phone away and tapping the screen a few times. “Serious unresolved issues, if you ask me.”
“Is Ezra…okay?”
Blake shrugs again. “Jace went to see him today. Sounds like he might pull through, but, yeah, he’s probably gonna have trouble getting laid after this.” He hurriedly clears his throat. “So you must be stoked about getting that grant, huh?”
“Uh…yeah. I guess.” I’m immediately on high alert, and it sucks.
“Cool, cool,” Blake murmurs.
A life of suffering and mental acrobatics has hard-wired me to be constantly on the lookout for threats.
Kai. Professor Rooke. Even Blake, who’s scrolling through his phone like I’ve ceased to exist.
My eyes drift to the flat screen where stock footage of a dreary forest is interspersed with still photos of police and crime tape outside an isolated ranch house.
“…in all his years on the force, he’d never seen anything…”
The fact that I’m still trying to act like a normal college kid is a cosmic joke. I wouldn’t know what normal looked like if it lashed me to the bed and railed me…as Kai watched.
“Hey, check this out.” He leans over again, and I glance down at the screen.
I recoil, my eyes squeezing shut, and then slowly open them again when my brain processes what I’m seeing. “What the fuck?”
Blake chuckles and starts scrolling. “Cool, huh?”
