19
“Out you get,” he demanded, grabbing my leg and gently dragging me out, only for me to cry out in pain. “Whoa.” He stopped and reassessed. “What happened?”
“I fell over, you asshole,” I snarled. “How about you just leave me here to die because I just don’t fucking care anymore.”
“Wait, what?” Lev said. “So, you can’t run?”
“I can barely walk,” I yelled at him, so angry. “I fucking hate you, so get out of my face.”
“Do you want us to kill you first or what?” Nicolae joked, but it fell flat, even with his brother.
“Bro, I’m sick of this shit,” Ez groaned. “Adina, did you sprain your ankle?”
“Yes,” I cried as my heart softened at his caring tone.
“Don’t be fooled, dumbass,” Nicolae ranted, “she's probably fucking with you. Man, you’d believe anything.”
“Crawl out, Adina,” Lev added also in a caring tone. The only one out of the three that had not even an ounce of sympathy was the oldest fuckwit brother.
Hesitating a few seconds to consider whether it was a good idea, I then surrendered, mostly because I was fed up, slid out from under the rock, exhausted and hissing like a rattlesnake, and when a warm hand touched me, I slapped them away. “I can manage, asshole,” I shrilled. “I shouldn’t have run in the first place, stupid, fucking game, like stupid fucking children.”
Ez snorted in laughter while I could feel the intense gaze drilling holes into my skull from Nicolae. He was unimpressed that my injured ankle and fiery attitude ruined his game. Fuck him. Fuck the oldest son.
I crawled out onto my knees, placed a foot on the ground, then stood up on one foot, and when I placed my swollen foot on the ground, I cried out in pain, and my knees gave way. Strong arms grabbed me before I hit the ground, and those strong arms belonged to the oldest son.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, slapping him away, but he refused to let go.
“Stubborn woman,” he mumbled, unaffected by my slapping hands. Then he lifted me off the ground, threw me over his shoulder, and a hand patted my ass. Lev grabbed my bag and shook it, hearing the rattling of the tools I took from the basement.
“Was that thrilling for you?” I snarled at him, digging my fingernails into his back. “Did you get a kick chasing an unarmed woman throughout the forest?”
“Not as fun as I hoped,” he admitted under his breath.
“Why? Because it was too easy? I don’t run as fast as a deer and scale the side of a cliff like a goat, so it was hardly a difficult hunt,” I agreed with him as a waft of his cologne infiltrated my senses as he moved swiftly down the ridge. Every step was confident and strong of a man who had been through this forest-covered hill many times before.
Lev and Ezrah walked in front of us, shining the way with flashlights, and every breath he took seemed to calm my soul, which was weird considering that he was trying to kill me only a few moments ago.
“You talk too much,” he mumbled as his hand gripped the back of my thigh, then moved upward toward my butt cheek, and I tensed in apprehension about what his hand was about to do. Only for it to move to the back of my thigh again.
I turned my head to the left to gaze out at the campus dotted in lights down below before we stepped into another cluster of trees. Nicolae’s boots slipped on the soft, wet earth, and he gripped me tight as I gulped, hoping he wouldn’t drop me. He stalled, took a deep breath, and then continued stepping downwards.
“You alright, Sickle?” Lev asked, “I can take over if she’s getting too heavy.”
I held my breath, hoping he would swap me with someone that I trusted a little bit more than him, but he exhaled and answered, “Nah, I’m alright. She ain’t that heavy, she yacks too much.”
“What are you going to do to me when we get back to your frat house?” I asked him.
“Throw you back in the basement,” he replied gruffly.
“Is that a threat or are you joking?” I expressed, tensing at the thought of being locked up in that toxic, petrol-fumed space.
“If we let you, you’ll go running to the police, won’t you?” he stated flatly. “You’ve been trouble since you got here.”
“And who brought me here? I assure you it wasn’t me,” I educated him. “I was quite happy attending another college in my hometown before my stepmother planted the idea in my father’s head to send me to this shithole.”
“It wasn’t our idea either, but when we caught wind that you were transferring to Castlehill, we made plans to ensure that your life here was hell after-
“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted, “After my father put your father in prison because he ordered a hit on him. Moral of the story…don’t order a hit on someone smarter than you.
