“Long time no see, Klepto.”
My eyes catch on hypnotic hazel. I falter for only a second, trying to rationalize the sight before me, and then each atom that makes up my being explodes.
“You motherfucker. I’m going to fucking—” I lunge for Kohen, ready to throttle him, but two security guards catch me before I can. “Let me the fuck go!” I kick behind me and thrash in their bruising grip. “You’re a fucking dead man for what you did!”
One corner of his lips lifts in a victorious smirk. “Didn’t think you could look any worse for wear, Blaze.”
I grunt when Boris elbows me in my side and tightens his grip around my arm. Kohen’s stare drops to my aching ribs, and I start yelling before he gets the chance to slap a shit-eating grin on his face. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming in here, you goddamn fucking pyro. I’m gonna do the same thing to your skull until your dad can’t even recognize you!”
“One. Settle down, Marie.”
I swing my lethal stare to the piece of shit headmaster who brought me to this walking horror show. “You,”I growl. “You call me screwed up for my habits when all those wives and beer bottles you’re going through are making you even dumber.” I laugh humorlessly. “If you want a campus murder, I’ll give you a murder.”
Kohen huffs behind me, and I flip the dickhead off without looking at him.
I can tell McGill is biting back a smile. It makes me want to sucker punch his ugly mug.Especiallywhen he shrugs so innocently. He starts talking in that self-righteous tone teachers always use that screamsI’m better than you.
“The first step to healing is facing your demons. Then you shake their hand and call them old friends—”
“I’m going to shiv my fucking demon in his sleep and call him a cunt if he comes within ten feet of me.” I throw my arm back, trying to catch one of the guards in the face, or loosen one of their holds enough to get at least one hit at Kohen’s face.
“Two—and trust me, Miss Whitlock, you do not want me to get to three.” McGill’s tone holds patience, which I know he doesn’t have.
My eyes widen wildly, and I give him a smile that’s all teeth. “Oh, I’d love to see what happens at three.”
He raises a brow, unamused. “I suggest you appreciate your limited freedom while you have it. Prison is far less accommodating for yourhabits.”
“Why?” I tip my head to the side and jerk in the guards’ hold, only to still when a taser presses into my side. I scoff and pout, fluttering my eyelashes. “Will a decrepit old man drag me into his room andpunishme for my misbehavior?”
A tendon in McGill’s throat flexes, and I watch as he curls his fingers into a fist and folds them behind his back. Finally, a proper reaction. “There are worse fates than what could happen in that room, Miss Whitlock.”
My lips peel back with a scowl, and I stomp onto Boris’s foot and spit in his face. He whips me backward and shoves the taser painfullydeep into my spine. “I’d rather be put in solitary than be in the same room with that cunt.”
McGill stands straighter. “Three strikes, Marie.”
I lift my feet off the ground so the two security guards hold all my weight. “You can take your strikes and shove them up your—”
“Careful, Blaze. He might be into that.” Kohen finally speaks up.
I jump, trying to throw the guards off-balance. “Shut the—”
“You are to be Mr. Osman’s buddy until he settles in.”
Why the fuck is he in here? I roll my eyes and point to the firebug who torched everything I’ve ever called mine. “The only thing I’m going to be—”
“Do you remember the option I gave you in my office?” McGill says with eerie calm.
I slam my mouth shut. “You can remind the class,” I say, raising my eyebrows in the arsonist’s direction.
Cooperate, or the guards will have their time with me.
“Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for being weak.” McGill steps toward me, and I draw my shoulders back in response. I refuse to ever look weak in front of a man who hangs around children but can’t keep a woman. “Or perhaps you’ve simply mistaken my complacency for kindness, Miss Whitlock. I can assure you that my patience has run extremely thin, and it is in your best interest to ensure you do not see the bottom of it.”
“Or what?” A beating is only a scary threat if I haven’t had one before. What does he think my father does when he returns with beer instead of gear?
McGill looks me dead in the eyes. “I may decide to take up Dr. Van der Merwe for alternative forms of treatment.”
I narrow my eyes. “Drugs? I can’t wait.”
