A Pound of Flesh (A Pound of Flesh #1)(13)

*

“Good morning, everyone.” Kat smiled while her students took their seats.

“Morning, Miss L,” Riley answered with a huge yawn. “And may I say how nice you look today?”

“You may,” she answered with a playful warning look.

“You look nice,” he responded, giving her a wide closed-lip smile.

“Thank you, Riley,” she replied, unable to hide her own grin.

She handed out their previous day’s work, entitled “My Favorite Places,” and gave them a couple of minutes to read her comments.

“What does ‘not entirely appropriate’ mean?” Corey asked from his seat at the back of the class.

Kat approached him. “It means, Corey, I don’t really want to read about every one of your conquests or the marks you gave them out of ten, including”—she whipped the paper from his desk to find the offending sentence—“her mouth was like a vacuum.”

At this, Corey barked a huge laugh that echoed around the room, his afro hair bouncing as he did. Everyone else sat in unimpressed silence. “Oh, come on,” Corey insisted, waving his sheet of work. “That shit’s funny!”

“You’re a prick,” Jason muttered from his seat, dissolving Corey’s smile instantly.

“Jason,” Kat warned, unease prickling her skin.

Corey retorted with a string of colorful language before he kicked the back of Jason’s chair. Hard. “Fucking *.”

“Hey,” Kat said, alarm rising inside her. “Not now, guys. Let’s just keep calm and—”

“The hell?” Jason snapped back, ignoring her. He began to stand from his seat and turned to Corey, his height and wide shoulders dwarfing Kat. “You gonna say that to my face, you ugly f*ck?”

“Hey,” Kat repeated louder, maneuvering herself between them.

Corey stood, tall and lean, his ebony skin gleaming under the harsh lights of the classroom. “I’ll kick your ass, shithead. Just name the day.”

“Guys, please—”

“I’d like to see it, you jumped-up little bastard.” Jason gave a come-closer gesture with his hand.

Panic began to engulf Kat’s throat. She held an open palm toward each of the men as they threw threats and words, conjuring terrified sweat from her forehead. If either of them threw a punch, she would be right in the middle of it. She froze, dread solidifying her joints. Officer Morgan and Riley tried to get in between them, trying to protect her. She could hear Rachel calling for her to move back.

But she couldn’t.

The fear pounded her head. She tried to remain calm, remembering the anxiety breathing exercises her therapist had given her, but her heart slammed against her ribs, taunting her. Kat clenched her eyes shut against the sixteen-year-old memories that pushed and clawed through the bars of the cage where she kept them locked in her mind. They were desperate to see her fail and crumble.

Breathing deeply, Kat grappled for the reins, trying frantically to gain control. She knew she couldn’t allow her students to behave like that. It was her classroom, her time, her job, her promise.

She opened her eyes, clenched her fists, and filled her lungs. “HEY!”

Rendered speechless, everyone stared at Kat as her yell ricocheted around them. Riley, who was standing at her side, trying his best to shield her from whatever shit was about to fly, blinked in disbelief. The awed silence lasted all of thirty seconds before the door flew open, and Ward stormed in with a face like thunder.

“What the hell is going on here?” he roared.