Trouble at Brayshaw High (Brayshaw, #2)(65)

“Not so fucking tough right now, are you?” Collins pushes his forehead against mine, forcing my head to grind against every shard. “Face it, Rae, no matter how hard you act, no matter how many fights you get into, you’re still just a damn girl. Forever weaker than a man.”

“I see no man,” I rasp.

I’m slammed again, and my eyes close, but he shakes me, and they peel back open.

“What did you hear?” His bloodshot eyes bore into mine.

“Everything,” I lie, knowing they could have been talking there long before I listened in.

His eyes strain. “If you so much as breathe a word about this, I’ll make sure the next batch of shit your mom buys is the last.”

A laugh bubbles out of me and his lip curls.

“Like I fucking care, she’s dead to me, might as well be dead to the world, not that I believe you have it in you.” I choke slightly and attempt to swallow past the blood dripping down the back of my throat. “You’re nothing but a pussy.”

He backhands me across the face, and I growl.

I lift my knee, going for his groin, but I’m sluggish and he shifts before I can even attempt, knocking it back down.

He tsks at me, and a smirk plays across his lips.

I lick the blood from the corner of my mouth and spit it in his face. “Fuck you.”

He grips my shirt, keeping me steady. “I could right now, and no fucking body would be able to stop me, Rae. Nobody.”

“You sure about that?” comes from behind us.

Collins jerks around, just in time to take a fire extinguisher to the face.

He’s knocked back and slams against the marble sink.

With a deep growl, he charges Victoria, but I push off the mirror, whimpering when a few pieces of hair are ripped from my scalp from the glass woven in it.

I trip him, and on his way down he grips Victoria’s shirt, trying to yank her to the floor with him, but I shove her back and she flies into the door, her shirt tearing across her chest.

I push off his back and move past him, but he grips my pant leg and I slam back to the ground.

I hiss from the pain, my hands flying to my head as I try to kick him in the face with my other foot, but he knocks it out of the way and climbs up my body.

Victoria runs out the door, and he starts laughing, blood spilling from his mouth, like I’m sure it is mine.

“Why the fuck did you fall for him?” he growls in my face, but there’s a helplessness in his eyes that has me frowning. “It wasn’t ...” A tortured laugh leaves him, and his features tighten. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Rae. Not for us.”

He has my hands pinned beneath me, and his darts up to grip my neck, but he doesn’t squeeze.

With his elbow pushing against my sternum, I couldn’t break this if I tried. “This is a real fucking stupid move, Collins,” I rasp. “Let me go while you still have the chance.”

Footsteps pound in the hall and his eyes darken, gone is the feebleness he just showed.

His hand clenches tight while his jaw trembles. “Too late, huh?”

I try to gasp for air but get nothing.

And then the door bursts open and in they come – one, two, three.

Collins is tackled by Maddoc while Captain and Royce drop beside me.

Cap reaches out, pushing my hair from my face.

I cry out when his hand scrapes across the glass matted in it, and he freezes a second before yanking it back. His eyes widen when he finds it covered in blood. “Oh, fuck!”

“Oh shit...” Royce drags out, gripping my hand.

“Royce.” My eyes start to roll, and things grow foggy. “I...”

“Raven,” Cap calls, but I can’t see him anymore. “Maddoc ... shit, Raven!”

Everything goes black.



It’s crazy, how a drop of blood expands when it touches a cotton shirt. Even more when it’s a continuous flow. It spreads like a silent explosion until all surfaces are covered, then it starts to drip.

I was covered. My brothers were covered, and still she bled.

Through the towel we held while waiting for the ambulance. Through the bandage they temporarily wrapped around her head. Through the bedding on the stretcher.

It didn’t stop.

We’ve seen this shit before at the warehouses, we know the head bleeds more than anything and gauging the seriousness of the injury is not always as cut and dry as it appears.

It’s never been the blood of someone we love before, though, so staring at the shit someone else made spill from her body to the point she lost consciousness, has me teetering on the edge of insanity.

If Perkins and half the fucking school hadn’t followed us into that bathroom, pretty sure all the blood in Collins’ body would have been running across that tile floor.

I wanted to keep beating him, but when Captain freaks out, I know it’s serious.

I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when he lifted his hands, both smeared with her blood as she laid there, lifeless.

We weren’t there in the seconds before, we had no fucking clue what had happened, so to us, she was fucking dying right then and there.

I’d never felt so helpless in my life.

My fists couldn’t fix it, my money couldn’t help her. My name meant jack shit. In that moment, I was nothing but a scared fucking boy who thought his girl was dying right before his eyes.