The Help (Kings of Linwood Academy 1)

He takes advantage of my momentary hesitation, letting go of my wrists and cupping my face with his large hands.

“Harlow. Breathe, baby. Just breathe. Just look at me and breathe.”

My windpipe is still too constricted, and even though I try to do what he says, the breath I suck in is painful and raspy. I can hear murmured voices on the other side of the room, but I can’t focus on those. All I can focus on are Chase’s eyes. They’re such a clear, bright blue, and they usually spark with humor. But there’s something else in them now, an intensity I’ve never seen before. He lies down on the bed next to me, his sky-blue gaze still connected with mine.

“Good,” he whispers. “Keep breathing.”

The mattress shifts, and another body comes up behind me, warm and solid at my back.

“You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

It’s Dax’s voice, and as he speaks, his hand comes to rest on my bare shoulder. I jump at the contact, and he immediately removes it, but when I lean back against him a little, he gently replaces it, rubbing softly against my skin with his thumb.

His hand is warm too, and the weight of it is comforting, just like the feel of Chase’s hands on my face. The combined heat of their bodies is leeching some of the ice out of mine, and the shudders quaking through me ease a little.

In this bubble, this tiny bubble created between them, I can finally pull in a full breath.

I do, and it’s like a drowning person coming up for air, my lungs filling with so much oxygen that my ribs press against the constraints of my dress.

Chase chuckles, his eyes warming a little, a hint of the humor returning. “That’s good. Just like that.”

His hands start to roam, smoothing my hair back from my face, wiping away the wetness on my cheeks from tears I don’t even remember crying. Dax is running his palm up and down my arm, and this—this is what I need right now. It’s the only thing I need, the only thing that will save me from the dark chaos pressing at the edges of my mind.

I don’t know why I do it, am barely conscious of my body moving, but the next thing I know, my lips are pressing against Chase’s, my tongue sliding into his mouth. Maybe it’s because of what I saw the night of that party, the image I’ve never been able to erase from my mind.

She looked like she was in heaven.

The girl sandwiched between them had looked lost in ecstasy, and that’s what I want right now. To lose myself.

Chase jerks in surprise, just like I did when Dax first touched me, but he doesn’t pull away. His tongue works against mine, meeting my fierce, desperate strokes as he pulls me toward him. Dax presses closer on my other side, and I feel his lips on my skin, trailing up my shoulder to my neck.

The shudders have stoppe

d, and my body finally feels like my own again. My muscles feel shaky and weak, worn out from contracting over and over again, but feeling is returning to my fingertips. I skate my hands up the soft fabric of Chase’s shirt, clutching it in my fists as I draw him even closer—

“What the fuck?”

Lincoln’s voice from the foot of the bed snaps the bubble, popping the fragile, gossamer shield that kept the rest of the world out.

Reality comes rushing back in, and with it, the realization of what I’m doing.

I just witnessed someone die—saw someone be murdered—and now I’m sprawled on a bed making out with two guys. I sit up suddenly, pushing Chase away. He and Dax roll away from me, rising to sit too. My cheeks flame as embarrassment and guilt tear through me.

But even through those emotions, and through the returning horror of what we saw tonight, I can tell my body isn’t sinking back into the state of disassociation it was in. I can think a little more clearly.

“She was in shock. We were calming her down,” Chase says, a slight note of defensiveness in his voice.

Lincoln narrows his eyes at the three of us, a muscle in his jaw ticking. River is standing behind him, watching us silently too. I can’t handle their scrutiny right now, so I scoot off the bed, tugging the too-short dress down as I do. I’m barefoot, and my phone and wallet lie on the mattress where I finally dropped them.

“We have to call the police,” I say in a voice that hardly sounds like my own.

“You don’t have to do anything.” Lincoln crosses his arms over his chest, leveling a quelling gaze at me.

“Are you kidding?” I stammer. “We’re the only fucking witnesses to what happened! We’re the only ones who know—”

“What do you know, Pool Girl?” he interrupts, cocking his head. “Do you know what the guy looks like? His license plate number? Where he went?”

I lick my lips. “No. But I can describe his car.”