Nightfall (Devil's Night 4)

I startled, sitting up straight.

But I didn’t shrink. Not with him.

Now…he had my fucking attention.

Grabbing the cord from where it hung down to the floor, I rose from my desk, picked up my notebook and bag, and started to leave.

But then his hands were on me, pulling me down into his lap.

Everything in my arms tumbled to the floor, and liquid fire coursed under my skin.

No.

/> I gritted my teeth and shoved at him as Kai sighed and Damon snickered, neither one stopping him, though.

I struggled against him, but he simply tightened his hold, turning his face away from my attack.

Will, Kai, Damon, and Michael. The Four Horsemen.

I just loved these nicknames little wannabe gangsters gave themselves in high school, but someone should really tell them it wasn’t scary when you had to tell everyone how scary you were.

Every school had these guys, too. A little money, some connected moms and dads, and pretty faces without hearts to match. None of that was really their fault, I guessed.

What was their fault was that they took full advantage of it. Wouldn’t it be fun if anyone ever said no to them? If one of them ever paid for a mistake? Or ever said no to a drink, a drug, or a girl?

But no. Same story. Shallow, boring, tedious, ignorant, and insipid.

And while others may give in or pathetically protest before finally giving in, I wasn’t interested.

And he hated that.

I could scream. Get the teacher’s attention. Make a scene. But he’d only get the laughs he craved, and I’d get the attention I didn’t.

“Wipe that fucking glare off your face,” he warned.

I locked my jaw, not doing a damn thing he said.

He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I know I may seem like the nicest one, and you probably think I regret the shit I give you sometimes, and someday I’ll wake up and reevaluate my life and its purpose, but I won’t. I sleep like a baby at night.”

“You wake every two hours and cry?” I asked.

There was a snort behind me, but I didn’t look away as Will’s eyes sharpened on me. School was always the one place I had a reprieve.

Until I got to high school.

I rolled my wrists inside his fists, trying to pry him off. “Let me go.”

“Why are your cuffs wet?”

His gaze fell and he forced my arm up, so he could look closer.

I didn’t answer.

He looked back up at me. “And your eyes are red.”

My throat tightened, but I gritted my teeth together and yanked my wrists free.

But before I could escape from his lap, he grabbed my chin in one hand and wrapped his other arm around my waist, pulling me in. Against his body, and whispering so softly no one could hear him but me.