Teaser Time For All!!

Hello friends! 

Finishing it tonight felt so good. I can’t wait to get the edits back and then finalize everything for you all! One step closer to getting Protected out there and into your hands. 

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“I’m gonna run to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” 

I got up to head out to the concourse. The restrooms were off to the side from where the students sat, a bit out of the way. I headed towards the doors.

I was finishing up, washing my hands, when I thought I saw a shadow cross the mirror. I glanced up and didn’t see anything strange. The lights must be warming up still , I thought to myself looking up again at their flickering. They had been switched off for the entire summer after all.

I grabbed the door handle to leave when someone’s arm shot out, slamming the door shut in front of me. Before I could even turn around I was shoved up against the wall with a strong, rather large hand grasping my throat. I almost couldn’t breathe. I opened my eyes to see I was staring straight into the face of Devon.

I clawed at his hand around my throat, trying to gasp in what little air was able to get through my windpipe.

“Not so protected now, are we?” Devon growled.

His eyes were glowing like they were the night of Ashley’s party. Just like they were when I caught them behind her building. His voice was harsh and his arm muscles were bulging. I thought to myself that there was no way it was possible for him to be holding me up like this.

“Listen carefully, Ariya. You are going to do exactly what I say or you are going to regret it.”

He lowered me and released his hand from my throat only to shove both of my shoulders hard against the wall again. It knocked the wind out of me as I felt my head hit the solid concrete wall behind me hard. He was strong, painfully strong.

My vision started blurring from the impact.  It almost felt unbearable to have that kind of strength pushing into my shoulders. I tried catching my breath, gulping as much as possible to regain some of the air that had been pushed out of my lungs so roughly.

“What are you doing?”

My voice was raspy and my throat was almost numb from the pain of having it strangled. The throbbing in my head was getting worse. How hard had I hit it? Sharp pain was causing even my eyes to hurt.

“Shut up and listen to me. I’m tired of waiting for you.”

There was something seriously wrong with this guy. He leaned into me, sniffing my hair, and I thought I was going to gag. How had I ever thought he was attractive?

“You’re so beautiful.”

He brought his lips close to mine and I wanted to back away but he had me pinned against the wall. Pulling on lessons learned in my self-defense class, I made a sudden movement to try to bring my leg to hit him in the balls. He was too fast, though, and he grabbed my leg.

“Shame on you, Ariya.”

I started to scream, but he brought his hand up to cover my mouth.

“Now, now. I’m not going to really hurt you. Not yet at least.”

He punched me in the gut swiftly, pushing all the breath I had managed to get back a moment ago out of me. My mouth was open, trying desperately to take in some air. My legs wanted to bend but Devon shoved my shoulders back again, keeping me from falling.

“You are going to ditch Caroline, Nick, and especially James. You are going to come with me ALONE. Do you..”

He was cut off from the rest of his threat by the restroom door flying open. It was Caroline. I tried to call her name to tell her to leave, but had no voice to do so. Instead of being able to warn her and have her safe, I was trapped. She was going to be hurt if I didn’t speak. I went to say her name but could only cough.

Caroline was standing in the doorway and I thought I could see Nick behind her as well. She ran through the door and rushed at Devon.

“Let go you wretched animal!”

She slammed into him harder than I would have thought possible. Devon roughly let go of me when Caroline crashed into him.  I crumbled onto the floor. I looked up to try to warn Caroline and to tell her that Devon was really strong. Nothing would come out of my mouth no matter how hard as I tried.

My mouth throbbed. My whole back began to ache as well from being slammed twice into the cement wall. My stomach felt like its insides were moved around in places they shouldn’t be. How was Caroline keeping Devon back against the wall so easily? Was this actually happening?

Devon started grinning wide and opened his mouth. He lunged at Caroline like he was going to bite her. I saw a whirl of dark color, which turned out to be Nick. I could finally see more clearly since things had stopped blurring for a minute.

Nick had moved Devon from the wall and was now holding him back away from Caroline. He had pulled Devon away from her so quickly that none of it seemed real. It was like watching parts of a movie in fast forward. It looked strangely familiar, these blurs of color. I tried to focus on Caroline’s face to see if she was okay but my vision was going in and out. From what I could see, she looked like she wasn’t fazed or scared at all. Was she smiling? Impossible. I brought my hands to my head to see if I could gain some balance.

“That’s enough.” Nick was growling in Devon’s ear.

I couldn’t comprehend what I was watching. It felt like my mind was not able to correctly process what was happening.

“You’ve got your royal here to save her if she dies. Why not see if the rumors are true?”

Devon must have said something horrible in that sentence to Nick because Nick reached down and there was a loud snap and a crunching sound. Devon screamed. My vision was so hazy at this point that I couldn’t see anything of what was really happening anymore. My eyes were heavy and my body slumped again. It sounded like Nick had broken something of Devon’s. What else could that noise have been?

Devon was done screaming and I could hear him say, “You’re going to be so sorry.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. My throat was still hurting and my body was shaking. I was nauseous and dizzy. I didn’t even care that I was on a filthy bathroom floor. My body, my brain, nothing seemed to be working right. I fell forward onto the floor and into a black hole.

I was drifting. Things were fuzzy as the world was going black and then lighter and back to black in my mind. I hurt. My back felt bruised. I could hear voices every so often. They were pieces of sentences that barely made sense.

“How…”

“She needs blood… heal her…make her forget…protect her.”

I tried to get the voices to come closer. What were they talking about? Who needs blood? Me? When I tried to focus to speak more and ask my questions, pain came. A shadow approached.

Darkness overcame me again.

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