by Sofia Daniel
By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, Sebastian and Cormac had joined us. We all rushed down the hallway toward the fire exit. Leopold and Prakash ran on my left and right, while Sebastian and Cormac took up the rear.
I pushed open the fire door, and a gust of freezing wind chilled my skin. Cheers and jeers and shouted insults filled my ears, the intensity of which made my heart skip. Ignoring the biting cold, I pulled together the edges of my blazer and ran into the night. Frost and gravel crunched underfoot, and my lungs filled with frigid air.
Cormac and the kings jogged around me in silence along the side of the academy’s vast building, keeping up with my slower pace. As we rounded the corner, I caught the first sight of a crowd of boys.
Tall, iron lights illuminated the academy’s tree-lined garden and reflected off the thin layer of snow over the ground. I still couldn’t see or hear Ashley, as the boys had formed a tight circle around her.
As I sprinted across the frozen lawn, one of the boys broke away from the crowd, giving me my first glimpse of Ashley.
She was naked and crawling on all fours, with a curly, plastic tail in her anus.
My stomach plummeted, and my feet slipped across the snow.
Someone—Prakash, perhaps—grabbed my arm to stop me from falling on my face, but my insides spasmed, and all I wanted to do was hurl my guts. I had to blink to make sure I hadn’t fallen into some kind of fever dream, because what I saw was inconceivable and obscene.
“Spit roast!” one voice shouted.
“Cum slut!” another roared.
Ashley crawled out of sight, and the crowd closed in around her. Palpitations reverberated across my chest, and my breaths came in shallow pants.
Leopold clapped his hand over his mouth. “A butt-plug!”
“Fucking hell,” muttered Sebastian.
“Willow,” said Prakash. “Are you alright?”
“We need to stop this, now,” said Cormac.
Another round of cheers filled the air, followed by someone’s shout of, “In your face, Piggy!
The implication of those words sent a spike of adrenaline through my heart. I glanced around for something, anything to stop this monstrous display. My gaze caught a branch that had fallen from a nearby tree, and I rushed to its trunk and picked it up.
“What the fuck, Willow?” Leopold stood in my path.
My limbs shook with banked rage. “Out of my way.”
Maybe I’d read too many of Dad’s Norse mythology books, but fury took over my senses, and I charged at the crowd of boys. With one sweep of the branch, I whacked half a dozen of them across the backs.
“Get off her!” I screeched.
They scattered, and one of the boys ran back and grabbed my arm, but Sebastian rushed forward and punched him square in the face.
Ashley continued crawling through the snow. Some kind of gag wrapped around her head, but attached to its front was a snout that covered her nose and mouth. They had attached pig ears around her head and smeared what smelled like feces over her body. But worse were the streams of pearlescent liquid glistening over her back and hair and down the insides of her thighs.
My lungs expelled their contents in a huge rush of condensation.
Bruce, that bastard Ashley had met at the Hessington Hall party, knelt at her side, whispering words that made her body convulse with muffled sobs. The twins crouched on his left and right. One of them even held her chin, forcing her to make eye contact. Gritting my teeth, I ran around her and whacked the nearest twin, who skittered away like a startled rat.
“Bitch.” Bruce leaped to his feet and lurched toward me with his fists balled.
I kicked out at him, but he grabbed my foot and pulled it up, making me fall on my back. Freezing, wet snow seeped through my hair, into my neck and into the back of my head, making me draw in a noisy gasp.
“Fat cunt,” he snarled. “When it’s your turn—”
Leopold punched him in the side of the face, giving me enough time to scramble back to my feet. I was about to pick up my branch when one of the twins shoved me back down to the ground.
“Eat slush, Pigsty,” he spat.
I kicked out and caught him in the shin, then righted myself and charged at the other twin’s middle, knocking him onto his back. “You filthy bastard!”
Red blotches surfaced on his pasty face. “Get off!”
I punched him in the nose, but he turned his face to lessen the impact.
Rough hands grabbed me from behind, lifting me off the fallen twin. I twisted in my captor’s grip, while the twin on the floor sprung to his feet and rushed at me with his fists.
A blur knocked him off his feet onto his back. It was Prakash, who punched him hard in the face.
The boy holding me let go, and I landed in a crouch. He rushed past, presumably to help his comrade. I stuck out a leg to trip him up, and he fell on his face.
A whistle blew from the direction of the building, and a female voice boomed, “What on earth are you all doing?” Miss Claymore sprinted out from a procession of teachers. “Stop that at once.”
The caretaker, Mr. Blunt, ran a few paces behind her, holding some kind of truncheon.
I froze, as did Cormac and the kings.
It was only then that the aches and pains from being grabbed and jostled pushed themselves to the forefront. My head throbbed, and my stomach churned. I doubled over and threw up on the snow.
By the time I raised my head, most of the boys had already run around the other side of the building, taking Ashley with them.
Chapter 9
There were fewer lights on the side of the building where the boys escaped, but the dark figures contrasted with the white landscape, indicating that they’d all gone in the same direction. We bolted after them with Leopold and Sebastian in the lead. Prakash and Cormac slowed to match my slower pace.
Fury powered my steps, but the shin-deep snow slowed my progress. I clenched my fists, ignored the cold seeping through my tights and into my loafers, and picked up my pace. One of those boys must have slung Ashley over his shoulder so the faculty wouldn’t see what they had done to her.
“Sebastian Garraway, Leopold Brunswick, and Prakash Kashaayah,” bellowed Miss Claymore. “Come back, or I will have you all arrested!”
With a muttered curse, Sebastian and Leopold stopped running. Prakash slowed.
“Typical,” muttered Leopold.
“What are you three doing?” I continued running. “We need to go after them.”
Prakash’s expression twisted into a grimace. “She’s serious about that threat.”
“Huh?” I glanced over my shoulder. The deputy head moved through the snow like a charging rhinoceros, leaving Mr. Blunt behind.
Cormac grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”
“But—”
“Those three will be stuck with Miss Claymore for ages trying to explain that they weren’t the ringleaders in the victimization of another girl.”
A group of triumphant, male hoots sounded from the other side of the building and reignited my fury. Sending the kings a silent apology for leaving them to the wrath of Miss Claymore, I continued toward the sound.
Cormac and I rounded the corner and tried the side doors. They were locked.
I snarled. “How—”
“It’s a one-way fire door.” Cormac continued around the building. “The knights must have gotten a younger student to keep it open for them in case they needed to make a getaway.”
“They must have planned it.” I balled my fists and picked up my pace.
“Tonight’s a faculty meeting,” Connor shouted over his shoulder. “The staff common room faces the front of the building.” He pushed open a side-door, which led to a set of stairs.
I followed after him. “Where do you think they’ve taken her? East wing?”
“Let’s start with the top floor,” said Cormac.
We ran up the stairs and walked along the fourth floor of the boys’ wing, loo
king for signs of a group of boys terrorizing a girl. Cormac showed me the rooms of each of the boys he had recognized from earlier, but no sounds came through their doors.
My heart galloped a steady beat as my mind processed what I had seen. I’d always thought that the pull-a-pig game culminated in Geraldine and Bianca making catty comments backed up with pictures and other scraps of evidence to humiliate the victim.
But what they had done to Ashley—bile surged to the back of my throat, and I gagged.
“Are you alright?” asked Cormac.
“What if they moved her to another location to continue?” There was no name for what those boys had done to her. Each of them deserved to be behind bars.
“Then we’ll find them.” Cormac opened the door to a stairwell. “Let’s see if any noise is coming from the younger students’ rooms.”
We searched all the likely hideouts, such as empty classrooms, the basement, and the stairwells. We even walked out of the building and went to the gym block to see if they had taken Ashley there, but we saw no signs of a group of rowdy boys.
The stress and the effort from running around the campus kept us warm. However, by the time Cormac and I had exhausted all our options, the cold filled my lungs and seeped into my bones.
My fingers closed around the freezing, metal door handle leading back into the building. “L-let’s go to the common rooms and see if anyone knows something.”
“G-good idea,” Cormac said through chattering teeth.
If the cold hadn’t reduced me to a numb, shuffling wreck, I would have been sick with panic. Right now, even a hot bath sounded like too much effort. I walked alongside Cormac through the hallways on legs I could no longer feel.
We trudged back up the stairs to the attic level and headed toward the sixth-form common room. The usual chatter filled the hallway, along with male laughter.
Cormac pushed the door open and stepped inside. All the windows were closed, restoring the warmth. A group of boys crowded around one of the vending machines at the back of the room.
Bruce Wilmington stood in the middle, beaming at his audience.
A fresh bout of anger thawed my heart. I rushed forward, but Cormac held me back. “Stay calm, and don’t start a fight. We’re outnumbered.”
I gave him a sharp nod. Miss Claymore must have detained the kings, thinking that they had been the cause of the noisy altercation.
The group of boys snickered, and one of them said, “How the fuck did you get her into that outfit?”
“I knew from the start she was a no-limit whore,” Bruce drawled.
“Where is she?” I snapped.
The group of boys spun to leer at me.
“What’s that, Pigsty?” said one of the auburn-haired twins.
“What did you do with Ashley?” I snarled.
Bruce straightened and pushed his way through the crowd of boys. “Don’t play coy. You saw exactly what we did to your sister.” His gaze lingered over my breasts. “I can’t wait until it’s your turn.”
“Where. Is. Ashley?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“Suck my cock, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
“Wilmington,” Cormac snapped. “One more word, and I’ll—”
“Suck mine!” said the twin on Bruce’s left.
“No, mine,” shouted a voice at the back of the crowd.
Some of the boys cupped their crotches. Others made thrusting motions with their hips. If I hadn’t seen what they had done to Ashley, I would have thought they were bluffing. But these guys were dangerous in a gang.
I placed my hands on my hips. “You can explain to the police when I call them.”
Bruce’s face dropped. “We didn’t do anything wrong. Ashley will tell you.”
“Where is she?”
“We dropped her outside Bianca’s room.”
Panic lanced through my frozen heart as I remembered what Bianca had whispered to me during Ashley’s initiation. She had said Ashley would want to fall down a ditch when they had finished with her. I spun on my heel, walked out of the common room, and headed for the west wing.
“Willow.” Cormac strode at my side. “Slow down.”
“What if those girls are shoving pills or alcohol down Ashley’s throat?”
He wrapped his hand around my arm. “I get that you want to save your sister, but let’s call Miss Claymore or the police.”
“In the time we’re waiting for them to take action, something terrible might happen.”
“I’m worried,” he said.
“About what?”
“You.” Cormac dipped his head. “Making enemies.”
“How can you say that when you fight bullying every day?”
He jerked his head away. “It’s different.”
I shook my head and continued down the hallway. This was one of the times when a person needed to act and deal with the consequences later. What I’d seen had been too extreme to ignore. A less resilient person would lose themselves to drink or drugs after such a horrific assault, and Ashley was no stranger to using alcohol as a crutch.
We walked in silence through the central part of the building. Cormac dipped his head, seeming to be deep in contemplation. Perhaps the events of the evening had triggered memories of Corrine, who had been victimized by the students in not as extreme circumstances.
There was no reply in Bianca or Ashley’s rooms, and I was about to lose hope when Cormac suggested we check my room to see if Ashley had gone there. An irrational thought of Ashley waiting for me in the dark made the lining of my stomach tremble, but I shook off those thoughts and continued down the hallway.
I opened the door a crack. “Ashley?”
She slumped at the desk with her head in her hands, wearing my toweling dressing gown and matching slippers.
“You’re going to say I got what I deserved,” Ashley muttered without looking up.
My throat dried, and I swallowed hard. I had wanted Ashley punished for what had happened to me during her initiation, but not like this. Images of my naked sister, covered in the bullies’ ejaculate, flashed to the front of my memory, and I rubbed a hand over my mouth.
“Do you want me to call the police?” I asked.
Her nostrils flared. “Yes.”
I turned to Cormac, who pulled out his smartphone and backed into the hallway. While he called nine-nine-nine, I stepped further into the room and leaned against the radiator to thaw my frozen limbs.
Pain wound around my lungs and crawled up my windpipe, turning all my words of comfort to ice. I would have offered her a hug, but she probably didn’t want to be touched. Especially not by someone she already despised. I blew out a labored breath and tried not to think of the first time I’d woken in the hospital.
“I feel so dirty,” she whispered.
“Don’t have a shower until the police come.”
“Too late,” she said.
My shoulders slumped with defeat. All that incriminating DNA evidence… now down the drain.
Cormac gave the door a gentle knock and cracked it open. “I’ve told the police to come straight to this room.”
I gave him a weak smile. “Thanks.”
“Tell that creep to get out,” Ashley screeched from where she slumped on the desk. “He’s always staring at your ass and boobs when he thinks you’re not looking.”
Pursing my lips, I turned to Cormac to apologize for Ashley’s outburst.
Cormac paled, and his face went slack. “That’s not true, Willow. I’ve never—”
“I know.” I crossed the room and placed a hand on his arm. “Ashley’s just lashing out, and I’m sorry.”
“Just go away,” she screamed.
“I’ll see you later.” Cormac backed out of the room and shut the door.
I whirled on Ashley. “Save your ire for Bruce and the others. Cormac ran out to save you.”
She turned back to stare at the desk. The notice board hanging above her space consisted
of a blank cork board stuck with multicolored pins. “Well, he should have gotten to me at the start of term and given me a warning.”
My mouth opened to say that Cormac had told us about sexual harassment and the pull-a-pig game, but I clamped it shut. I’d only spoken to Ashley once since her initiation, and that conversation hadn’t gone well. She was likely still in avoidance mode and spewing out any old crap to distract me from asking her what happened.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
“I’ll only go through it once when I tell the police,” she murmured.
“Right.” I stretched out my fingers and curled them back in an attempt to get the circulation flowing back to my hands. What could I say to Ashley in a situation like this?
I stared down at my feet, wishing things had turned out differently between us. Wishing that Ashley’s experience didn’t stir up my anguish about what she had chosen for me.
“This would never have happened at Cummersdale Comprehensive,” she croaked.
“That place was tame compared to Brittas,” I said.
She raised her head, revealing eyes puffy with tears. “Why did you bring us here?”
“The bursary—”
“See where your obsession with money has landed us!” She slammed her palm on the desk.
“No,” I snapped.
“What do you mean?”
Pushing myself off the radiator, I said, “I know you’re hurting, but I won’t let you use me as a scapegoat.”
“Where are you going?”
“Outside, to wait for the police.”
I only took a few steps down the hallway and rested against the nearest radiator. Warmth seeped into my limbs, bringing with it the sensation of being stabbed repeatedly with thousands of pins and needles.
About forty minutes later, a female police sergeant and a male constable emerged from the stairwell. I rushed toward them, introduced myself, and led them to our room.
“Ashley.” I knocked on the door. “The police are here.”
A moment later, she opened the door, fully dressed and made up. The male officer looked at his sergeant, whose brows drew together.
“Ashley Evergreen?” asked the sergeant. “One of your classmates reported an assault.”
