In Between the Lines

Chapter 7: Rules and Revelations

Dez looked . . . lethal.

I felt Evan move behind me, his grip tightening around my shirt as he saw the same thing I saw. "Stay out of this, pretty boy."

Dez didn't so much as blink as he began his countdown. "Three."

Evan didn't let go.

Even I couldn't remember how to get my muscles to move.

"Two." Dez rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck.

And I could have sworn there was panic—real panic in Evan's voice as he said, "You know the rules, man. Just back off."

Dez didn't bother to finish his countdown as he stalked towards us, his golden eyes blazing. Evan dropped his grip on me and pushed me away before Dez could get another step in and backed himself against the wall, cowering behind me.

"Okay, okay, fine!" Evan held up his hands as Dez stepped in between us. He hiccuped and slurred his words as he spoke again, but not so much that I couldn't make out what he said. "This is bullshit! I could've won."

From the way the veins popped out along his neck, I was afraid Dez was going to explode on the spot. But his voice was low—heavy with rage and something far darker as he grabbed Evan by the collar and said near silently, "We're going to settle this when you're sober."

Not a threat. But a promise.

Then Dez took that collar and used it to throw Evan back out into the hall—the hall where there was now a crowd of people watching. Evan fell flat on his face, unable to balance himself. No one offered to help him back up.

And then, Dez turned to me. 

His gaze darted over me, up and down and back up again, checking for any signs of injury or hurt. Flashes of anger still tore through his eyes, but not at me—no, that anger wasn't directed towards me. Even as he growled, "I told you not to move until I got back. Why did you leave?"

I didn't get to answer him before Hannah appeared, shaking—crying.

"Lyra! Oh my god, I was looking everywhere for you!" She wrapped me in a fierce hug and sobbed. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. If I'd known this was going to . . . I would have never told you to come."

By now several eyes were on us. I looked in between Hannah and Dez, unsure how to respond to what was happening, unsure what was even happening. Before I could ask, Hannah turned on Dez and Evan. Her face was red with anger, almost the same shade as her hair.

"You're sick!" she yelled at them before turning to the crowd watching."All of you!"

Everyone remained silent.

And then suddenly there was Lewis, bursting out from the fringes of the crowd as he ran towards us, his face heavy with complete shame. 

"Hannah, please, let me explain—"

"YOU." She pointed a finger at him that caused him to stop dead in his tracks. "Don't you fucking call me again. Ever." And then she turned to me. "Let's get out of here, Lyra."

I let her drag me through the crowd, who parted for us as we passed. Sometime in between being in the bathroom with Evan and being led out by Hannah, my body had become numb. It no longer belonged to me—and instead became a shell of me, moving as if on autopilot.

Before we walked out the front door, I only managed a glance back to where Evan was still struggling to stand from the ground, where Lewis stood with his expression wholly shattered, and where Dez . . .

Dez was nowhere to be seen.

***

Hannah explained everything to me down the street at a nearby park while we "waited" for Ethan to pick us up. It would have been too coincidental for him to have been waiting there as soon as we walked out, so I texted him to give us fifteen minutes before he pulled up, as well as to give Hannah and I some privacy while we talked.

After she finished telling me everything, I threw up. Twice.

While she was weaving through the party looking for me, Dez, and Lewis, she passed a hall and saw some guys from the team. She figured they might have known where Lewis and Dez went and that they might have been with me, so she went to ask them. But they didn't see her approach—which was why they didn't bother to shut up as they began to talk about how the bets were going. Bets on who could get lucky with the new girl.

She stopped when she realized they'd meant me.

Their rules were simple: Anyone who landed a kiss would win fifty dollars. And for anyone who landed more . . .

I didn't want to think about it. How my body . . . how it became some sort of prize to them. How every one of their words to me tonight—Adam, Jonny, and whoever the hell else approached me—their words were laced with the intent of getting paid to . . . to touch me in that way. How Lewis and Dez had known. About all of it.

Dez, who had been sitting next to me in Chemistry for an hour every day, for the past the three days. Who, even if he hated me, even if he tried to tell me not to go and even if he'd been the one to save me from Evan . . .

He had known.

I went to bed that night and dreamt of the dragon.

But this time, when he came swooping down, he burned every inch of my skin.