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“Don’t fuck with me, Ty.” Quinton said. “Why aren’t you with the others in the clearing?”

Instead of answering his Uncle, Tyson looked at me and said, “I get it, why you threw that rock at him. Right now, I’m wishing you had thrown it a little harder. And maybe aimed for his eye. A black eye would look good on him, don’t you think?”

I cringed at the reminder of my stupidity and Tyson turned back to his Uncle. “I saw her there,” he said. I was glad to hear the anger had left his voice entirely. “I also saw you drag her away and I wanted to make sure she was okay.”

“She’s with me,” Quinton said, “of course she’s okay. You know she’s perfectly safe with me.”

“No,” Tyson bit out, “I don’t.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Quinton asked and he sounded confused.

I was with him on this one because I believed him when he said I was perfectly safe when I was with him. It was everybody else that needed to worry.

“I’m not talking about her safety,” Tyson said with a straight face. “I’m talking about her virtue.”

My eyes about bugged out of my head as I stared at Tyson like I had never seen him before.

“Come on, Ty, give me a little credit here. It’s not like I’m gonna do her right here on Marcus’s front lawn.”

My mouth dropped open to accompany my bugged-out eyes and I gaped at Quinton in what I imagine looked a whole lot like horror. I did not like the way he’d said that at all.

“Nobody’s doing anybody,” I breathed out.

They both started laughing and I backed away from them, slowly.

I didn’t find anything funny and I certainly didn’t like the casual way they were discussing having sex with me. I hadn’t agreed to have a relationship with any of them and no way was I ready to talk about sex with them.

Maybe I shouldn’t have let Quinton stick his tongue in my mouth? Did he think just because I had allowed him to kiss me that now I would be open to other things? I surely hoped not. My life was a mess, I couldn’t imagine how much messier it would get if I started knocking boots with multiple people. Maybe we could talk about it after my life got straightened out and I was no longer in mourning and probably going to end up homeless in my very near future. Then again, maybe not.

Since they were both still laughing and completely ignoring me, I figured it was safe to escape them and their utter madness. I turned and ran. Ran away from them, ran away from their laughter, their particular brand of crazy. If I ran fast enough maybe I could make it to the door and lock myself inside so I could go back to avoiding them because they were all fucking crazy.

I was half way across the lawn when something slammed into my back and I was tackled to the ground. I let out a shriek right before my body hit the ground. A heavy weight landed on top of my back and I ended up with a mouth full of grass.

I spit the grass out and coughed. What the hell?

“Get off me,” I yelled and tried to buck the heavy weight of someone’s body off of me. It was no use.

“Shh,” Tyson said from his place on top of my back. “If you don’t stop yelling, Mr. Cole is going to come out here and think we are trying to murder you. He’ll probably shoot us.”

I ignored his suggestion, and yelled, “If you don’t get off me right this second, Tyson Alexander, I am never, ever going to speak to you again. And, I’m a girl so I know how to hold a mean grudge.”

Before this thing with Chucky, I’d actually never held a grudge against anyone in my whole life and had no intention of Tyson being the second person on my grudge hit list, but he didn’t need to know that.

His weight left my back and I was able to pull in a full breath for the first time since he tackled me. Hands grabbed ahold of me under my armpits and I was hauled to my feet.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Quinton’s voice vibrated with rage. “You could have seriously hurt her, you fucking idiot.”

The person holding me, which I realized was Quinton after he’d spoken, shook me so hard my teeth rattled and my head snapped back and forth with the force of it.

“Are you okay, Ariel?” he asked and his voice was a whole lot gentler than it had been a few seconds ago. And he was calling me by my first name again.

I thought about his question. Was I okay? My body wasn’t injured, or at least I didn’t feel any injuries. I looked down at my body just in case I missed anything important and I realized I had grass stains on my knees. Other than that, I was fine.

Tyson moved so that he was standing in front of me.

He bent forward so that our faces were almost touching and whispered, “Did I hurt you? I didn’t mean to hurt you. I swear it, Ariel. I would never intentionally hurt you.”

I shrugged and told him the truth, “I’m not hurt.”