Page 175 of Broken by my Bully

Miss H. spits in my fucking face.

“Get out.” Her voice shivers with suppressed rage as the knife presses harder. “Get. Out!”

I scramble out from under the bed, and she rolls out a moment later like a fuckingninja. If ninjas wore slashed up dresses and had long, messy hair.

The hand holding the knife shakes as she stands, but it’s not with fear.

Fury. Indignation. A touch of feral glee. That’s what I see on her face, in her eyes.

“Jesus,” I whisper, shaking my head as I give her naked, cum-stained, blood smeared body a slow scan. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

She charges me with bared teeth, and I don’t risk hanging around to see if she plans to drive that knife into my ribs, or slice my throat.

I fucking run.

My shoes skid on the curb outside the GAZ house, and I spend a terrifying second cartwheeling my arms to catch my balance, hopping on one foot like a fucking idiot.

I blow out a breath, hands on my knees as I drag air into my lungs. I’m sure someone could have heard me racing down the stairs, but no one’s coming down them to investigate.

Still, better get the hell out of here before…

My gaze lands on Haven’s new Land Rover. Not that it’s new. It’s an ancient thing. I’m surprised she even knows how to drive it.

The interior light is still on.

Guess she didn’t close the trunk properly. Can’t blame her. I was walking away with her duffel bags. I plan to leave it like that, silently begging that the battery will be dead in the morning and she’ll need to ghost up a push-start, but then a sinister thought crosses my mind.

I check if anyone’s around, walking past, sticking their head out an upstairs window, that kind of thing. Haven would check to see if I’d left, but her dorm room window faces the backyard with its infestation of fairy lights.

All clear.

I slip silently into the Land Rover’s driver seat, pulling the door shut behind me, and then turn off the overhead light.

Darkness pools around me, but there’s just enough light fromthe street lamp a few yards away that I can make out some shapes in the dark. The gear shift, the emergency brake.

A white AHC tote bag lying on the passenger seat beside a pink gift bag.

I ignore the gift bag and go straight for the tote, pulling out an envelope with a few wrinkled bills inside.

Jackpot.

They get crammed into my pocket, but something doesn’t feel right, so I pull them out again.

There’s a folded up page between the bills.

I recognize it instantly.

She fuckingkeptthis?

Even despising me, she couldn’t let me go. This is why she’ll always be mine, whether she admits it not.

Because even her hate belongs to me.

When I open the page, I’m instantly transported back to the day I got this letter from Ashwood Crossing. It’s the first time I’d gotten mail from that town, and I almost tossed the envelope.

Until I recognized the handwriting.

I got all fucking excited, because it was the first time Haven had written me since she’d disappeared. She was finally apologizing, she’d maybe even say she’d had a change of heart, that I wasn’t a loser, that I’d done the right thing, that we could still be friends?—