Page 14 of Something Like Sugar (Pine Forest Something #2)

SHANA

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO

Y ou gotta drink now, cutie.”

My fingers curl around the plastic red cup, and I blink up at the boy who just said something to me, Thomas. He’s a grade above me, but we don’t share any classes or friends, so I know very little about him. Only that Dustin hates him. Sworn Devyn and I away from him or any of his friends.

Why am I with him?

“What did you say?” I rub my forehead. “I think I spaced out.” I scan the field party I came to with Dev and Ash, my eyes zoning on the large oak with a funny branch I remember seeing on the way to the clearing.

Only, I don’t see either of my friends.

And when did I get this cup of—I sniff the half-full beverage and my stomach rolls. “Is this beer?”

“Jungle Juice.” Thomas winks, a slow smile creeping across his face as he leans in around me, putting his arms on either side.

With my back flush to his and my front shoved against the beer pong table, I have no means to free myself when I feel his lips touch the back of my neck.

My skin prickles, but not in a good way.

“Get off me, please.” I shove him back, but his hold tightens, and his height gives him the advantage to keep me right where he wants.

“Shh, we don’t have to go all the way, Holiday. I know you’re a good girl,” he whispers in my ear as my body tenses. “Everyone here knows.”

What does he mean, everyone?

“I could help you with that, you know. I’m good too. You hear me singing in church? I was praying for your tight little…” His hand drops to the curve of my hip.

“Thomas, please. Let me go.” I shove him, thrusting my backside into his pelvis, but he’s too wasted and likes it, groaning a twisted approval. Tears prick my eyes as he holds me there to wiggle himself against and I want to vomit when I feel the hardness.

I shift my weight onto my spotting foot and twist, trying to wrench free from his grip.

I pray my strength and flexibility are enough to break out of his bulky hold, but his hands are like iron, his fingers digging painfully into my sides.

A scream tears from my throat, drawing every eye in the field.

Eyes who don’t help me. My heart pounds as I search the crowd. Who are all these people?

Where is Devyn?

I’m still fighting against Thomas as he wraps his other arm around my waist and feels for the hem of my dress, and just as I think I’ve become powerless, he’s thrown to the ground. A loud thud is all I hear before five flesh hammering thwacks sound through the field.

The crowd closes in as Dustin Campbell pounds his fist against Thomas’ face, an explanation following each punch.

“One,” he says, lifting Thomas by the collar and shoving him against the barn, “is for Ava, who never smiles because of you.”

Punch.

“Two,” he growls, “is for Tiffany, who never laughs because of you.” Fist meets flesh, and Thomas’ lip bursts open, blood spattering Dustin’s face like a painting.

I gasp, my heart beating so fast I’m unable to catch my breath. Talk. Move.

But he can move. And he does. Not just the punches and the punishing, either. He looks at my ruffled-up shirt and his eyes soften.

He nods once, licking Thomas’ blood from his bottom lip before an instant shift in personality and a hard, fast, left hook to his jaw. “Three is for Sarah, who will never trust again.”

“Your family signed an NDA!” He chokes on the blood streaming out his bottom lip and spits a tooth to the ground as he whines. “My father will put you behind fucking bars , Campbell!”

I draw in a sharp breath of air as I watch it unfold before me, but my best friend’s brother isn’t done yet.

Dustin could never say who, but one of the boys got away with what happened the night he saved those girls.

Not a single streak on his record, assault and rape were wiped entirely clean because this family had connections.

Meanwhile, Dustin was sentenced to juvie for almost killing them in the girls’ defense.

He traded his life for integrity.

He changed.

But he saved those girls.

I move my attention to Thomas, pinned against the wall as Dustin, the same boy who sent him into a coma less than two years ago, found him trying the very thing he said he’d kill him for if ever caught doing it again.

Dustin’s voice booms through the field, echoing through the open expanse. “Four is for the months I spent locked up for righting your wrongs.” He punches him in the gut, sending him doubling over and holding his stomach as he cries for mercy.

He receives none.

Certainly not in the green eyes I see before me. Ones that visit me in my dreams, in a softer, secretive way. In those eyes right now, there’s only anger and sadness, and I feel for Dustin Campbell, in a way I never have before.

Does he see those girls the way he found them when he closes his eyes? Is that how he saw me just now? Why his eyes keep finding their way to mine throughout the fight?

He checks if I’m okay with a nod, even as he’s the one covered in blood. I nod back.

I’m here for you like you’re here for me.

The wind picks up, matching the energy in my soul, blowing around the field and whipping my long dark hair around me.

A wild storm, precisely what this night has become.

And just before he slams his fist one last time into the boy who almost took from me what he’s stolen from three others before—Dustin’s eyes flick to mine and settle in the very place I don’t want them while he drives his fist against the bleeding pulp of my almost rapist.

Right between my legs.

So, I run, before I can feel or act or think any more on the reasons behind it. But not before I hear the words he speaks to my tormentor. And Sarah’s and Tiffany’s and Ava’s before me.

The last ones Thomas will ever hear without aid.

“Five is for Shana. Try it again and you won’t live to feel six.”