Page 249 of Lessons in Cruelty

The fuck is⁠—?

“—and no one is more deserving than you are. Can I get a round of applause for Haven Lee, everyone?”

The music starts up again.

No, it’s just clapping. A few yells.

Someone’s calling me.

Haven Lee.

Haven Lee.

Heavenly.

…Little Miss Heavenly. That’s your new name. Because you look just like a little angel…

Kai?

I whip my head around, but it’s only me and Ezra and the DJ.

The DJ looks angry. At me? I don’t want to be up here. I try to walk to the edge so I can climb off, but Ezra seizes the back of my neck and pulls me back.

“Don’t be so fucking rude, Trailer Trash.”

I put a hand over my mouth. Was I being rude? What did I do?

Sorry.

But my voice still isn’t working. My legs are wobbly. There’s this achy, awful feeling inside me, and it’s the taste of body paint in my mouth, the burning on my lips, the way my entire body is tingling like I can still feel Kai’s touch.

What the fuck is going on?

“Got you something, Trailer Trash. Now everyone will know who the Riversider bitch is.”

Something slips around my throat, and it’s cold and not at all like⁠—

Kai

—a hand, pressing me against the tree, holding me in place as he fingers me into submission. But I didn’t submit, did I, the fucking asshole he⁠—

There’s a rattle, a tug. I can’t breathe, but then I can.

Someone—

Ezra

—shoves me to my knees, and I yell because it hurts, and the pain brings me to the surface of the glowing bodies and the lightning coursing through my body, the rain pelting my skin.

I scrabble at my neck, feel a collar tight against my skin.

Then the metal chain attached to it.

The padlock securing both.

“No!” I try to yank at the chain, but when I throw my head back, Ezra is standing over me with a snarl on his face, the chain wrapped around his fist.

“Every bitch needs a collar.”