Page 46 of Wicked Elites

“Don’t tell me you want to lick someone’s pussy,” said Geraldine.

I shook my head and said through spluttering breaths, “No! I’ll swim the—”

“Bring the swill and give her the foie gras treatment, girls!” roared Bianca.

My eyes widened, and I locked gazes with Ashley, who smirked. Even if she didn’t know what would happen tonight, the look in her eyes told me she’d worked out the penalty. Foie gras came from geese that had been force-fed through plastic tubes.

Clamping my mouth shut, I threw myself face-down on the grass, but the girls rolled me onto my back.

“Open wide,” someone shouted.

I clenched my teeth, and a fist repeatedly slammed into my stomach. Curling and flinching did nothing to deter the girls. They piled onto me and dug their fingers into my jaws, trying to pry my mouth open. I shuddered with each blow but still kept my lips closed.

Then a hand pinched my nose, but I parted my lips a little and clenched my teeth. Someone poured cold liquid onto my mouth, a mixture of strong alcohol and something that smelled of aniseed. Absinthe? My heartbeat redoubled, and I thrashed within the crowd of attacking girls.

“Put her to sleep,” said Bianca’s bored voice. “I’m getting cold.”

Another hand clamped over my mouth, and the one holding my nose closed pinched harder. My eyes bulged, and I stared up through the girls to find Ashley looking down at me, her eyes pitiless. It was the last thing I saw before passing out.

Chapter 11

I’d been tipsy before, but never this level of inebriation. Never this gut-wrenching misery of being on a rollercoaster that just wouldn’t stop. Blurred images swam in an out of my consciousness. Some dark. Some blinding light.

At one point, I thought Mom told me to hang on and that someone was coming. I was that screwed up. I couldn’t tell if it was day or night, if I was alive or teetering on the verge of death. Then pain pushed itself to the surface and high-pitched beeps reverberated in my ears.

My eyelids struggled to open, but they were caked shut.

“Leave Brittas Academy. That’s what I told you,” said a male voice.

I cracked my eyes open to find a blurry Prakash standing over me.

“This place will be the death of you,” he murmured. “Don’t make me have to warn you again.”

My eyes drifted shut, and this time, I fell asleep. In my dreams, I lay face-down in stagnant water but couldn’t escape the cruel hands or the muffled laughter.

* * *

“Willow Evergreen,” said a sharp voice.

With a jolt, I snapped my eyes open.

A female doctor about Mom’s age stood at the foot of my bed. Two younger female doctors—my vision hadn’t cleared well enough to tell if they were older than medical students—stood at her sides.

I was in a private hospital room with the door shut. My pulse beat hard in my ears, drowning out the sounds of beeping machines.

A blood pressure cuff squeezed the life out of my arm. I stared down at the line on the back of my hand and followed my gaze to what I hoped was just a saline drip.

“Willow,” the doctor’s voice softened. “My name is Natalie Croft, and I’m a senior consultant at the Cumberland Royal Infirmary. Do you know why you’re here?”

“Alcohol poisoning?” I rasped through a throat that felt raw from screaming. Everything hurt. My head, my muscles, and even my guts.

“Your blood alcohol level was 0.38. 0.2 more points, and you would have died of alcohol poisoning.”

A breath caught in my throat. “No.”

“You vomited a significant amount of alcohol, which helped. We pumped your stomach and intubated your airways, but I have to know what caused you to drink to such excess.”

I glanced around the room. Around the asylum-white walls, the closed door, and the window blinds keeping me from seeing the outside world.