Page 86 of Wicked Elites

At this stage, I was so wrapped up in pain and confusion that I couldn’t even utter a reply. Halfway down the ground-floor corridor, he opened a door, setting off bright, fluorescent light that burned my eyes. Squinting, I swayed on my feet.

“Doctor Forrester isn’t here.” He guided me to a plastic chair and made me sit.

I lowered my gaze to the floor and blinked hard. “Why is there a doctor on staff instead of a nurse?”

Cormac pressed a bell. “He teaches a course for those who want to go to medical school. The bell pages him from wherever he is in the building. If he can’t get to an emergency, he’ll call the landline on the desk.”

I raised my head to find us in a reception area with a door at one end, labeled, ‘DOCTOR.’

He turned back to me and fixed his eyes on my temple. “Bloody hell, Willow. It looks like you’ve been slashed.” He hurried to a roll of absorbent paper, tore off a huge wad and handed it to me. “Here.”

“Prakash stopped them.”

“What?”

“Prakash—”

“How do you know he didn’t set it up?”

“He wouldn’t?”

“Corrine wasn’t the type to fall in love easily. She was intelligent, like you, but those boys strung out her seduction for an entire year before someone had the heart to tell her she was a victim of the pull-a-pig game.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You spent a whole day and a whole night with Garraway and Brunswick, and someone told me they saw you running off in Kashaayah’s Audi. I fear that you’re going the same way as my poor, deluded, dead sister.”

“But you said—”

“What I said was that I didn’t want to talk about it. Until you told me about the diary’s contents, I had no idea which of those boys screwed her, if at all.”

My mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. I couldn’t tell him that Prakash regretted his actions because it would hurt more that I’d been sneaking around behind his back and digging into his sister’s death. My head spun, and my thoughts jumbled into a mass of incoherent sentences.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“I think you have a concussion. You asked me that a minute ago.”

“What did you say?” I blinked again, bringing his face back into focus.

His features softened. “I see you going the same way as my sister. Corrine became obsessed with the kings, but she made herself a nuisance.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“It got to the point where she’d do anything to get their attention, even accusing them of gang-raping her.”

He blew out a breath. “I backed her and even helped her report it to the police because I knew those bastards were capable of anything, but she muddled up the times and dates, and the police didn’t take the case forward to the Crown Prosecution Service.”

I gulped. This nearly matched Prakash’s version of events, except that Cormac still believed his sister’s accusations. I didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but I had to ask, “Do you think she might have gotten confused?”

“I don’t know, but each time I catch those so-called kings harassing girls, I wonder.” He swallowed hard. “Especially after that time I caught Garraway pinning you to the door of your room. I also heard what the queens set up Brunswick to do to you in the swimming block.”

My mouth fell open, but no words came out. What could I say? It happened, but not from his sinister viewpoint of the kings. And I wouldn’t tell him about the day in the hideout, because he would explode.

“Please, don’t worry about me.” I placed a hand on his shoulder.

A hysterical laugh slipped from his lips. “Y-you have blood pouring down your face, and you tell me not to worry? How stupidly optimistic are you?”

My shoulders slumped. From his perspective, he was right.