Page 32 of Savage Elites

He held me steady. “What’s going on?”

“Willow’s about to start a fight, and she’ll need some backup,” muttered Leopold.

By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, Sebastian and Cormac had joined us. We all rushed down the hallway toward the fire exit. Leopold and Prakash ran on my left and right, while Sebastian and Cormac took up the rear.

I pushed open the fire door, and a gust of freezing wind chilled my skin. Cheers and jeers and shouted insults filled my ears, the intensity of which made my heart skip. Ignoring the biting cold, I pulled together the edges of my blazer and ran into the night. Frost and gravel crunched underfoot, and my lungs filled with frigid air.

Cormac and the kings jogged around me in silence along the side of the academy’s vast building, keeping up with my slower pace. As we rounded the corner, I caught the first sight of a crowd of boys.

Tall, iron lights illuminated the academy’s tree-lined garden and reflected off the thin layer of snow over the ground. I still couldn’t see or hear Ashley, as the boys had formed a tight circle around her.

As I sprinted across the frozen lawn, one of the boys broke away from the crowd, giving me my first glimpse of Ashley.

She was naked and crawling on all fours, with a curly, plastic tail in her anus.

My stomach plummeted, and my feet slipped across the snow.

Someone—Prakash, perhaps—grabbed my arm to stop me from falling on my face, but my insides spasmed, and all I wanted to do was hurl my guts. I had to blink to make sure I hadn’t fallen into some kind of fever dream, because what I saw was inconceivable and obscene.

“Spit roast!” one voice shouted.

“Cum slut!” another roared.

Ashley crawled out of sight, and the crowd closed in around her. Palpitations reverberated across my chest, and my breaths came in shallow pants.

Leopold clapped his hand over his mouth. “A butt-plug!”

“Fucking hell,” muttered Sebastian.

“Willow,” said Prakash. “Are you alright?”

“We need to stop this, now,” said Cormac.

Another round of cheers filled the air, followed by someone’s shout of, “In your face, Piggy!

The implication of those words sent a spike of adrenaline through my heart. I glanced around for something, anything to stop this monstrous display. My gaze caught a branch that had fallen from a nearby tree, and I rushed to its trunk and picked it up.

“What the fuck, Willow?” Leopold stood in my path.

My limbs shook with banked rage. “Out of my way.”

Maybe I’d read too many of Dad’s Norse mythology books, but fury took over my senses, and I charged at the crowd of boys. With one sweep of the branch, I whacked half a dozen of them across the backs.

“Get off her!” I screeched.

They scattered, and one of the boys ran back and grabbed my arm, but Sebastian rushed forward and punched him square in the face.

Ashley continued crawling through the snow. Some kind of gag wrapped around her head, but attached to its front was a snout that covered her nose and mouth. They had attached pig ears around her head and smeared what smelled like feces over her body. But worse were the streams of pearlescent liquid glistening over her back and hair and down the insides of her thighs.

My lungs expelled their contents in a huge rush of condensation.

Bruce, that bastard Ashley had met at the Hessington Hall party, knelt at her side, whispering words that made her body convulse with muffled sobs. The twins crouched on his left and right. One of them even held her chin, forcing her to make eye contact. Gritting my teeth, I ran around her and whacked the nearest twin, who skittered away like a startled rat.

“Bitch.” Bruce leaped to his feet and lurched toward me with his fists balled.

I kicked out at him, but he grabbed my foot and pulled it up, making me fall on my back. Freezing, wet snow seeped through my hair, into my neck and into the back of my head, making me draw in a noisy gasp.

“Fat cunt,” he snarled. “When it’s your turn—”