Page 46 of Depraved Boys

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.

My pulse pounded in my ears. Where was Ashley? Uncle Trevor? Then my mind refocused on her question. “I didn’t drink.”

“What do you remember about last night?” asked the consultant.

My throat convulsed. “Some girls from school dragged me out of bed.”

“Girls?” asked the young doctor on the left. She was blonde and reminded me somewhat of Geraldine.

“Yes. From the Brittas Academy,” I replied.

The doctor on the right stood in front of a laptop that rested on a high trolley. “Are you sure?”

I nodded and stared down at my lap. My memories of last night were still hazy, but there hadn’t been any boys. “I only saw girls before I passed out.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to give a statement to the police?”

My head snapped up. “What happened? Did I do something wrong?”

“Your wounds are consistent with assault, and we found…” the consultant’s voice trailed off.

The pounding in my ears intensified to a roar. What happened? I couldn’t remember anything from the moment they clamped their hands over my mouth and nose.

“Please, tell me,” I rasped.

“Are you sure there wasn’t a boy or a man?” asked the doctor on the right.

Nausea raced through my insides. I couldn’t understand why they drew it out. A terrible, intimate ache pushed itself through the cacophony of pain to the forefront of my awareness.

My virginity.

I gasped out a sob. Possibilities raced through my frantic mind. The queens had brought one or more boys to win that disgusting bet while I had been passed out.

Or they’d left me in that field, and a strange man had—I closed my eyes. No.

My hands curled in the sheets, and I whispered, “Why do you think a man was involved?”