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“Honestly? Yeah.”

“She’s going out of town with her friends,” Alastair grunts. “There’s some kind of fashion show she wants to go to in LA. That’s why I’m throwing the party.”

“Sounds like you have a stage four clinger,” Noor mutters. “Maybe I should still choose the cliff.”

“It makes me not want to give you what you want,” I say, shaking off my dick and putting it away. “Go to the party or I’ll find a way to fuck up your pretty little foster family.”

“Mrs. Denton has kids, right? I bet I could find buyers on the dark web for them,” Ciaran lies.

I know him as well as I know myself. He’d never fuck with child trafficking, but Noor doesn’t know that. She looks absolutely green at the moment, and I can see the moment she decides to bend. Not for herself, but for the toddlers that are innocent.

Damn, I can almost hear the wheels turning in her mind.

“I’ll be there,” she whispers.

“Good girl,” Alastair says, freeing her arms and gesturing that Ciaran and I give Noor back her weapons.

We toss her shit at her, including her backpack, and begin walking back to school. She can find her way back for herself. The sound of Noor puking isn’t surprising, based on our actions.

So why do I feel a twinge of guilt?

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

NOOR

I have a notoriously terrible sense of direction, and it takes me way too long to get back to the school. I’m sickened by the guys, their actions, and I lost my lunch at the sight of so much of my hair strewn over the ground.

My hair has been with me throughout my life. I’ve maybe had a total of three haircuts after my parents died, and to not feel the weight of it as it brushes my skin is surreal.

Me

Can someone pick me up from school? I had an incident with a pair of scissors just now and I’m not sure how badly I lost to them.

I sound really calm as I plop down against a tree just before the back lawn begins. I dig into my bag for a mint, my stomach threatening to rebel again. I’m almost frantic as I shove it into my mouth before I drop my head back on the trunk of the giant tree. It’s as if my strings have been cut, and I simply can’t stand anymore. There’s a banked anger inside of me that keeps threatening to break free, and I am trying hard not to let it consume me.

The endless exhaustion I feel on a daily basis is at war with that anger, and I feel like I might explode.

I don’t want to lash out at someone who doesn’t deserve it. At the end of the day, I’m alive, I don’t have any broken bones, and I wasn’t raped. That’s about how low my bar sits for my own wellbeing.

Alastair, Ciaran, and Draven could easily have thrown me off the cliff. I would have ended up a missing person with an unsolved case, or worse yet, marked a runaway.

I blink twice as I struggle not to disassociate, but I can’t focus on my phone. No matter how hard I try, nothing helps. Digging my nails into my palm, I shake my head to attempt to dispel the brain fog taking over my mind.

“Noor. Noor!” a male voice yells, gaining my attention.

“What?” I whisper, my voice weak.

“We’ve been trying to get a hold of you for the last fifteen minutes,” Theo says, crouching down beside me.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, confused as I gaze at him.

“I tracked your phone,” he explains, picking my backpack up and pulling it over his shoulder.

“What?” I ask, feeling like a broken record as he lifts me into his arms. “I can walk.”

“That’s doubtful,” Theo mutters. “It’s like the lights are on but no one’s home. You’re not under the influence or anything, right?”