Page 19 of My Revenant
On and on it went until my fists ached from clenching them so tight and the match was finally called.
Mason, the fuckhead, was called as the winner.
“That’s bullshit!” I screamed, stepping forward again closer to the ref.
Becca yanked me backward, this time grabbing my arm and dragging me away. My eyes found Dex as he spat blood onto the sand, and someone I didn’t quite recognize approached him looking furious. Who was that? What were they to him?
“Jonah!” Becca snapped, taking my jaw in her hands and physically forcing me to look at her. My face turned in her direction, but my eyes still attempted to stay on him. “Jonah!” she barked again, her voice dropping, and I finally looked at her. She looked bewildered. “What the actual fuck is wrong with you tonight? I swear you’re one step away from getting into your own fight. Is that what you want?”
I tried to turn my head away.
“Is. That. What. You. Want?” She didn’t release her hold on my face, and I grunted in frustration.
“No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I don’t know, okay?” I shrugged her off me.
“Maybe this was a bad idea. Let’s just go.”
I went to argue, but she silenced me with a glare. I rolled my eyes at her. So what if I got a little heated? Didn’t mean anything. That’s what this kind of sport did to people. That’s why people liked it. Her expression dared me to talk back to her, and with another groan I tamped down whatever this pull was to go in the other direction as I followed her away.
Before we got far, some girl from one of our classes called out to Bee, taking her attention away from our exit. I didn’t remember her name, but she seemed very excited to see Becca. She ran over with a beer in hand and practically hung offmybest friend. Who the fuck was this bitch again?
I glared at them talking as if they were close. They weren’t. Not like me and Becca were. All thoughts of the fight extinguished until, from the corner of my vision, I caught a big figure making his way through the crowd.
It was the fuckhead. He was scrubbing at his cheek as if he were trying to rid it of a disease.
“That stupid fucking cocksucker. I’ll fucking kill him if he comes near me again. You hear me?” he said to another large man—probably equally a fuckhead—to his right. “I’ll kill him.”
RED.
That feeling—so big and ugly and uncontrollable inside me—twisted, like a beast attempting to break out of a cage. Clawing. Lunging. Thrashing. It was breaking free. I was powerless to hold it back as it burst out of me, swallowing me whole as it did.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart thudded in my ears, louder with every step he took toward me. I couldn’t think clearly. It wasstupid. I knew it was stupid, and yet… I still did it.
My body moved on its own, leg swiping out, foot meeting foot, and the next moment he was crashing into the gravel with a grunt.
There was a beat of silence as I stared. He turned and stared back at me. His friend stared too. So did Becca and what’s-her-name. All of us stared like idiots in stunned silence.
“Did you just fucking trip me?” he growled as he came out of his shock.
Unfortunately, I was slower to recover from mine.
He was up on his feet again with a fist full of clothing—my clothing. He yanked me toward him. I did the only thing I seemed capable of these days and glared. I wouldn’t cower to this homophobic piece of shit. Instead of responding, I spat on him.
“Wipe that one off too, fuckhead.”
I expected the punch that followed, but I still couldn’t have braced myself for the white-hot pain of Mason’s fist. Searing. My brain shook in my skull. I’d never been punched before.
“Jonah!” Becca shrieked behind me.
He shoved me backward. My leg flared with pain as my ass met the dirt. Through blurry vision, I glared.
“Stop fucking looking at me like that,” he growled, lifting a boot, no doubt to stomp or kick or whatever else he deemed suitable. Still, I glared.
