Stuck With The Four Hotties

“What are we doing here?” I whisper, my voice hoarse with worry for Charlie, and now, for myself, too. I can’t help my dad if I’m dead, now can I? The officers ignore me and climb out, opening the back door and yanking me forcefully out. They shove me hard to the gravel, and I stumble, my hands going out to catch myself.

I grit my teeth against the pain of the rocks, stabbing into my flesh and

embedding themselves into my palms. Pushing up to my knees, I glance over my shoulder just in time to see the officers climb back in their car and take off.

Shit.

Two uniformed police officers with badges in an official cruiser have just driven me out to an Infinity Club-owned casino smackdab in the middle of a Native American reservation. It’s completely surrounded by miles and miles of untouched forest, vast swathes of protected national and state parks as far as the eye can see.

The sound of feet scuffing across gravel draws my attention around.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

And there she is, Harper du Pont with John Hannibal and Gregory Van Horn on either side of her.

She’s at least had time to clean the shit off, but her face is still as ugly as ever.

“Hello, Marnye Reed,” Harper says, her lips curving up into a smile. John is carrying a baseball bat, and Greg is holding a thick coil of rope.

I don’t have a good feeling about this.

I fight to get to my feet as fast as I can, backing up a few steps as Harper saunters toward me, clearly still channeling the fury from this afternoon.

“Infinity Club rules,” she states, smiling. “Your friends did a nice job of making sure we couldn’t hire out your punishment. Marnye Elizabeth Reed can only suffer at the hands of a student …” Harper tapers off with a resigned sigh, tossing some of her bloodred extensions over one shoulder. “And so suffer at the hands of a student, she shall.” She gestures at me with her chin, and her two boytoys start forward.

They seem pretty shocked to see me run straight toward and between them, heading for the casino with my ruined graduation gown flapping behind me. My wrist is killing me from the fall off the dais, and there’s hot, wet blood streaming down my palm.

There is no way in hell I’m letting the Infinity Club win, not when I’m so close. So freaking close.

I skid around the corner and fly up the steps, through the back door … Only to run into a nest of Bluebloods.

And when I say Bluebloods, I mean the original Bluebloods, the ones from my revenge list.

“Marnye,” Tristan says, turning around to look at me. He smiles, and my heart turns to ice and shatters in my chest.

What the fuck is he doing here?

The thing is, he already tried this on me once before, this pretend to be the bad guy thing. I trust him too much now to believe that he’s up to anything but trying to save my ass. Our eyes meet, and I can see the fear buried deep inside his.

He opens that beautiful mouth of his and says just one word. “Run.”

I don’t hesitate for even half a second before I do, catching the briefest glimpse of Tristan taking the baseball bat in his hand and swinging it at John’s face as he comes in the backdoor.

“Fucking traitor!” Greg screams as the bat connects with the horrific sound of crunching bone. There’s a struggle as Greg slams into Tristan, and the two of them fall to the floor, fists flailing. I stop running and skid to a halt behind a counter full of dead-eyed video screens, their patrons long- gone, dead leaves and pine needles taking their place.

It’s just Tristan against a dozen Bluebloods.

I don’t know why or how he got here, but … I can’t leave him.

“Did you really think we’d let a peasant ruin our lives and not come back swinging?” Kiara asks, panting heavily. She has a knife in her hand. A knife. I imagine they don’t intend to let me walk out of here alive. “I mean the senior Infinity Club members want you dead. Period. They don’t care how or why.” Lizzie’s words echo in my head as adrenaline surges through me in a violent wave.

The pieces of shit are getting in between me and my dad.

Don’t die, Charlie, I breathe, don’t die. I need to be there. I need to get out of here.

The girls on the other side of the counter exchange looks, and then two of them come around the counter on either side-Ebony and Mayleen, to be exact-while Kiara and Anna start to climb over the counter itself. I rush Mayleen, shoving her so hard that she stumbles back and hits one of the other counters, flipping up and right over it to the other side.

I grab John’s discarded bat and swing it at Greg, knocking him off of Tristan. It’s a temporary measure though. It looks like there are plenty of them … and only two of us.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Harper snaps, pulling a gun out of her purse. “I know Lizzie spilled the beans, so screw this no long-range weapons shit. You know, I only let you put that clause in there because I knew one of you would inevitably tell her. After I shoot her, you can blame yourself for her death.” She levels the gun on me as Tristan scrambles to his feet, grabbing my hand and yanking me forward as Harper takes her first shot. It goes wide, but that doesn’t mean she’s the only person with a gun. Or that she’ll miss again.

Tristan takes me into the dance hall and looks around frantically, the pulse in the side of his throat thundering like crazy.

“We need to get outside,” I whisper, and he glances down at me, gray eyes wide.

“There are thirteen of them here, some outside. We need to be careful.” He pulls me forward again, and we head for an employee access door as Harper enters the room, taking another couple shots in our direction. As we run, Tristan’s jacket opens up, and I see that he’s got a gun, too.

Holy shit.

We head outside into the rapidly cooling air of evening, and I realize with a start of fear that it’s going to get dark out here soon. Darkness, woods, endless possibilities for cruelty.

They r

eally do want to kill me, don’t they?