Winter Love (Book Two)

5 | Prized Possession

SAMI'S POV

The look of sheer pity on the coach's face etched itself into my brain, unnerving me to my very core. His usual cold and uncaring eyes filled with such...resolve, as he stared at my retreating figure, and as soon as I closed the door, reality set in. One of two options set in as I made my way along the long, quiet corridor: I could either make it out of this school without any hassles, or I'd need to call my mother to come fetch me from school again if things got too bad, but as I rounded the corner - the latter seemed to be the fate that awaits me.

"Well well, what do we have here?" Jack asks with a smirk, the four others perched on the lockers on both sides. I have no escape. "We have a little surprise for you" he adds, gesturing to Pete and Marcus, who immediately jumped into action, lacing their strong arms underneath my armpits and carrying me away.

"No! Help!" I shout, struggling against the two's strong hold, escaping seeming that much more impossible as their tall figures literally lifted me off the ground, taking away whatever power I may have had in such an instance. And before I know it, my body collides with the wet floor of the dirty bathroom of the vacant gym, the harsh impact knocking the wind right out of my body.

"Is this...?" Zack spits, and the moment I come out of my dazed state and realise that the jacket that was once clasped tightly to my chest was no longer there, and instead in Zack's hands as he stared at it in disgust, my world damn near froze.

"Give that back" I ask, tears filling my eyes at the thought of losing this. They can take anything. They can beat me till I die, but they can't take his jacket away from me. "Please."

And I guess hearing me plead was the very last thing that Zack could manage, because the next thing I know, his knee connects with my face with such force that my neck snaps back, sending me in a rough whiplash, my glasses flying straight off my face - before the pain settles in my forehead, and my attention drawn to the sudden warmth that rained down, rendering me rather too lightheaded for my liking.

A groan escapes my lips the moment I realise that blood rushes down my face. They never went for the face! Even when they punched Beau for standing up for me, it was a complete mistake - but this, this is different.

"So not only did you seduce our friend" Jack says, "you also stole from him? Is that the reason you seduced him to begin with, to steal this from him" he smiles menacingly, pulling my hair tighter.

I slowly raise my shaky hand to try and grab ahold of the jacket, before Zack steps on my fingers, sending yet another set of ripples of pain all over my body: "Is this what you want, huh? You want this so bad that you're willing to beg for it?" he roughly yanks my hair out of his brother's hold, forcing me to look at him, before introducing his fist to my face, the collision completely unwelcome. I try to scramble back up, but a forearm to the back of my head sends me back down, a kick right to the ribs solidifying my place on the dirty floor. "You wanna beg?" Stomp. "You wanna beg faggot?" Stomp. "Let me hear you beg." Kick. And through the unforgiving onslaught, I seal my mouth shut, even as the pain that spread throughout my body with every attack begged with me to scream out bloody murder, I made sure to keep it all locked inside. As he rained painful kicks and stomps all over my body, I willed myself to persevere in the silence because the conscious bit of me realised the sexual innuendo disguised as punishment in his hateful rant. He wants me to beg.

"Dude, stop" one of the other three accomplices in this attack steps in to stop Zack, my ears still ringing from the pain, and my mind way to muddled to try and work out who had just spoken.

"Yeah man, I think he's learnt the lesson you were trying to teach him" the other says, his voice rather shaky.

A small sigh leaves my lips as Zack had supposedly relented, obviously with some encouragement from his lackeys, but at least he was gonna let me live to see yet another day. But as I struggled to make my way up, searching aimlessly for my poor glasses, a kick right to the face sends me back without regard, falling like a ton of bricks, with my head slamming against the cold tiles, resulting in the room spinning like I were drunk. Yet this sensation, is a thousand times worse than being drunk because when you're drunk, you tend not to feel a lot of physical pain; but this one, I feel every ounce. I feel my the heat on my face, signifying the attack I was just on the receiving end of. I feel the throbbing in the back of my head that led to an instantaneous headache. I feel the needle like pain, piercing through my re-injured injuries; and as I throw my eyes all around the bathroom, seeing that the five boys had left me to deal with my pain all by myself, that I finally let the guttural cry I've been holding in free, allowing myself to ball my eyes out like I want to every single hour, of every single day I have to spend in this hell hole.

But this time around, the tears aren't just the result of the pain that has engulfed my whole entire body. The tears aren't just the aftermath of a brutal beat down. The tears aren't just prompted by the fact that each and every time I look down, I could see through my blurry eye sight that I laid in a pool of my own blood. The tears this time, rolled down freely because as I look around - it becomes apparent to me that they took Jesse's jacket with them.