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The night before the first day of her junior year and Darcy Harmont had spent most of it chained to a tree.
Look, sometimes she was eternally grateful for the pack, her friends, but other times... Other times she could live without them. Like now, when she had been given very little choice whether or not she wanted to be chained to a tree in the middle of the Beacon Hills Preserve. The only thing that lessened the blow was the fact that she wasn't the only one suffering.
Darcy looked over at the other beta. "You think they're gonna let us go soon?"
Liam huffed a sigh. "Hopefully. I forgot to go pee before we left."
"Ah, thank you. I really needed to know that."
He shrugged and looked over at her, eyes shining as he tried not to smile. "I figured you did."
Darcy rolled her eyes and let silence fall between them.
Metal chains lined with silver dug into her abdomen and arms, making her feel slightly nauseous. Tree bark tore at her skin through her t-shirt every time she shifted. Even though she'd faced worse in the past two years than a tree, she still bristled with discomfort.
Liam spoke suddenly, "Hey, what do you think it's going to be this time?"
She shot him a confused look. "What do you mean?"
"You know, our 'monster of the month.'"
Her mouth made an "o" shape but it fell shut as she thought. Things had been good lately, no monsters trying to kill them, accompanied by little to no death. It'd been as normal of a summer as they could get, filled with friends and Darcy's job at the bowling alley. She didn't want to jinx their lives by answering, but still, she answered, "I kinda hope it's vampires."
Liam's face drew in and he looked at her with typical teenage-boy judgment. "God, I hope not."
"What's wrong with vampires?"
"Mason went through a phase, and that's all I'm allowed to say."
Darcy stored that information away for later. "Oh, I see... but I'm definitely telling him you told me that."
Liam shot her a scared look. "Darcy, you can't."
She just shrugged and looked away, a smirk on her lips. "I guess you'll just have to see." She listened to Liam's sigh and the sound of clothes snagging on bark. She turned back to see him leaning heavily on the tree, his head tilted back against the bark.
"I'd just like to go through my sophomore year without trying not to die," he told the sky.
"Oh, yeah, that would be nice but..." Darcy sagged back against the tree as well, wincing when her skin smarted from the bark.
"It's inevitable," Liam finished for her.
"Exactly."
"Either way, I really need to focus on my grades and lacrosse this year."
