Fate's Exchange (Twisted Fate, Book 1)

Chapter Two

"Look, we just need our statue, okay?" The second girl sounded husky, as though suffering the side effects of a pack-a-day habit. The girl, who I decided to call Bitchy, reached out and flicked me in the back of my head.

"Stop it," I ordered, refusing to reach up and rub my hair so they couldn't realize the effect they were having on me. Why did I have to cut out early from study hall to read in the woods alone? Why hadn't I grabbed for my phone when I'd first seen them instead of worrying about stopping too long and letting them catch up? Who cared if they were able to reach me if it meant someone else was going to show up? Or if I'd stayed beside the school where everyone was bound to show up as soon as the bell rang?

It was so stupid.

I'm stupid.

"Where's the statue?" Bitchy asked, stepping up so that the tips of her shoe scuffed the heel of mine, and I almost fell.

I clenched my teeth and balled my fists at my sides, but she did it again.

"Stop it," I growled, clenching my teeth as I kept a death grip on the shoulder strap of my bag.

Everyone laughed.

"Look, we have a tournament this weekend against your punk-ass basketball team and we need it back," the whiney voice of the first girl chimed.

Right. As if skill isn't enough. I shot them another look and was surprised to see the massive boy's arm snaked around her waist. I turned away, the feel of his eyes boring through me and sickening my stomach even more than the stench of their hobby.

"I don't know where it is," I said, keeping my eyes on the ground. "Go ask someone on the team." I was pretty sure it wasn't basketball season but was too scared to point that out.

Someone knocked my book out of my fingers. I couldn't see who, but it didn't matter. No one was innocent. How could a group so out of it they couldn't even pull a sentence together without slurring manage such synchronized movements? Since I couldn't picture any one of them involved in a team sport, I didn't even want to imagine what they wanted Lucky Chuck for, if at all. It's just an excuse. Just as I'd known they were bad news the moment I saw them across the field, I knew this.

"Look, I don't know where the statue is," I said, finding my voice again, and was proud that it was louder than a whisper. "I just want to go home—"

They reached out and grabbed me, cutting me off. I screamed, automatically covering my head with my hands, and I felt my shoulder jostle as my bag fell to underside of my elbow before I felt like I was being pulled in every direction from all sides.

My clothing ripped like the sound of a piece of paper torn down its center. They clutched the fabric without mercy, twisting and turning, and I tried to wrench myself away. I was so desperate to be free that holes soon appeared in places that were meant to be covered, and my skin flared with humiliation.

The attacks only happened at night! Why were they doing this? What did I do?

"Let me go!" I grunted and managed a quick step away before standing straight. With all my might, I reached back for power and then flung out my bag full of the weekend's homework. Narrowing my eyes and gritting my teeth, I smiled, triumphant when the heavy bag hit two of them with a clunking sound as it arched through the air.

"You'll pay for that!" Bitchy spat on the ground and shrugged her shoulders, dancing like a boxer in the ring. She stepped into my line of sight, preparing to flick me in the head again.

At least, that's what I hoped she meant to do, but I wasn't willing to take the chance. Swinging my fist and closing my eyes, my knuckles connected with her jaw. She screamed and hit me back in the stomach. The breath whooshed from my lungs as my body doubled over as I landed on my knees hard. I didn't know what hurt more: my stomach or my fist. At least my hand is throbbing for a worthy cause.

"You can't do this." My voice came out as a moan and I crawled across the hard, broken soil of gravel and mud far enough to get to my feet without the fear of being pushed back to the ground. The not-so-warming breeze had become bitter as the holes in my clothes fluttered. No amount of trying to grasp them to cover myself was helping and finally, I gave up.

They looked at one another and laughed.

The large boy dropped his hand from the girl's waist and took a step forward. Smiling so that I could see a gap in between his two front teeth, he met my gaze and said, "But we won't be caught. We never are."

They're never...Oh. My. God! I slapped my hand over my mouth and shook my head, feeling my stomach drop to meet his feet. Why didn't I run when I had a chance to get away? Now, the irrational fear I had felt when I saw them was validated. It isn't a statue they are after.

"Y-you can't do this." I dropped my hand and tried to step back, but my foot was stuck in a sinkhole of mud, which was the only deviation to the hard ground at the edge of the woods. Soft, wet, inescapable as it sucked my shoe down, down, down... Darting my gaze between the group and my foot, I sucked in my breath and said, "I've seen you. I-I know where you go to school."

I pulled on my foot again but froze when the large boy looked at me with cold brutality. He glanced around, regarded his friends with even stares, and then nodded. They circled around to crowd me on all sides, laughing at my naivety.

It was so close. I almost made it. The shadow of the gate cast against my skin, mocking me with its proximity, and I started to step backward.

But someone stuck their foot out to trip me. Bitchy, who stood in front of me, sprinted forward and shoved my shoulders. I teetered and then fell, and my foot jostled free. The mud coated my skin through the holes in my clothes, turning the white of my bra brown. Damn. It felt like I'd broken my ass. Could that happen? Or was breaking your ass like 'breaking a boob'—totally painful, but impossible. Pay attention, Alyssa. They don't care about your ass.

I looked back up, my eyes widening as they smirked down at me. I held my breath. There was a moment of pure silence—it couldn't have been more than a few seconds that were so quiet, even the sounds of animals and the rustling of the breeze seemed to be set on pause. Then, they pounced. Each person savagely tried to take a piece of me as though someone had flung a fifty to the ground and screamed, "Finders, Keepers!" after failing to advise that they couldn't rip it into pieces and share.

"Stop it!" I screamed until my throat was raw, hoping someone—anyone—had left school early and could hear me. That the students I had followed had changed their mind and came back to school instead of disappearing out of sight.

"Shut up," Bitchy said.

"Not so uppity now, are you, you Royal Bitch?" the large boy snarled right before he slapped me. "This is so much more fun in the daytime. I can see how scared you are. I don't know why we didn't start this sooner. Your Royals think you are so much better than us, and we are here to tell you that you're wrong."

Just as I found the effort to climb to my knees, my body twisted sideways from the power behind his attack as he hit me yet again, and I fell to my side. My hand cupped my cheek. What the—Ouch.

They dragged me by my arms and hair towards the gate I had coveted when I first saw them until it felt like someone had taken a grater to my back. I wanted to scream but no sound emerged. Sweat rolled down my spine and into the open wounds the rocky ground had created like acid gnawing into my skin. It burrowed deeper and deeper until the only place for it to go was out the other side. I tried to turn onto my stomach to slacken their grips, to create a relief in the fire burning my spine. The pull on my scalp loosened and I saw large tufts of my white-blonde hair fall beside me like dysmorphic flakes of snow the sun would never melt.

The relief lasted just long enough for holds to be reaffirmed, even tighter than before.

I kicked air and finally found my voice again, but I screamed for help that wouldn't come. My pain mutated into a sense of nothing. Despite my hopes, all my efforts were wasted. Everything I tried seemed only to provoke their drug-induced hatred. As I struggled to free myself, they struck me harder, evading my thrashing until I tired myself out.

Minutes seemed like hours. I tried to keep fighting, but soon my limbs were filled with the weight of fast-drying concrete, and all I managed was a whimper. The sky burst into brilliance. Grateful for an escape, no matter its form, I closed my eyes and lost all sense of reality.

Darkness was good; I was oblivious within its uncompromising hold.