Page 72 of Mistaken Prejudice

“Listen,” I started saying as I pulled my hand out of his. “I’m glad you opened up to me, and you know I’m always here for you. But I want you to apologize to Andrei.” The way he treated him so far wasn’t cool, and it had to stop. I didn’t want to choose sides because no matter my feelings for Andrei, I’d always love Shay-Lee. He’d been my best friend for years, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he and Andrei would also become good friends.

“You’re right.” He stepped closer and wrapped his arm around me. “I’m going to talk to him. I swear.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He kissed the top of my head. “I think it’s about time for the two of us to have a little chat.”

I felt joy at the idea of the two of them getting along. Besides my parents, they were the two most important people in my life, so they must get along. And for that to happen, all it would take was for Andrei to see Shay-Lee’s true colors.

Andrei

I flushed the toilet after I was done and went over to wash my hands. Thanks to the iced tea Miles forced me to drink during lunch, I had to pee every second hour. He was obsessed with that drink.

I was too busy thinking about my lunch with Miles to notice someone stepping beside me. The bathrooms were empty when I entered them, but I was too lost in my thoughts to actually pay attention.

After I was done washing my hands, I reached to dry them in the hand dryer, when a sharp pain suddenly blinded me, and I had to blink several times before I realized my head was slammed against the mirror. Before I could recover from the first blow, it happened again. Only this time, instead of the mirror, my head was slammed against the sink.

Blood started dripping down my face as I was thrown onto the cold tiles. I wiped the wetness from my eyes while trying to get a hold of the blurry room, but no matter how hard I tried, the walls continued to spin.

My head was pounding as I tried to get on my feet, only to slip and fall into a puddle of water. As I tried to get up again, someone gripped my hair and pressed me flat against the wet tiles. Water and blood got into my mouth, and I started to choke and gasp before the person holding me down lifted my head back.

At last, the room came into view.

London Kingston held me down while his twin brother, Berlin, and their friend Ty, stood right in front of us while Kamper stood guard by the door.

All four had a mean look on their face, were dressed in black-and-white letterman jackets, and looked rather pleased with the situation.

“Are you deaf?” a cold voice asked from somewhere, and only then did I notice the sixth person in the room.

Shay-Lee eyed me from the corner of the room like a monster lurking in the dark. With his arms crossed over his broad chest and his back leaning against the wall.

As he understood I wasn’t about to answer him, he tilted his head at Don, who wasted no time before slamming my face against the floor.

“Fuck!” I shouted in pain as I felt my nose snap.

“Are you deaf?” he repeated his question, still not moving from his spot.

I felt Don’s muscles tense, and I knew what was about to come next, so I shouted “No” before the fucker could fuck my face again. “Fuck, no.”

“So when I told you to stay away from Miles, you heard me and just chose to ignore me. Is that it?”

I spat the blood I had in my mouth in his direction. “I don’t take orders from you.”

This time it was Lin who moved forward and gave me a nasty kick to the stomach, making me lose all the air in my lungs. Son of a bitch. Pain throbbed through my body as I tried to ease my breath.

“So you’re just stupid.” Shay-Lee sneered before peeling his back from the wall and heading toward me.

His guys cleared the way like soldiers and stood still as he dropped into a crouch in front of me. He rested his elbow on his knee and leaned his chin over his palm, a sick, twisted smile on his face.

“Tell me something, did you have fun dancing like fools all night?”

What the actual fuck? How did he know about that? The only way was if Miles told him, but I doubted it.

“Oops, sorry.” He chuckled coldly. “I forgot the part where you fucked in a junkyard. You dirty fucker.” Even if Miles told him about the rave, there was no way he mentioned that part. It was completely dark, and I was sure we were the only ones there. So how the fuck did he know? What the hell was going on here?

“You’re a fucking creep.” I hissed, spitting out some more blood. Talking was painful at the moment.

Shay-Lee’s eyes twinkled with amusement before darting toward Don and back to me. The motherfucker surprised me this time when instead of slamming my face into the tiles, he kicked me in the ribs so hard I blacked out for a minute.