Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Give me my fucking number,” Grayson said.
“It isn’t yours,” Jean managed. “Fuck you.”
It was the wrong answer. Grayson bit down on Jean’s left wrist with shattering intent. Jean tried wrenching his hand free, and Grayson’s thumbnail sliced through the soft skin at the corner of his eye when Jean’s grip slipped.
The stadium door swung open only to jolt to a stop when it hit Lucas’s crumpled body, and Grayson immediately retreated out of Jean’s space. Jean hunched over to grab his knees before he fell face-first onto the asphalt. Someone was yelling now, and he knew he recognized her voice, but his ears were ringing too loudly for him to make sense of the words. He couldn’t look to see who’d inadvertently saved him; he couldn’t take his eyes off the blood sluggishly running down his hand to his fingers.
Jean reached for his throat with his uninjured hand, and the feel of broken, wet skin beneath his fingers almost took him off his feet. He sucked in a deep breath, needing to know he wasn’t suffocating against a pillow, but his lungs were so tight his chest was burning.
Hands grabbed at his shoulders, and Jean reacted instinctively. His attacker wasn’t expecting such force, and he managed to throw Lisinski against her car before he realized who he’d hit. The white-hot panic of striking a coach erased everything else, and Jean retreated from her as fast as he could go. The first hit of the stadium wall against his shoulder blades startled ten years off his life, and Jean dropped his gaze immediately.
“Sorry,” he managed. “I’m sorry, Coach, I didn’t—”
“Enough,” she warned him, and Jean bit off the rest of his apologies. Tires squealed as Grayson peeled out of the parking lot. Lisinski sent a furious look after his car, but with Lucas sitting groaning at her feet and Jean barely standing she had to let him go. She had her phone out a second later as she knelt to check Lucas’s eyes. “James, we need you out here right now,” she said, and she flipped her phone closed without explaining.
Rhemann was out of the stadium in record time, and he didn’t come alone. He went for Lucas first, since Lucas and Lisinski were in his direct line of sight, but Jeremy was right on his heels and he made a beeline for Jean. Alarm looked wrong on a face born for smiling, and Jean looked away before Jeremy’s panic could send him over the edge. Jeremy reached for him, but Jean pushed off the wall and shoved Jeremy out of his way.
He could finally reach the stadium door unimpeded, but no one had given him the code for this keypad. Unsteady fingers put in the Raven digits over and over and over. He knew it was wrong. He didn’t know why it wouldn’t work. He couldn’t stop trying.
“Jean, I’ve got it,” Jeremy said as he pulled Jean’s hand away from the buttons.
Jean watched in numb silence as Jeremy put in the right code. Jean only pulled the door open enough to squeeze through, and he went for the locker room as fast as he could without running. He nearly mowed down two straggling Trojans as he shoved through the second door, but he tuned out their annoyed cries and kept moving. He thought he heard Cat’s voice, but Cat could wait. She had to wait. Jean had about thirty seconds to get Grayson’s touch off him before he was violently ill.
The showers were empty when Jean burst in, and he slowed only to kick his shoes off. He went for the nearest shower head and wrenched the knob as hard as he could. The first hit of water against his face almost broke him in half, and Jean buried his face in the crook of his elbow as he fought to breathe. Teeth, he thought, and drowning, and I know where you live.
Jean scrubbed desperately at his neck with his free hand, trying to wash away the spit and blood as quickly as he could. He had worked through Riko’s violence for years; he’d survived Grayson at his worst. He just needed a moment to lock this away. One moment, or two, or ten, to forget the weight of Grayson’s hands on his face and teeth on his skin. But the arm that was shielding his face from the water was also making it hard to breathe, and Jean teetered between the Trojans’ showers and his shadowy room in Evermore.
“Jean.” Jeremy again, somewhere off to his right. Jean was out of time. “Look at me.”
I am Jean Moreau. I belong to the Moriyamas. I will endure. I will endure. I will endure.
Piece by piece he locked himself down again, pushing his fear and heartache so deep he felt numb. The tension eased out of his shoulders, and Jean cracked open his eyes to find the shower knob. A quick twist cut the shower off, and Jean raked both hands across his face to swipe away as much water as he could. Only then did he turn to face Jeremy, who was standing so close he had damp patches on his shirt and shorts from the spray. Jean felt settled, or as settled as he could be when he’d forcibly disconnected himself from this moment, but Jeremy still looked haunted.