Move.

Endless swimming thoughts float through my brain with no connection, swirling around with a building pressure behind my eyes.

Why are you standing there?

All instincts of flight fail me, my feet remain glued to the ground and my body shrinks further into itself.

I can't breathe.

An iron fist tightens a grip on my lungs, smothering them and making it impossible to find air.

I need to get out of here.

The door to the classroom, my freedom, is only feet away from me. Thoughts fly through my brain and send jolting commands down to my arms to grab at it.

They don't listen.

Trembling hands rise to my chest, desperate to grab at my throat as it closes in paralyzing fear. My wrist is slapped away by the large boy in front of me, towering over me.

Get to the door.

Bryce Walker blocks my path to the door of the empty classroom. His thick neck still bears the cut from where my fingernails had dug into it, a trail of blood falling into his shirt.

Do something!

Shaking legs refuse to give way to my commands, causing me to jerk my upper body violently towards the door.

Why can't I fucking move?!

"Where do you think you're going?" The tall boy's mouth curls into a dark sneer.

Hard muscles covering his body are tensed, arms flexed threateningly. His glare is filled with a carnal look of overflowing anger, blazing into my softer brown eyes.

"Let me go," my voice is more confident than how I feel. All of the feeling of safety and satisfaction that I had with Clay has been swept under the rug. Any confidence left my body as Bryce towers over me.

Forced to look into his eyes by the closeness of his face, I start to see the slight shadow of his hunger. It lies beneath the hard darkness of his fury, burning into me.

Somehow, under all the layers of malice and hunger, there's a whisper of remorse in his eyes. It's quiet and vulnerable, almost like a child's how it shines in a pained, indescribable way.

"You think you're so hot, Atkins, and you might be right. But that face won't look so pretty if you ever embarrass me like that again," his voice is booming with anger. His face grows purple, veins popping out of his forehead.

"Stop."

"Talk all you want, princess. I don't care," his thunderous voice drips in confidence now that I am at my weakest point, with my back against the wall and crouched in fear.

Bryce's eyes travel down to my neck, where my jacket had been disheveled to reveal the numerous hickeys that Clay had left trailing up my skin.

"You little slut," he whispers, the quiet of his voice even more terrifying than the booming yell from only seconds ago.

His hand rises to brush them and I bite back a cry of fear, resorting instead to attempting to push my head away from him, to which he chuckles at. My breathing is abruptly cut off as his large hand slams into my neck, the muscles of his upper arm holding me against the wall and choking me nearly to death.

Keeping me stuck against the wall with just one hand, Bryce draws close to me so that his large body pins me down. His other hand reaches my stomach, pushing me into the wall and creeping up to my heaving chest, desperate for air that doesn't come.

A brief memory of how Clay had curled his slender fingers around my neck flashes through my brain, but this is much different. This is backed with a fiery malice with no way out. I could die here, right now, just choke in the empty classroom and be left to die, all alone. No one would know.

Bryce tightens his grip on my neck, and purple spots start to swarm my vision. It is silent except for the sound of an opening zipper as he finds my jean button.

The deafening quiet that follows allows my mind to race with hundreds of desperate thoughts. Somehow in the race of ideas, I make a decisions

I summon all of the strength in my body, feeling the weakness rising in me and pushing it out. My hands curl into fists, with my nails digging into my palm just like they had done to Bryce's neck only an hour before.

I set my jaw, tensing my body in readiness.

Without thinking, I wind my arm back and my fist connects immediately to his face.

A loud crack fills the room as my knuckles fly straight into his nose, shooting instant pain up my arm from the impact. Bryce's head flies back as the contact is made, and he clutches his bloody face.

My lungs heave for breath now that his hand is no longer squeezing the air out of my throat, and I have to push my hand against the wall to stop myself from collapsing as colors blind my vision.

I bite the inside of my cheek to distract myself from my trembling and stand over him, curled up into a ball on the floor.

"What the fuck!" He screams, swinging his leg out to kick my shins. I hop over his leg carelessly, trying to stay calm as dark blood pours down his face.

"You think you're avenging Jess and Hannah. They both wanted to fuck me!" His voice is lower and dripping in venom. "And so did you," I freeze and hold back a sob as he spits the words out at me.

"You came to the Clubhouse and drank like a fucking sailor. Even if I did put something in your drink, you still would've came onto me. Justin and you were just a ploy to get to me, he knew it too. I know the type of girl you are. You're a little slut who only wants an excuse to fuck any guy around you. So I gave you exactly what you wanted, and now you're crying rape just like Hannah did."

Bryce spits at me. I dodge it, resisting the pathetic urge to cover my ears as he continues.

"You and your new boy-toy think you're the hero of all our lives. I know you don't realize it yet, but if you walk around everyone's lives, they're gonna walk right into yours. And when they do, I hope they realize what a bitch you really are. You can try to pretend the past never happened, and I'll just keep remembering the way you looked naked on my floor. I'll keep replaying the way-"

"Stop it!" I scream, throwing my clenched fists down and stomping my foot.

My shoe makes swift contact with his stomach as he curses loudly. "YOU," I kick him again, harder this time. "HAVE. NO. RIGHT." He yells as I throw more power into it, over and over. "TO. TALK." Blood comes out of his mouth. "TO. ME. LIKE. THAT."

Bryce is curled into a pathetic ball on the floor of the classroom. He clutches his stomach, gritting his teeth and setting his jaw painfully. I do not feel an ounce of sympathy and land another kick to the ribs, feeling satisfied as he yells in agony.

"You can kick me all you want," he lip curls and he moves his eyes up to my face. "But you can never change who you are. A slut with a loser boyfriend and a dead brother"

Pure fury washes over me at his words. I wind my leg back to kick him right in the face. He recoils, but my body doesn't stop.

"Talk about my brother or Clay like that again, and you'll be having a little conversation with Jeff in a graveyard."

I stomp my foot down on his neck to hold him down on the ground while I lean closer to his face. I can't control myself now, the instincts of a violent animal taking over my body.

Bryce's gigantic figure is so much smaller under my boot, crushed under the sheer power of my fury.

I'm a good foot and a half shorter than him, but he can't even come close to the fighting instincts rushing through me. They course down my arms right into the force of my boot on his neck.

Realizing the gravity of my situation, I lift my foot off him to release him. Though his face is streaked with blood, his defiant blue eyes glare into mine intensely.

Standing up, he arrogantly opens his mouth to speak. "Not a fucking word," I interrupt him. "You got roughed up at football practice. That's gonna be your story."

I push myself menacingly close to him, even if my head only comes up to his collarbones. "If I hear you saying anything else, you'll pay dearly for it. Very dearly" my eyes dart down to his likely broken arm and he takes a step back in realization.

"Now get out," I spit, crossing my arms to signal that the conversation was over.

Bryce keeps a furious eye contact with me, his eyes flashing with a serious of different emotions. He goes in and out of anger, embarrassment, and fear as I hold the fiery contact with my eyes.

"I said get out!" I scream and throw the door open forcefully. It slams against the wall, making a loud bang that shakes the hallway. Students turn to see what made the noise, their eyes widening at the sight of Bryce's blood-soaked face.

With a low growl of anger, he makes his way towards the door. He slams into my shoulder to knock my balance off, but I grit my teeth and glue my feet to the ground. I hold my ground as he grunts, tearing out of the doorway and stomping down the hall.

Slowing my breathing, my brain is blank as my face remains steady and unchanged. I walk awkwardly and absentmindedly across the classroom, a blunt numbness starting to creep into my brain as I find a stack of paper towels in the corner.

With no change in my expression, I kneel on the ground and begin to wipe the blood off of the tile floor. It's dark and hard to remove, so I scrub at it until the last bell rings.

I swing my backpack over my shoulder, eyeing the last splotch of dark blood on the floor.

I'll leave it there as a reminder of what I'm capable of. When Bryce and his boys walk into this room, they'll see his blood on the floor. The mark of red, splattered across the tile, will prove that he's only human.

Bryce Walker is not a God, he is mortal. This is evidence of my power, that I triumphed over him.

Smiling to myself, I tear the door open and slip into the hundreds of students flowing through the hallway.

He never saw me coming.