“With my words.” He pries her off his arm and goes back to stalking toward me. He’s wearing flip-flops. They slap against the ground and kick up stones with each step. He doesn’t acknowledge Randy when he gets out of the car. His rage is all for me.
Randy decides now is a good time to come to my defense, and his own. “I think there’s been a misunderstand—”
Before he finishes the sentence, Sunny throws open the trailer door. She must not realize how close I am; the steel frame hits me in the face, the sharp edge bashing into my forehead.
“Oh God!”
“Alex, don’t!” Lily yells.
I don’t have a chance to recover before Waters’ fist slams into my face.
There’s a crunch inside my head. Pain explodes, turning my vision white.
“Alex! What’s wrong with you?” That’s Violet screaming.
“You didn’t need to punch him in the face! He’s already hurt!” Lily yells.
I don’t know why the hit is unexpected. Waters has been dying to get me back for breaking his nose when he screwed Violet over. I fall backward, like a cut tree. Pines and birch rise around me, blue sky broken by fluffy white clouds. My head hits the gravel. The sun is a bright ball in the middle of it all. It expands, filling up the blue and eclipsing the clouds until it’s everywhere.
I blink and the clouds are gone. There’s just white and a spot of black in the center. I try to sit up, but I can’t. I have a feeling that was a hard hit.
I hear screaming. Girl screaming.
“What happened to using words?” Violet’s yelling again.
“Baby, calm down. He’s fine.”
“He’s not fine! You knocked him out!”
A disembodied hand appears in my vision. I think it’s mine. I swipe across my face. My palm comes back wet. Pain radiates through my skull in more than one location, multiplying the black spots in my vision. White turns to red as I bring my hand up in front of my eyes. Those black spots take up more room.
Gravel digs into the back of my head, and there’s a huge rock under my right shoulder. I want to move, but I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. I might even be concussed.
Sunny’s voice permeates the fog. “Oh my God! He’s bleeding!”
I want to tell someone to make sure she doesn’t come near me; Sunny and blood aren’t a great combination.
“Sunny, you should sit down,” Lily says. She must know what happens when Sunny sees blood.
“Catch her!” That’s Randy. He’s a good friend, watching out for my girl.
I should be the one to do that. I struggle to sit up, but Alex moves fast, getting to her before she hits the ground.
A shot of cold has me sitting up in a rush. It’s Bushman, with a bottle of soda. Asshole. Jesus, Waters hits hard. Bushman empties the rest of the soda on my face.
“Keep it up, Bushman, and I’ll shove that bottle up your dick hole!” Randy yells.
With Waters as his bodyguard, the little fucker has grown a set of balls. He sprinkles the last few drops on the ground next to me and backs away.
“Get her in the trailer,” Waters orders.
Bushman struggles to pull an unconscious Sunny up the two steps into the vehicle. Once she’s mostly inside, Lily pushes him out of the way and drops down beside her. I try to stand, but I’m way off balance. Waters is definitely going to gloat about this. I manage to get to my feet as Bushman turns over the engine.
Randy hands me a shirt to wipe my face with. It’s sticky from the soda. And bloody from one of my face wounds.
I take a stumbling step towards the trailer. “You can’t send Sunny home with him.”
Waters puts a hand on my chest and pushes. I drop back to the ground on my ass.
“Enough, Alex!” Violet gets between us. It reminds me of what she did in the locker room after I discovered Waters banging her there—except that time she was defending Alex, not me. “Do you realize what a hypocrite you’re being? I don’t even like you right now!”
“He’s been fucking my sister around for months!” Alex shouts back.
She throws her hands in the air. “No, he hasn’t!”
“Get over your goddamn ego, Waters,” I shout from the ground. “If you yell at Violet again, I’m gonna beat your ass.”