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The hissing sound started low, then grew into a roar. A thick, acrid cloud filled my lungs. It wasn't just tear gas. It was something heavier, something that burned not just my eyes, but my throat, my skin, my very soul.
My body convulsed. I dropped to my knees, choking, gasping for air that wasn't there.
"Is she crying yet?" Tiffany's shrill voice cut through the haze. "I can't see."
"Shut up, Tiffany," Chad grumbled. "This stuff is nasty."
Haylee' s voice, pretending to be righteous, rose above the others. "Stop it, Brighton! This is too much! We just wanted her to apologize!"
It was a perfect performance. The benevolent victim.
Even through the blinding pain, a surge of pure rage gave me strength. I lunged forward, blind and wild, my hands outstretched. My nails connected with soft fabric, then skin.
A sharp cry of pain. "She scratched me! The bitch scratched my face!" It was Haylee.
"You dare?" Brighton roared. He grabbed me by the hair, yanking my head back. "You dare touch her?"
He threw me to the ground. "Hold her down!" he commanded his friends.
Hands grabbed my arms and legs, pinning me to the cold, filthy floor.
"You want to hurt people?" Brighton' s face was inches from mine. I could feel his hot, angry breath on my skin. "Let's see how you like it."
He gestured to the others. "Let her have it."
Something hard hit my ribs. A rock. Then another struck my shoulder. They were throwing debris at me, their earlier hesitation gone, replaced by a mob's frenzy.
I curled into a ball, trying to protect my head, but a larger stone caught me on the temple. A flash of white-hot pain, and then a wave of dizziness. I felt warm blood matting my hair.
"Brighton, stop!" one of his friends, a guy I think was named Mark, sounded panicked. "She's really bleeding. We could kill her!"
"She deserves it!" Brighton yelled, but his voice had a slight tremor now. He hadn't expected this. He hadn't expected real blood.
"She' s just faking," Haylee insisted, her voice tight. "She' s trying to make you feel guilty."
Brighton looked down at me, his mind a battlefield of doubt and rage. He saw my bleeding, broken form not as a victim of his cruelty, but as a final, defiant act of manipulation. He saw my refusal to break as proof of my guilt.
But I wasn't being defiant for him. I was simply refusing to die. I pushed myself up, my muscles screaming in protest, my vision, even behind the stitches, swimming in a sea of red.
I would not die here. I would not let them win.
The last ember of love I might have held for him, a microscopic speck of pity, was extinguished.