Page 61 of Broken Pieces

“I thought she'd be easy. The big girls are usually so desperate, but she likes playing hard to get. She's such a fucking tease and I can't wait to be the one to break her in,” James sneers and I come up behind him plunging the needle into his neck before Mad kills him right here. “What the hell—” he shouts, panicked, but Mad bashes his face into the wall again and I’m not sure what knocks him out first, the impact or the sedative.

Whilst Mad holds him up for me, I tie his wrists behind his back.

“He had to be lying right?” Mad pulls his mask off and looks at me with what I swear is guilt in his eyes.

“Hmm?” I pull my own mask off so I can have a lungful of fresh air.

“She couldn’t have been going to him for comfort, right? I thought he…” Mad trails off as he runs a hand through his hair. It’s another thing that’s different between us now. He’s shaved the sides so only the top is long.

When I was young I would have been glad to look so different to him, but now it just shows how much has changedbetween us.

I’m not sure what to say as we head back to the car. There’s a tense silence between us. The only sound is that of James being dragged along behind Mad as he holds him by the ankles.

“Max?” He breaks the silence, expecting answers I don’t have.

“I don’t know! We’ve kept an eye on her as much as we can, but there could have been times she was with him or someone else. We’ll know for sure later.”

“Even if she was, I don’t think we should punish her for that. James was using her.”

I’m about to argue with him when we both hear Violet shouting out into the night. “I’m here! Stop playing games and just get it over with!”

She’s just up ahead standing in the middle of the courtyard out the front of the college.

“I thought she was in her room?” Mad says as we come to a stop. “What’s she doing?”

“I think she’s trying to get our attention,” I say with a smirk.

Mad snorts, “She never lost it.”

I watch as she frantically scans her surroundings for us. Like she’s desperate for us to find her.

She really does know it’s us.

I didn’t expect her to figure it out in the library, but our clever girl got it straightaway.

I’m not surprised.

She knows us so well that she always knows who is who out of the pair of us. Even our father gets it wrong sometimes.

This girl has only known us for a few years, but she knows every part of us inside and out.

That’s exactly why we’re not letting her get away again.

“We should get moving before someone comes to see what the fuck she’s doing,” Mad says.

“Come and get me already!” She shouts and Mad laughs to himself.

“Oh, we’re coming, baby.”

Pulling our masks back on, we stalk forwards, Mad still dragging James behind him. She looks down at her phone as she taps frantically on the screen and James' phone goes off in his pocket again.

"Stop," I hiss to Mad as I quickly fish the phone out and see there are so many unopened texts from Violet on it.

I'm ready to be yours

The fuck?

She really does want to be with him and not us.