Only this one will include fists and kicks and probably blood.
“She’s a fucking liar!” Tan Guy yells, veins pulsing in his large neck.
I stay a safe distance away, too afraid of Tan Guy who looks ready to beat the living shit out of Bryan for even suggesting he fucked some other girl.
Daisy keeps her hands up between them, separating their bodies, but her eyelids continue to sag. She wobbles a little, but she stands upright. Is she drunk? But she barely drank anything, and this seems to be hitting her really hard all of a sudden.
Ryke edges forward into the “fighting area” and places a hand on Daisy’s shoulder. “Go.”
“They’re not punching each other here,” she tells him. “This is stupid.”
His lips find her ear, and I hear him say, “This isn’t your fucking fight, Daisy. Let it go.”
She weakly pushes him off, swaying too much, and then points at Bryan. “You think you’re a man?” she snorts. “You hit him and then what? The other guy hits you back and you’ll feel better?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Bryan tells her.
Ryke shoots him the worst possible glare, one that could seriously shift mountains. Then his eyes drop back to Daisy. “Move.”
She stares at Bryan in challenge. “You want to hit him? Get through me.”
“Daisy!” I shout. Yep, she wants to be hit. To feel something, maybe. I don’t know, but she’s scaring me.
And that’s when Tan Guy charges from behind. Ryke shoves her out of the way, and she falls on her knees while he takes a punch to the jaw. I shimmy around the crowd, people cheering and grimacing as Bryan knees Tan Guy and Ryke tries to fight his way out of their feud.
Daisy has already picked herself up off the floor, wiping her hands on her green army jacket. “Lily?” she stumbles into my chest. We push our way out towards the kitchen area, able to breathe in the open air.
“Are you crazy?” I yell at her. “You don’t provoke guys to hit you.”
She loops a weak arm around my shoulder. “You think Mom would have been mad if I ruined my pretty face?” She laughs lightly and it quickly dies off. She blinks repeatedly, as though she sees stars or black spots. “Lily?”
“What’s wrong?” I ask her in a high-pitched voice. I shake her shoulder.
“I don’t know…something’s…not right…”
“Are you drunk?” What a stupid question to ask.
Ryke breaks through the crowd, a red welt blooming on his cheekbone. “That was the dumbest fucking thing I’ve seen in a long time.”
She turns around very, very slowly. “Who’s stupid? Them or me?” She keeps blinking, and he stares at her for a long moment, seeing the oddness in her movements.
“You okay?”
“Perfect,” she says. “Are you okay?” Her eyes slowly move to his welt.
“Perfect,” he murmurs, still inspecting her state. “You know, you have pretty huge balls.”
“The biggest.” Her lips pull into a dry smile, but it falls with her eyelids.
“Daisy?” His worried voice drives knives into my stomach.
Her knees give out. And he grabs underneath her arms before she hits the floor.
“What the fuck?” I say, my heart hammering.
He lifts her up, and her head lolls back, her arms hanging lifelessly by her side.
“Daisy.” Ryke’s hard eyes narrow, and he taps her face lightly. “Daisy, look at me.” Nothing. He pinches her cheeks together and shakes her head a little. She’s out of it.
I put two fingers to her neck and feel a weak pulse. “I don’t understand. She had a beer and one glass of punch.” Well, one and a half but I doubt that half mattered in the grand scheme of things. Right?
Ryke rests his ear to her chest, feeling for the rise and fall of her ribs. “She’s breathing, but it’s slow.”
Okay. I bite my nails, trying to figure what could have happened. This isn’t drunk. I know what drunk looks like, and this…this is not it.
Ryke adjusts Daisy in his arms so he has a better hold on her, and then he pulls one of her eyelids up. “Her pupils are dilated.” His jaw hardens to stone. “Who poured her punch?”
My mouth slowly falls. “You think someone drugged her?”
“I know someone fucking drugged her.”
Jack. I scan the room and land on the black-haired guy in the kitchen. He leans against the refrigerator, pushing the magnets around with his buddy to spell lick my prick.