Take My Breath Away

Having gone out to buy milk tea, Hyatt noticed with some consternation that the rain seemed to be growing heavier by the minute. He decided, then, to go back and ask Erica to make an appointment with Julianna for some other day.

He made it back to campus without incident, except that the rain soaked him, since he had no umbrella. The building was quiet and for the most part seemed deserted—but when Hyatt was just around a corner from where he'd left Erica, he heard her speaking to someone. Her voice was angry, but there was a trace of panic in it as well. "Tell Julianna," she was saying, "that if anything happens to me today, she's dead meat!"

"Shut up!" someone retorted. "Lenora, if she doesn't want to go upstairs, just have the others come down. No one's around, so the ground floor's as good as anywhere else."

There was a girl's voice—Lenora, presumably—speaking into a phone. "You guys can come down now. This bitch won't go upstairs!"

Rain beat against the windows. Dripping and shivering, Hyatt carefully stuck his head around the corner. Not far down the hall, he saw a small group of young men and women. Two of the latter had grabbed Erica by her arms. Squinting, Hyatt realized with a start that he recognized the assailants—he had seen them while out on his errand!

As he stared, five more people, about the same age, emerged from a stairwell nearby.

Erica now had a dozen people surrounding her.

Dread overwhelmed Hyatt's mind; now his shivering had nothing to do with being wet. His limbs felt weak, and his knees wobbled.

'What are they going to do to Erica? What should I do? What should I do?' Panic fogged his brain, and he struggled to get ahold of himself.

Suddenly the group was moving—Erica's captors were shoving and dragging her toward the door to a bathroom, which was between them and Hyatt. As they came closer, he heard them more clearly.

"I heard that you could be quite violent to your schoolmates," taunted one of the men—a boy, really. "Come on, show us what you can do!"

"She doesn't look tough to me," said someone else. "Look at that delicate skin—she must be a really rich, dainty lady. Doesn't look like a bully at all."

Erica stubbornly kept her head high. "Did Julianna tell you to come here?" she demanded.

They didn't deny it. In fact, one of them confirmed it—a young man with short, rather stupid-looking spiky hair. "Yeah, but we don't really have anything else to do anyway. We may as well just have some fun with you!"

Water flowed from Hyatt's thick hair and down his cheeks. Every

Drugged one night by her ex-boyfriend, a mysterious man took advantage of her in an ecstatic night filled with sex.

To take her revenge, she married the man, and used him.

"As long as I'm alive, I'm still his legal wife, while all of you are just his mistresses."

She remained adamant even when he was involved in scandals with other women.

Eventually she stormed off after she learned that he had betrayed her again.But life brought her back to him a few years later, to his astonishment.

any help. The boys holding him were keeping his mouth covered, so he couldn't even speak.

The situation grew even stranger when Lenora, still in the process of retreating, was suddenly pressed to the ground by her companions. They began to take off her coat, and then her sweater. The whole process was surprisingly efficient, with a clear division of labor. Three or four people handled Lenora's clothes, quite immune to her yelps and shrieks, while three others were taking photos with their phones.

Erica stared, mortified and wondering what Julianna was up to. Clearly Erica had been suckered, but whatever was going on was worse than she'd originally guessed.

Glancing around, she caught sight of another person in the far corner, their phone held up—taking more photos or videos, no doubt.

Erica was sure that this person had not been in the group before.

Without thinking, she started toward the person, reaching for the camera, but several of the bystanders came between them.

Meanwhile Lenora, still on the ground, quite abruptly stopped screaming and began to tidy up her clothes. Those nearby left her alone. After sending the pictures they'd taken to their WeChat group, they put their phones away.

Lenora glanced at them, then gave Erica a murderous look. "Guys, are you done with the pictures? If so, let's show Erica Li what campus violence is!"

Several people blocked the door, while the rest surrounded Erica, who was forced to step back all the way to the sink.

With a ferocious look on her face, Lenora said, "Grab her. I'll give her a dunk myself! Give her a taste of her own medicine." If it weren't for money, why would she be willing to suffer this on such a cold day?