“Maybe it’s a mind game,” Merry suggested, her mouth taking on a bitter twist. “He acts like the way he treated you before was just some big misunderstanding, thenbam! He shows you who he really is.”
Trish and I exchanged glances, then stared at her.
She gave a self-conscious, “What?”
I averted my eyes, but Trish came right out with, “Are we still talking about Lydia’s situation?”
Merry shifted uncomfortably. “I’m just saying, this guy has already shown you who he really is. You should probably believe him.”
I nodded in full agreement. “You’re probably right about there being some kind of psy-ops going on. There’s no way a guy like Artyom Rustanov—I mean, Yom Rustanov, me calling him that or this other nickname I can’t even pronounce is number sixteen on the Anything List,” I mumbled.
Trish and Merry looked confused, but I pushed on. “Anyway, this has got to be part of his master plan to make my life miserable. There’s no way Yom would be doing all of this unless it was part of some crazy revenge?—”
“Quit stalking, Restraining Order!”
That was all the warning I got before some frat-bro-looking guy in a hockey jersey picked up my orange soda and threw it straight in my face.
I gasped, and the soda dripped down, forming a large orange stain right over the rubber duckie on my sweater.
“Gotcha!”
I looked up to see the guy snicker and toss the empty cup on the ground.
“Oh, no, you didn’t!” Trish yanked out her hoop earrings and shot to her feet. “This ain’tGlee, bitch. I will fuck you up.”
“Trish, wait!”I went from wiping pop off my new sweater to scrambling in front of Trish to keep her from what she called “going Milwaukee” on the frat boy.
But before Trish could get to him, another woman swooped in out of nowhere.
“That’s assault,” she announced.
And the next thing I knew, the frat boy was on the ground with her knee in his back.
“Hel-lo!” Trish said in the tone she used when spotting someone she might want to “girlfriend after one date.” Her turn of phrase, not mine.
I blinked in recognition. The woman pinning the guy down was one of the college-aged guards I’d seen a few times the night we brought in P.M.
Now, with her hoodie down under the food court’s bright lights, her buzzed blonde hair was clearly visible, and I realized she was one of the few White students in the Clara Quinn seminar—which, according to item twelve on the Anything List, I wasn’t allowed to drop now.
“Who are you?” Trish asked, practically breathless.
At the same time, I blurted, “Wait, are you following me?”
She shifted her gaze over my shoulder and said something I didn’t understand. But I recognized the language as Russian.
So, I wasn’t surprised when I turned around to see Yom standing behind me.
His fists were clenched, and the look on his face promised violence.
“Yom, don’t!” I said when he lunged toward the frat boy.
YOM
“Do not create a scene,”Rina advised in Russian as soon as Yom jumped up from his seat, where he’d been “having lunch” three covert tables away from Lydia and her friends.
“I will make sure he is dealt with,”she assured him. Themrazwho dared to assault Lydia was already on the ground with Rina’s knee pressed into his back.
But it wasn’t enough.
