“At least tonight’s video wasn’t as bad,” Jett said to me quietly.
“Wasn’t it?” My hands curled into fists in my hoodie as I stared straight ahead. “I see her on that table every damn time.”
He was quiet as we neared the steps for Ava’s place. “I know. Maybe you shouldn’t watch.”
“Maybe you should go fuck yourself.”
Jett grinned at me. “Subtle.” With a hand on my shoulder, he stopped me from climbing the stairs. “Gray, we’ll bring them down,” he promised.
Meeting his stare, I shook my head slightly as I looked over my shoulder to make sure there were no ears nearby. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to make thempay— I want to cut them open, pull their insides out, and fucking feed their intestines to them.”
Jett watched me, and then he smiled widely. “Well then, when you paint such a pretty picture, who am I to deny you?” He ascended the few stairs, and I decided to hang back. The place looked shit small; I felt claustrophobic looking at it.
Leaning against the wall in the dark, I started to think about my assignment. It was half-done, and as I saw the time was after midnight, I was in for a night of no sleep. We had practice at six before class and then practice at three for three hours. I could already feel the weariness drag me down.
The door opened, and I heard Ava call out to her roommate as they left. It made no sense that he was taking her from here to ours — they’d have been better staying here. Quinn came down first.
She hesitated at the foot of the stairs, her senses on alert, before she turned and saw me standing there. Kicking off from the wall, I walked over to the three of them.
“Why are you here?” she asked me.
“Hi to you too,” I snarked. “C’mon, I’m walking you home.”
“I’ll manage.” Quinn’s shoulders were tense, and I saw her look toward Jett, who was pretending he wasn’t listening.
“Managea hell of a lot more quickly so we can move it along,” I told her as I gestured at Jett to move along so we could get this over with.
“See you tomorrow,” he called to me, and I flicked him the finger as I started walking without Quinn. I hid my smile as I heard her curse and then hurried to catch up with me.
“Why is your brother always so pissed off?” Ava asked Jett, and I didn’t think she knew she could be heard, or maybe she just didn’t care.
I ignored Jett’s reply; no doubt it would be something he thought would be funny. Asshole.
“You don’t need to do this,” Quinn said, breaking our silence as we walked, and I stayed silent. “Gray, you can go.”
“Or you can be quiet, and we can enjoy a quiet walk to your apartment.”
I heard her teeth grind, and I knew she was biting her tongue from whatever heated reply she was going to give me. Instead, she surprised me with her next words.
“Was tonight a success for you?”
“It will never be a success until my hands are wrapped around one of the motherfuckers’ throats.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her head dip, and I hated that the usual fearless Quinn was timid.
“You know most people would say I deserved it.”
“I’m not most people,” I bit out. “And thesepeopleever say that shit to you, you send them my way.”
Quinn said nothing, but I knew her back straightened a little. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out.
Jett:Quinn had trouble at the bar, some douche hit on her and got nasty . . . Ava thinks he hurt her, but Quinn wouldn’t sayanything.
My hand snatched her elbow to stop her from walking so I could read the text again. He knew better than to think Quinn would speak to anyone who wasn’t us.
“Booty call?” she asked me as she tried to keep her voice indifferent.
“Sure.” I resumed walking as I put my phone away. “Come on.”
At her apartment door, I didn’t walk away but waited expectantly. It was quite clearly not what Quinn was anticipating as she looked at me pointedly and then the stairs back outside.
