My fingers tighten around Jade’s, acid burning in my stomach. The edges of my vision are swimming, and I’m about to make a stand for myself and my father, when Chase steps forward and in seconds has Colton pinned to the wall behind us with a bone-crunching thud.
The room wraps in a sardonic“Ooooohhhhh.”
Chase’s tanned forearm presses to Colton’s slender throat, digging into his windpipe, and when Colton finds a way to laugh louder, still oblivious to the damage of his words, Chase presses harder.
The room erupts, almost everyone yelling,“fight!”
Colton has always been a piece of shit. And tonight he has proven just how filthy he really is. His light brown hair is disheveled, the longer pieces at the top hanging around his gray eyes when he shouts, “She’s a killer’s?—”
Chase silences him with a fist to his jaw.
Colton’s head whips to the side, then Chase’s hands are gripping his shirt, wrenching him off the wall as Colton hangs kind of limply to the side, though trying his best to hold onto some form of fight.
“Say it again, I fucking dare you!” The tone of Chase's voice almost chills me to the bone.
It’s frightening.
I have never seen him this angry before.
The entire room has almost turned silent, waiting in anticipation to see how this is going to end.
When Colton doesn’t speak, forcing another laugh, Bryce wrenches Chase away, but not before Chase throws Colton down on the wall again, spitting at his feet.
The air is static, alive, and dangerous.
Colton rolls the back of his skull over the concrete, meeting Chase’s line of sight and there’s a warning in his silvery orbs, a surfaced kind of anger, and it makes me wonder if something else may have happened between the two of them.
Jade squeezes my hand, then my bicep with her other. Her hands are trembling, she’s nervous. “Are you okay?” she asks.
I can’t speak, so instead, I nod, reciprocate the squeeze when Bryce attempts to whisper Colton’s rage down.
Harlen stands to the side of us, unmoving. The confidence he has in Chase is chilling because he’s smiling, like he knows Chase doesn’t need him, that he can stand up for himself, and perhaps that he’d prefer it that way too.
I reach out and tap Harlen’s arm.
He turns his smile on me, then pulls me in for a swift hug. My cheek presses into his hard chest and I hold onto him, fisting his T-shirt. “Did something happen between them?” I ask. “Colton looks like he wants to kill him…”
He flicks his gaze away from the spectacle, and I follow, finding a girl with long black hair and a glittering black bunny mask pulled around her heavily eyeliner rimmed eyes. She’s standing at the opposite side of the room with a group of her friends, a glint of excitement sparking in her hazel eyes.
I knew her name was Aria, that she was Colton’s girlfriend, and my stomach sunk before Harlen could respond.
“Her.”
That’s all he says.
I want to reply, I want to show that the truth doesn’t hurt, but I also want to take my nails to my ears and scratch them off and pretend that I never heard it.
Instead, Harlen speaks again, whispering into my ear, “But he’s not fighting for her. He’s fighting for you, Laik.”
I uncurl myself, latching back onto Jade’s extended hand, returning my gaze to Chase, watching him spit at Colton’s feetagain. He runs his forearm across his mouth before pointing his trembling finger directly at him and growling, “If you so much as breathe in her fucking direction again, I will fucking kill you!”
Ice fills me, my heart pulsing through my teeth.
Colton grins, it’s wicked and menacing. He palms away the blood gushing from his nose and says, “And if you so much as go nearheragain…” He pauses, and I knew now that he was talking about Aria. However, before he finishes, he jerks his chin in mine and Jade’s direction, flicking the switch. “I promise I’ll do more than breathe intheirdirection.”
Harlen snorts, completely unfazed, then yells, “Try, motherfucker!”
Bryce steps between both boys, and I’m surprised he doesn’t get severed in half by the daggers being thrown from both directions.
