The world goes white.
There is no thought after that. No pause. No fear. Just a clean, blinding snap somewhere deep inside me where too many ugly things have already piled up for too long.
My fist drives straight into his jaw.
The crack of it hurts all the way up my arm, sharp and sudden, the pain barely registering because Kadin is already staggering sideways into the lockers with a sound that is half grunt, half shock. The metal doors rattle hard enough to make everyone around us jump. A few people gasp. Someone swears. Somewhere behind me, Maria yells my name.
I’m already on him before he can recover.
My hands fist in the front of his shirt, dragging him off the lockers again, hauling him forward until his face is inches from mine. His eyes are wide now, all the smug certainty stripped outof them in one hit. Good. Let him finally understand that cruelty does not make him untouchable.
“You want to fuck with him because he’s a killer?” I whisper.
The words rip out of me so hard my throat burns.
“Fine.” I shake him once, rage making my whole body tremble. “But you better remember that I’m just as fucked up.”
The hallway goes utterly silent around us.
Not fake silent. Not shocked whispering. Real silence. The kind that happens when people stop watching a scene and start realizing they’re standing too close to someone’s actual breaking point.
Kadin is still staring at me like he’s never seen me before.
Maybe he hasn’t.
Because this version of me doesn’t smile through it. Doesn’t swallow it. Doesn’t let boys like him turn my life into a punchline and walk away still wearing their teeth.
Silas is on me a second later.
His arm wraps around my waist from behind, hauling me backward so fast my feet skid. I fight him on instinct, still reaching for Kadin, still trying to lunge out of the hold and get one more shot in.
“Octavia,” Silas growls near my ear.
The sound of my name in his mouth should calm me. It doesn’t. Not enough.
He lifts me clear off the ground when I still don’t stop struggling.
Even then, even hanging half in his arms while he drags me back, I keep trying to get at Kadin.
That’s when Kadin laughs.
Not because it’s funny. Because he can still speak. Men like him always think the last word is power.
“I hope they dump your deadbeat mom’s body on your doorstep,” he spits. “Maybe then you can finally pay what she owed.”
The sentence tears through me so viciously I don’t even feel my own scream leave.
“You piece of shit!” I’m thrashing now, twisting in Silas’s hold hard enough that he has to lock both arms around me and pull me tighter to his chest. “You don’t get to say that! You don’t get to-”
My voice breaks under the force of it.
Behind us, the hallway erupts all at once. Cheyenne and Maria are moving now, shoving through the nearest students, shouting over the crowd.
“Back the fuck up!”
“Get away from them!”
“Stop staring and move!”
