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I had seen that look before. He wore it when Pastor Carter had been the cruelest. When my former best friend had decided that pain was easier to survive if he met it head-on. When he was about to do something reckless because reckless felt better than helpless.

I stood so quickly my chair scraped against the concrete.

“Darius?” Cindy asked.

I ignored her, all my focus on Alvin. The dumb, big-hearted fuck was going to do something stupid. Something loud. Something violent. Something that would put a target on his back and make him feel, for one shining second, like he’d taken all his control back.

I took a step towards Alvin. He glanced at me. The warning in his eyes enough to stop me dead in my tracks.

The campers started laughing again. And Alvin’s fists opened and closed twice more. While I stood there, knowing exactly what he was about to do and having no idea how to stop him.

CHAPTER 27

The little fuckers could throw a punch—that was for damn sure. I’d like to say it was my hesitation to smash a juvenile’s face in that had gotten me into this situation.

It wasn’t. Four against one was apparently still four against fucking one. No matter their fucking age.

My lip throbbed. Something warm crawled from my eyebrow towards my cheek, and my ribs had begun filing formal complaints whenever I breathed too deeply.

Still, I smiled. Because the little assholes standing around me looked considerably less amused than they had ten minutes ago.

“Thought you were tough,” one of them muttered.

“I am tough.” I spat blood into the leaves beside his shoe. “I’m also smart, unlike you morons.”

His face tightened. Probably because they were sixteen and still struggled to read a picture book. If they weren’t raging douche canoes, I might have been more inclined to help them.

He stepped towards me again, and I braced myself. “Warning you now… if you get close enough to me again, I’m fucking kissing you. Slobbery and right on the mouth.”

A voice tore through the trees as the boys cornered me again. “ALVINNNN!”

Every head turned as Madison came barreling down the trail like Satan himself had personally promised her extra dessert if she reached us in time. Behind her, Dee. And the second I saw his face, I knew somebody was about to have a very bad afternoon.

Mostly me.

He didn’t run. Nope, D’Angelo strolled towards us. Shoulders squared and jaw locked so tightly I could see the muscle jumping beneath his cheek.

“What,” he said, terrifyingly calm, “the fuck is going on?”

Nobody answered. Teenagers had discovered silence. A miracle, really.

Dee looked at me. His glare stopped on my eyebrow. Then my mouth and the way I was favoring one side. “What happened?” he asked, much like he had when he’d barreled his way into the medical building.

“Nature walk.”

“Alvin.”

“Very aggressive nature.”

His nostrils flared, and one of the boys added, “He started it, Mr. D. We was just walkin’.”

I laughed. Unfortunately, laughing hurt my ribs. “I started a conversation about why we don’t fucking assault people just because we don’t like that they’re different from us, and you four responded with your fists.”

Dee’s attention panned back to me. Madison hovered behind him, wide-eyed.

“I saw them hit Alvin,” she rushed out. “He followed them because of Trevor and then they started yelling and I thought he could handle it, but there were four of them and then one pushed him and⁠—”

“Madison,” Dee cut her off. She stopped and his voice softened only slightly. “Go back to camp.”