The Lie (Kings of Linwood Academy 2)

“Oh, she just talked you into it?” Dax grunts, renewing his hold on Trent as the football player struggles hard. “Too bad you had no fucking choice.”

“Look, I didn’t—I wasn’t gonna really hurt her, alright? Savannah wanted me to, but I was just trying to scare her! That’s it!”

What?

The three boys holding him against the wall freeze. Beside me, I feel River’s body go rigid, stiff as a statue.

I blink, and the words hovering on my tongue come out of Chase’s mouth instead.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m telling you, I wasn’t gonna do anything but scare her! What the fuck do you think I am? And it was all Savannah’s idea. Some other cheerleaders overheard Harlow talking about going to that poker game, and Savannah told me to go after her, to get her back for what happened to Iris. But I wouldn’t try to fucking kill her or anything. Jesus!”

Chase’s face is smooth and hard, anger transforming his features until I almost can’t recognize them. “Oh, shit. You wore a mask—a party mask. Someone else’s face.”

“It was you. Outside the warehouse that night,” Dax growls.

“Yeah—” Trent breaks off, finally picking up on the change in the atmosphere. “Wait, what are you talking about?”

“Now?” Lincoln’s voice is still smooth and dangerous. “Now we’re talking about how you attacked Harlow.”

“I—I—”

The football star’s face contorts as he realizes he just said way more than he should have.

“You attacked her and then ran like a fucking coward,” Dax grates out, and the tension in the alley grows so thick and heavy it feels suffocating. My breath is coming out of my mouth in small puffs of steam, and as my heart rate picks up, the little white clouds come faster and faster.

I had nightmares about that attack for weeks. I never knew if the man who grabbed me outside the warehouse was the same one who killed Iris, but in my dreams, it didn’t matter.

In my dreams, he found me and killed me too.

It was fucking Trent?

Sent by fucking Savannah.

“I didn’t—! I mean, I was just—”

The blond boy doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because Lincoln’s fist interrupts him. It drives into the middle of his face, making blood spurt from his nose even as his head snaps back and hits the brick behind him.

A breathless, shocked noise falls from my lips, and Trent lets out a pained yell, but that sound too is cut off by another hit.

“Don’t watch, Low. You don’t need to watch.”

River’s voice is quiet, and he puts an arm around my shoulders, turning me away. I’m wearing a jacket over my club top, but I’m shivering even harder now from a combination of cold and shock. The brown-haired boy shrugs off his blazer and draws it around my shoulders, coming to stand in front of me and wrapping his arms around me. I’m facing away from the four boys behind us, and he’s watching them over my shoulder.

I can’t see it.

But I hear it.

Every blow, every sharp crack of bone against bone. Every one of Trent’s ragged yells and panting breaths. The muffled grunts that fall from Lincoln, Dax, and Chase’s mouths as they hit him over and over.

My heart is beating so fast and hard I’m afraid it’ll give out entirely. I look back once more, then grab two fistfuls of River’s shirt and bury my face against his chest, squeezing my eyes shut.

I’ve never considered myself squeamish. I’m not one of those people who gets queasy at the sight of blood. When I was going through cancer treatments, I got used to having blood drawn.

But I’ve never seen it drawn like this before—with fists through broken skin, instead of with needles through tiny pinpricks.

It’s visceral and violent and too much for me to process. But I don’t try to stop them. I just hold onto River like a fucking life preserver.