Defiant Princess (Boys of Oak Park Prep 2)

My breath was coming faster, my chest rising and falling as my fists clenched. I had punched Mason in the face once, but I hadn’t punched Finn yet—maybe it was about time to change that.

He flinched at my words, almost as if I’d already hit him, then held up his phone between us. “We didn’t use all of it.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded through gritted teeth.

“The footage from that night at the beach. Your birthday. We didn’t use all of it.”

“Why?” I spat. “Saving some in case you needed more blackmail later? Well, I already told you, it’s too fucking late for that. There’s no one else you can turn against—”

“No. That’s not it.” He swallowed. “In the water… when you kissed us. I didn’t put that part in the video. Because it wasn’t for other people to see. It was real.”

I laughed, the sound harsh and too loud in the small space. “No, it wasn’t. It was an illusion. A stupid girl falling for a lie.”

He shook his head. “You’re wrong. Look, Tal. Look.”

Before I could say anything else, he swiped across the screen of his phone, bringing up a video. When he pressed play, the soft rush of waves met my ears, and my stomach flipped over like an undercooked pancake. I knew exactly what this was. And I didn’t need a video to remind me of it. Every fucking moment of that night was imprinted on my soul like a brand—one I would never be able to scrub away.

“You… kept it?” Anger burned in my voice.

Finn’s gaze flew to mine, and he shook his head quickly. “I deleted everything else. The guys don’t even know I still have this. I just… couldn’t let it go.”

“You’re fucking sick, you know that, right?” Ignoring the image on the screen, I shoved at his chest. “That’s like—like a serial killer getting off on pictures of his victims! You wrecked my life, and now you’re holding onto this one video? This one moment? Because it felt real to you? Well, you know what felt real to me, Finn? Getting slapped in the face by my fucking grandmother! Getting kicked out by the only family I have left in the world! Hearing four people I cared about tell me they did it all on purpose!”

I pushed him again, and he held his hands out, still gripping the phone tightly. “Talia—”

“No! I don’t care if it felt real to you, Finn! Don’t you get that? Because that’s worse! That means you did all this to someone you claim you have feelings for, and you know what that makes you? A fucking monster! Worse than Mason! At least that asshole admits he hates me. Why are you trying to pretend you don’t?”

My shoves had barely budged him—he was used to getting tackled by two hundred pounds of solid muscle regularly—but they’d brought us closer together, and now we stood nearly chest to chest. My head was tipped up so I could meet his eyes, but for once, I didn’t feel smaller than him. My anger made me feel tall and indomitable, and I wondered for a second if this was what Cole felt like when he seemed to puff up with rage.

“I’m not pretending, Tal.” Finn looked a little sick as he shook his head. “What we did was fucked up. I know that. But I’m not lying. Look.”

He held the phone up, the video still playing, and against my will, my gaze tracked over to the

screen. It was dark, difficult to distinguish between the night sky and the dark ocean, but the figure standing in the water stood out, her pale skin shining in the moonlight.

Me.

She tilted her head back, hair stirring in the breeze as she seemed to taste the air.

Then she turned, and the camera panned to follow her as she walked over to a boy with perfectly styled brown hair. Elijah.

Lithe as a sprite, like some kind of creature born of water and air, she rose up onto her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips. His hands settled at her waist, gripping tightly as their lips moved together.

Mason had been the one filming, I realized. Of course he had. He must’ve passed the phone off to someone else before I turned to him.

When the girl on the screen stepped away from Elijah and turned to Finn, my chest squeezed so hard it felt like it was collapsing in on itself. Moonlight hit his face perfectly, illuminating the angle of his nose, the twin dimples in his cheeks as something like surprise, awe, and hope crossed his features. When the water sprite with the pale skin and dark hair stepped into his embrace, he wrapped his arms around her possessively, curving her body against his as he kissed her.

The image wavered in front of me as tears blurred my vision, but I couldn’t look away as the video continued to play. The landscape jostled roughly as the phone changed hands, and then the girl stepped up to the broad-shouldered boy with jet-black hair and pressed two light kisses to the corners of his mouth. Cole.

Before she could press a third kiss, his arms banded around her and his lips devoured hers.

The sound on the video was still turned up, but even the waves seemed to have quieted, as if the whole world had held its breath in that moment.

When the girl who was so open, uninhibited, and happy that she couldn’t possibly be me turned toward Mason last, I stopped breathing. She stepped toward him before hesitating… and it was his hand that reached out for her, his tug that pulled her the rest of the way, closing the distance between them until their lips met.

The video cut out after their kiss broke, reverting back to a freeze-frame from the beginning, but I kept staring at the phone in Finn’s hand, blinking rapidly.

“You were so beautiful that night, Legs,” he whispered, his voice rough. “Wild and free.”