Broken Hill Hearts (Broken Hill High 4)

I give him a slight nod, letting him now I’m ready for him to take her down. To finish her the way she tried to permanently finish us.

Nate turns on Ashley and his eyes bore into her, though from where I’m standing it looks nothing short of terrifying. Not even when he was my bully did he ever look at me in that way. I mean, if he had, it would have made me crumble in two seconds flat. Hell, maybe I might have even shit my pants.

“This is your chance, Ashley,” Nate says. “You come clean now, in front of the whole school, and Tora and I won’t press charges. You’ll get to live your life. If not, you’ll be going away and I swear, I will make your life a living hell.”

He eyes widen and she frantically looks around. She’s backed into a corner with nowhere to go. “It was meant to be me,” she cries, throwing her hands up and slamming Nate in the chest. “You were supposed to be with me. That… that… whore is nothing. You threw everything we had away to be with that.”

Nate steps into her and she shrinks back. “Admit it,” he demands. “Tell the fucking world what you did.”

“Alright,” she yells, completely off the charts crazy. “I did it. Is that what you want to hear? I set that stupid boat shed on fire.” She pokes him in the chest, becoming hysterical. “If I couldn’t have you then no one could. You weren’t supposed to come out alive. You were supposed to shrivel and die beside that trash that took you away from me.”

“Shit,” Jesse grunts as pain seeps right down into my soul. He takes my hand, lending me every ounce of support he can possibly find within himself.

Nate steps away from Ashley and looks towards the cops. He nods and a second later, they hurry out onto the field and cuff her as they read out her Miranda rights.

“No,” Ashley yells at Nate. “You said I wouldn’t get charged.”

Nate steps right up into her face. “You tried to take Tora away from me and you nearly cost both of us our lives. If you thought for one second I wasn’t going to destroy you, you’re even more fucked in the head than I thought.”

Her eyes widen and a second later, the cops start dragging her away as phones record the scene from every possible angle.

Nate’s eyes meet mine and I’m terrified by what he might see. I didn’t realize just how awful that was going to be. I legitimately thought she had set the fire, realizes her mistake and tried to put it out. She made a near fatal mistake, but that wasn’t it at all. It was completely intentional. Maybe she hadn’t tried to put it out with her jacket. Maybe it caught fire and she had to put it out before she burned right along with us.

Nate looks away and I follow his gaze as he looks to the guy in the suit. He nods once, and just like that, the guy nods back, turns, and leaves.

What the hell was that? More importantly, who the hell was that?

Nate starts walking towards me as the students all go apeshit in the stands. “Are you ok?” he questions, wrapping his arms around me and watching me with a deep curiosity.

I shake my head. “I wasn’t expecting that,” I tell him. “She tried to kill us.”

Nate presses his lips together and nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting that part either. But you’ll never have to see her again. I promise you that, babe.”

I nod as I press my head into his chest. “I love you.”

Nate runs his hand down the back of my hair and over my back. “I know,” he murmurs as students start breaking out of the stands and flooding the field. “I love you too.”

“I’m sorry to break up this little moment,” Principal Watkins says. “But I think the three of us need to have a conversation in my office and then it looks like I have a few calls to make.”

We nod as he starts walking away, expecting us to follow behind. We wait until he’s a few steps in front so we can have a little privacy. “Who was that guy?” I question, looking back over my shoulder and watching the cops depositing Ashley into their cruiser.

Nate grins as he looks down at me, rubbing his thumb over my hand. “The dean of admissions at Broken Hill University. I wanted to cover all my bases in case the charges didn’t stick. He would have had to retract her admission if she admitted to arson.”

“You think of everything,” I smile.

“When it comes to protecting you, you better believe I’m going to do whatever the hell it takes.”