As soon as I let her go, she tried to slap me. I caught her wrist and tilted my head. “Careful. Put your hands on me and I’ll be obligated to return the favor. But I can’t promise you won’t like it.”
She jerked her arm free and stormed out of the cafeteria.
I sat back down and picked up my sandwich, taking a bite.
Logan was watching me with a disgusted look on his face. “You are so beyond fucked up. Making fun of a girl for a scar is a new low. Even for you.”
Gage nodded. “Have to agree. I mean, you’ve got that fucked up scar on your back. What’s the word I’m looking for?” Gage tapped his chin in thought. “Damn. Too bad my dad isn’t here to let me borrow an adjective.”
“Hypocritical,” Kennedy said dryly. “Because Cassian is a huge hypocrite and a prick.”
Tristan watched me with dull amusement in his eyes. The challenge there was always open, always waiting. He and I had fought before, and I knew we’d fight again, eventually. It was just how things were between us.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my texts, ignoring all of them. I had a virtual pile-up of messages because I hadn’t checked my phone in a couple days.
Abbie: Parents are out of town tonight and I’ve got booze. Is it a date?
No.
Preston: Hey, man. This is Preston from the game last Friday. Trying to find your party. Where did you say your house was?
I grinned. No wonder that dumbass never showed up.
Gage: is it incest if I have sex with sisters in the same day but at different times?
I looked up at Gage and turned my phone to face him. “Seriously?”
He shrugged. “I decided it wasn’t. For the record.”
Logan shook his head, grinning. “The Presley sisters? How’d you like those sloppy seconds, bitch?” He gave Gage a punch on the shoulder.
Gage shrugged. “The older one was my favorite.”
Logan nodded. “She’s funny, right?”
The two of them started laughing about something involving a move she called “The Walrus.”
Once the conversation died down, Gage looked my way. “Does you hating Charli mean she’s free game again? Because any girl who has the balls to walk up to all of us and call you an asshole is officially interesting, in my book.”
Logan completely turned sideways to look for a long time at Gage, smirking.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I understand why you don’t seem interested in half the girls who try to hook up with you, now. Dude, if you want balls, you’ve been chasing after the wrong gender.”
“Yeah? Then why does your mom have the biggest pair I’ve ever seen?”
Logan sputtered, laughing. “Mom jokes? Has it really come to this?”
I left my stuff at the table and got up to go. When I was back in the courtyard, I spotted Charli sitting with two of her friends.
All three of them were looking my way, but the other two jerked their heads back to Charli as soon as they saw me notice them.
I made no hurry to go toward her. I was still debating my options, after all.
I knew my reputation. Cruel. Brutal. Heartless. Violent. Maybe most of it was true, but the part nobody understood was that I never targeted anyone. I didn’t go out of my way to make people miserable. I just punished the ones who were dumb enough to get in my way.
Until now, at least.
This wasn’t going to be incidental. It wasn’t going to end because she asked me nicely to stop or finally learned to stay out of my way. It was going to end when she was done paying for what she’d cost me.
So as much as I wanted to walk over to her table and sling words her way until I found the right combination to make her cry, I walked away, knowing the opportunity would present itself. It wasn’t going to be enough to simply insult her—to bump her shoulder in the hall and give her a few embarrassing moments to remember when she was older.
Just looking at her made the nerves in my body feel like they were on fire. Like the air around me was rippling with flames until my skin wanted to melt and slide from my bones. She drove me fucking insane, and I wasn’t going to stop until I’d taken everything from her, just like she had from me.11CharliBeforeI was hungry, but I didn’t want to go home. Not yet. I knew mom and dad would be mad if my dinner got cold, but Cassian and I were almost done with our fort.
It was the height of Summer, and we’d barely stepped inside all day. Our morning was spent looking for the spooky abandoned cabin in the woods behind our houses—the one Cassian had wanted to look for last night, but I’d been too scared. Once we gave up the search, we’d walked into town, where Cassian’s cousin had snuck us a free pair of milkshakes. We carried them up to the big, grassy hill overlooking the town.