Ride or Die (Rejects Paradise 4)

Nic’s lips lift into a smirk, and the way they drop is almost seductive. What the fuck is going on here? Is he trying to get into her pants or kidnap her to use as bait against the Wolves? “Have you always been this brave, or have you just been away too long?”

“What I've been doing is none of your goddamn business,” she spits, looking at him with a deep hatred in her eyes. There has to be something else going on here, something deeper. Maybe they have history. They both would have grown up around the same time, perhaps gone to school together. “Now get off my school grounds. I won't be asking again.”

Nic laughs as if she were a child having a tantrum. “I'll leave when I'm ready,” he tells her. “So be a sweetheart and take that fine ass back to wherever the fuck it came from. Ocean and I were in the middle of a talk.”

“You and Ocean were finished. You have no right to enter school property and speak with a minor.”

“Tough shit. She’s not a minor anymore. I’ll talk to her whenever the fuck I want to.”

“Alright,” I snap, done with their back and forth bullshit. “This is ridiculous. Nic, she's right. You need to leave. I'm done with ... whatever this bullshit is,” I say, waving a hand between us. “Nothing has changed. You killed my father, you forced my hand, and I won't be stopping until you've paid for what you did. I don't even care how much I have to hurt myself to make it happen.”

Nic glares, his eyes digging into me like two lethal laser beams. “You're going to be responsible for the end of the Wolves, you know that right?”

I step out of Miss Davies’ shadow, reminding him just who he's talking to. “Bring it on, Nic. You know how much I love it when dickheads like you underestimate me. It only pushes me harder.”

Nic scoffs, and I see the change in his eyes. He's ready to go in for the kill, and as he goes to make his move, the familiar sound of a bullet being loaded into the chamber of a gun sounds through the dead parking lot. “You've been asked to leave twice now,” Colton says, his gun aimed right between Nic's eyes, the same way Nic had done to him as we were leaving the hospital. “You don't want to find out what it looks like when I have to ask you a third time.”

Nic slowly raises his eyes to Colton, not afraid of his gun in the least. “You don’t want to do that,” he warns him.

“You see, I think I really do. More now than ever.”

The two remain locked in a heated stare until Nic finally slices his gaze back to me. “You’re making a mistake, O,” he tells me, keeping his eyes locked on mine for a moment too long. His unrelenting stare is too intense, almost as though it’s filled with a million messages. Six months ago, I would have been able to read those messages as if they were my own thoughts, but now, I get absolutely nothing.

Nic finally tears his gaze away, and with three quick steps, he’s back at his driver's door. He drops down into his car and revs the engine before screeching out of the student parking lot and finally giving me a chance to take a deep breath.

Miss Davies sags in relief beside me and drops down onto the hard pavement before letting her head sink into her hands. “Holy fuck,” she breathes. “That was too much.”

I stare at her in shock before dropping down beside her. “Are you okay?” I ask, my eyes wide and concerned.

“Yeah, I just … I haven’t seen Dominic for a very long time. He’s worse than I could have ever expected.”

“I …” I press my lips together, unsure why her statement bothers me so much. Why am I still so desperate to defend him? I feel as though I should be running my mouth and telling her about all the good he’s done for me over the years, but I don’t. I let her opinion sit, knowing that she might just be right. “Yeah, he’s certainly changed.”

She shakes her head, and I watch as a single tear falls down her cheek. “I’m sorry, I need to go,” she says, shakily getting back to her feet. “Will you be alright?”

“Yeah, I, um …” I glance back at Colton, who stands back, giving us this moment. “I’ll be fine.”

Miss Davies nods and then practically runs away, leaving me more confused than ever. I don’t get it. She was so tough before, so in charge and ready to face down the enemy, and now she’s an emotional wreck? What’s going on? There must be more to it, something that I’m missing.