Broken Empire A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance - Callie Rose Page 0,48
I pushed against his chest as he neared me, not wanting him in my space, in my bubble. “And who elected you judge, jury, and executioner? Who gave you the right to decide who’s innocent and who’s guilty? Who gave you that fucking power?”
“I gave it to myself, Princess.” His hand reached up to grip my chin, his touch shockingly gentle despite the tension thrumming through his limbs. “Because I take care of the people I love. I don’t let them get hurt while I’m waiting to see if the people who want to hurt them are guilty or innocent. I don’t wait.”
I smacked his hand away, yanking my head back. I’d meant to bring him back here to calm him down, but my own anger was churning beneath my skin now.
Everything Mason was saying reminded me of the person he’d been when I’d first met him, and I hated it.
“Yeah. I’m well fucking aware of how you mete out your own particular brand of vigilante justice. Jesus! Have you not realized by now how fucked up that is? And I don’t even mean toward the other person! I mean, toward yourself. You’re killing your own goddamn soul, Mason, and one of these days, you’re gonna do something you can’t come back from! And for what? Why? Just because you believe? That’s not how justice works!”
“Sometimes it doesn’t work any other way!”
He was in my face now, whatever peace had existed between us for the past weeks forgotten as he glared me down. My heart was beating so hard I thought it might crack my ribs as a mixture of remembered fear and dormant anger swept through me.
There’d been a time when I might’ve cowered before Mason, might’ve let the animal force of him overwhelm me. But it’d been a long time since I’d stepped down in front of this boy, and I wasn’t going to move backward.
Only forward.
I squared my shoulders, looking him dead in the eye and keeping my voice steady as I spoke.
“If you really think that’s true, then you should’ve kept coming after me. You never should’ve stopped.” He winced at my words like I’d physically hit him, but I kept going. “You should still hate me. You know who my mom is—you know what she did. Why don’t I deserve to be punished for that? I’m the last of the Hildebrand line. Doesn’t the buck stop with me?”
He and I had only discussed his mother’s death once, the night I’d snuck into Clarendon Hall to question him about the past. I hadn’t brought it up since then because I knew how much it hurt him. I had never wanted to poke the raw, exposed wound.
But I was poking it now.
Because he needed to feel this. He needed to understand it on a visceral level.
That there were consequences to his pain.
That his own hurts didn’t give him the right to hurt others indiscriminately.
His eyes widened, a flash of overwhelming grief sparking in his bright emerald irises. His nostrils flared, and he shook his head slowly, the animalistic movement of a bull about to charge.
“That’s not the same, Princess. You didn’t do anything. I understand that now. Adena and fucking Preston—”
“It is the same!” My voice cut across his like a whip. “It is the exact goddamn same, Mason. You love so intensely that you let it destroy you, let it turn into a monster! You take something that should be good and beautiful, and you turn it into something awful. Do you think that’s what your mom would’ve wanted? For you to go after me with everything you had? Do you think this is what I want? For you to go after Preston in the fucking hallway, to risk getting yourself expelled just because you think he hurt me? Even if he did, even if he and Adena are guilty, I wouldn’t want you to become a monster, something you’re not, just to defend me!”
He moved toward me again, and even though I refused to give ground, he kept on coming until our chests brushed together and I took two steps back. My heels thunked against the door, and my back hit it a second later, but Mason didn’t stop coming.
Our bodies were practically flush against each other as he tilted his head down to stare at me. I had to lift my chin uncomfortably to meet his gaze, and I could feel his body trembling through all the places we touched.