This Fearless Girl (St. Clary's University #2) - E. M. Moore Page 0,10

touch but he’s holding back because of me.

My mouth dries. “Thank you.”

“I’m here if you need to talk about it. We all are. If you give us a chance, we want to apologize for what happened. We’ve been going out of our minds.” I scoff, and Lucas squeezes my hand tighter. “If you don’t believe it for all of us, believe it about me. I never want to see you in danger again.”

The door to the garage opens. “Lucas, what the—?” Stone cuts himself off after he sees us together. His gaze hardens. “I was wondering why you were home.”

Lucas slips his fingers through mine and leads me past Stone—who doesn’t give us an inch to get around him—and through the kitchen to the living room where Wyatt is lying on one of the sofas.

Wyatt whistles and breaks out into a huge smile. “Tits? You changed your mind?”

Lucas runs a hand through his brown hair. “Worse. Cole showed up.”

Wyatt immediately moves to a sitting position, cringing at the too fast movement. He breathes through his nostrils for a moment while Stone swears behind us and moves into our line of sight.

“What happened?”

Lucas looks at me.

That’s right. He doesn’t know. I leave Stone and Lucas standing there and move toward the fancy white couch on the right that faces the matching couch on the other side of the room. Wyatt tosses his cowboy hat to the ground, and I sit gingerly so I don’t jostle him, even though his injury looks like it’s the furthest thing from his mind. He gazes at me expectantly. They all do.

I block Stone out. We have to have it out, but I’m too fucking tired today. The stress of Dickie’s funeral and now with Cole breaking into my dorm…it’s all finally gotten to me.

My bones are like lead weights attached to my torso as I sink back into the couch. Maybe I’ve been too wired to notice anything was wrong? Something about this house always makes me relaxed—comforted, almost. It’s hard not to feel that way. It was built for stress-free enjoyment with the staff and the pool, and its tranquility makes everything else jump out at me.

“Dakota...” Stone urges.

I give him a rueful smile. I was wondering how long it would take him to get impatient. Not long at all. I wait a few more seconds, just to fuck with him, then launch into the story about how I found Cole in my dorm. The guys had a bunch of questions about that. Was my door locked? Was the door broken? Where was he? Did I see anyone else?

I answer as well as I can, but when they ask me what he wanted, I lie. I tell them about his minor threats and hold back the information about Dickie.

Stone’s penetrating gaze sears into me the whole time. It dips the longer I speak, his eyes narrowing. My cheeks flush as I change positions to angle away from his scrutiny, but when I finish with the whole story, Stone asks, “What’s wrong with your neck?”

My whole face heats. I still feel Cole’s fingers on me as they wrapped around my throat to deliver his warning. “Cole,” I tell him, lifting an eyebrow. “He told me the next time he tells me to shoot someone, I need to kill them instead of just injuring.”

Wyatt leans over, inspecting my skin. He lifts a hand, tracing over the affected areas of my neck. I don’t know what he sees, but he’s not happy. “He did this, Tits?”

“Yeah, he didn’t choke me or anything—”

“Bullshit,” Stone cuts in. “He wrapped his hand around your throat. He choked you.”

“I think he just wanted to make sure I was paying attention.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Wyatt snaps. He goes to stand, but his face pales and he falls back to the couch. I catch a brief glimpse of a sterile pad on his side before he covers it back up with his muscular arms. I enjoy when Wyatt goes shirtless, but I’m even more thankful to have the view now because I had all sorts of thoughts about what his knife wound was going to look like. I’m relieved to see that the damage isn’t as big as I thought it was. He’s a little bruised up in other places, but for the most part, I wouldn’t have pegged him as someone who got stabbed less than a week ago.

“Should you even be up and about?” I ask, reaching to move his