three seconds from kicking this guy in the dick. “This asshole thinks—”
“I know you took it,” he snaps. “I left it on my desk and you sit there next period.”
She snaps back, “I didn’t take your fucking watch.”
“Then let me look in your bag,” he demands, stepping close enough that my whole body ignites in anger. “I know you’re hiding something.”
He’s right. She’s got her hand stuffed into her bag like she’s shielding something, but I know from experience exactly what it is. Getting caught with that knife is going to land her in deep shit.
“If she says she didn’t take it, then she didn’t fucking take it,” I say, voice full of barely-veiled warning. Used to be people were more intimidated by me than charmed. A couple months off fighting must have put a serious damper on my ability to make shit-stains like this back the hell off.
Big mistake.
The guy doesn’t even bat an eyelash, sneering down his nose at her. “God this place used to have standards. Giving scholarships to Northridge kids was one thing, but now they’re letting in Cliff trash? Enough of this.”
I could have let that go—maybe, maybe—but then he reaches out and clamps a hand around her wrist to wrench it from her bag, and oh, fuck no.
The back of his head meets the lockers with a loud clang, but I can barely hear it over the storm in my head. “You don’t fucking touch her,” I roar, seeing red. I’ve got two tight handfuls of his blazer, fists digging hard into his chest, and it’s not that he just called her trash, or even that his fucking hand was on her when even I can’t do that.
It was the sudden look of pure, spine-steeling terror in her eyes that propelled me forward.
No one makes Sugar look like that. Not me, and certainly not this piece of shit.
“No one fucking touches her,” I seethe, knowing the crowd behind me is watching, listening. “Anyone lays a single finger on her, and I’m going to light your ass the fuck up. Georgia!”
“I’m on it,” she says, knowing exactly what I’m asking her to do; lead Sugar away. Last thing I need is for her to feel more sketchy about me.
The guy looks pissed, reaching up to roughly flick a bit of spittle from his cheek. But he also doesn’t push back. “She took my—”
“I didn’t take it!” Sugar spits, obviously not down with being led away. “I never saw a watch. There was nothing on my desk when I got in there! If you don’t believe me, then take it up with Dewey. I’m done with you. Let’s go, Sebastian.”
But it’s not that easy. The red-hot, raging feeling that’s curled around my lungs isn’t satisfied, wants to bury my fist into this guy’s face. My hands are screaming, balled so tightly into his jacket that the wound on my knuckles is openly trickling blood. My jaw feels locked, nostrils flared as I decide; let it go or let loose? And fuck, just the thought of letting loose tickles at the back of my brain, and I feel just like Reyn had looked earlier. A junkie jonesing for a fix.
“Come on, Bass. He’s not worth it.” It’s her touch that does it, the warm weight of her hand falling onto my arm, not pushing or pulling, just resting there. Steadying. Understanding.
I still give him one last shove before letting go, and the way my fists send him back into the lockers couldn’t be called anything less than head-rattling. It’ll have to suffice. “Watch your back, motherfucker.”
It’s still a little bit like peeling a scab from skin, but I do it. I walk away. It’s not so bad, even if I’m following Sugar down the hall unseeingly, unthinkingly, breathing through the vestiges of rage, batting them down like a slowly dying fire.
I don’t even notice where she leads me until we reach the little spot by the dumpsters, but when I do, it makes it even easier to shake off this restless, frantic thing. The cats will probably come. I didn’t bring any food.
“Sit down,” she says, jerking a nod toward the tree stump and then folding herself down on the ground beside it.
I lower myself to the ground instead, working my jaw around something to say. She doesn’t seem mad or freaked out—not like she had that day in Dr. Ross’s class, or last night when I beat the shit out of my car.