Fallen Crest Public (Fallen Crest High #3)(65)

I held my breath.

He kept going, “She thinks we’re friends again.”

It hurt to breathe.

“She thinks she’s at the top again.”

An intense pressure was on my chest now; it felt as if someone was pushing down on it.

“She thinks I’m going to dump you.”

I flinched as I felt someone kick me again. I heard the crack in my ribs from that night. I felt the crack in my ribs from that night.

He looked like a cold stranger to me as he finished, “And she thinks she’s going to be my girlfriend.”

I couldn’t talk. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to do anything except sit there and let his words sink in. All the pain that my medication had been holding at bay flooded me. It all came back in one wave, all at the same time, and I was paralyzed in my chair. I couldn’t fight any of it. “Why would she think that?”

Logan looked away. Mark’s head went down, but Mason didn’t turn away. He stared right back at me as he said, “Because I’m letting her think that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

I hadn’t let myself think about Kate. I couldn’t, not the first week. I needed to heal and get through it. Everyone had been so supportive, but now I remembered that I was going back into the lions’ den. Fallen Crest Academy had different problems, but no one got assaulted there. I was tired, I was in pain, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what Mason said. He was letting Kate think she had won.

It didn’t matter what he said after that: he was setting her up; he had a plan; he didn’t want me involved because he knew I wouldn’t approve; I needed to trust him because he was going to make her pay.

He tried reassuring me over and over that night.

He failed. I wasn’t reassured.

I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to pound my fists on his chest. I wanted to throw things. Everyone else had gone to bed by then, but I wanted them awake. No one deserved to sleep. No one deserved to go about their daily routines, not when mine had been destroyed by her, but I couldn’t enact my revenge on those in the household. Except Mason. He stayed awake with me during the night. I couldn’t sleep. The need to make Kate pay had my heart pumping. I wanted to be the one to set her up, to watch her suffer. I wanted to find her in a bathroom, but there wouldn’t be three other friends with me. It would be her and me, and I’d beat her senseless. When she’d crawl to the door, I’d start again.

The rage never simmered. It kept my blood boiling, and my heart pumping the entire night. Mason drifted to sleep around three in the morning, but I was still seething at six. When he woke and glanced over, he saw I was still awake. He leaned over to kiss me, but I moved my head aside. There’d be no kisses. No words were shared as he got ready for school. When Logan came to the door, they had a quiet conversation. Logan was advised to leave me alone, and he did. They both left at the same time. Mark left for his school twenty minutes later. He sprinted through the house, and I heard Malinda yell, “It won’t matter that you’re late if you’re dead. Slow down, Marcus.”

He yelled back, “Yeah, okay.”

Peeking out my window, I watched as he sprinted for his car and then gunned the engine. I pretended that Kate had been in front of his car. She would be on the street now, laying in her blood and writhing in pain.

“He’s going to get in an accident one of these days. Sleeps too late, pushes it so that he’s not late for school, and I just know it’s a bad recipe in the making,” Malinda mused from behind me. The bottom of her white nightgown was underneath her blue robe. She retied the knot in the front before yawning. “You want some pancakes? David told me that Analise never made you breakfast before.”

“She didn’t, but she had their chef make me sandwiches.” I missed Mousteff.

Malinda grunted, a crooked grin on her face. “Some rich folk are like that. They stop doing the little things, think it’s beneath them. The only thing beneath them is not doing a damn thing.”

She said more, but I wasn’t listening to her. I was in my own head.

Analise. David. Jessica. Lydia. Jeff.

A stabbing pain seared through me. Each one of them had betrayed me. Each was someone I once loved. The pain kept coming. It wasn’t going to stop.

“Right, Sam?” Malinda laughed.

I turned back to the window. I couldn’t face her. She was another one. The same would happen, and she had no idea she’d do it until the day she left me, like the rest of them. “She’s going to get away with this.”

She grew quiet. “Who?”

I couldn’t answer. Kate. All of them. Everyone.

“They followed me into that bathroom.” The door opened, but the hand dryer was on. “I remember it now. I knew they were coming. I knew someone was there. There was a small movement from the corner of my eye. It’s why I turned to leave, but …” I couldn’t go further. That day would haunt me, like so many others.

I turned back now.

Malinda straightened from the doorway. Her hand dropped and slapped against her leg with a soft thud. Her eyes widened an inch, and her mouth fell open.

I didn’t know what she saw in me, but she couldn’t talk for a second. I could. For once, the words were there, and they were gutting me. “How do I get over this?” How was I supposed to go back to that school? She was there. Mason said they only got in-school suspension. They got a slap on the wrist and were given a holiday from their usual studies.