Fallen Crest Public(67)

When I tossed my bag inside my vehicle, I heard from behind me, “Can I have a minute?”
My blood went cold.
Kate was alone, her hands stuffed in her pockets, and her shoulders hunched forward. It was a meek posture, but she wasn’t meek. She was just alone.
“What do you want?” I made a show of looking around. “Your friends going to pop out and jump me?”
She frowned. I knew that look. She was on a fishing expedition. “Why would you say that?”
“That’s what you’re going to do Sam, aren’t you?”
“No.”
Her arm twitched. She was lying.
“Look,” she cleared her throat and her face twitched. I knew that look, too. She was biting the inside of her cheek. “Seeing you now, I don’t even know why I bothered.”
She turned to leave.
This was bullshit. She showed up so now it was my turn for some fun. “What do you want to know, Kate?”
She paused and then let out a sigh. “Fine. Listen. I need to know that it’s done.”
“What’s done?”
“You and me.”
I smirked at her. “There was never a you and me.”
“Yes, there was. I was your girl—”
“That I f*cked when I needed someone.” I sneered. “You kept yourself clean and you didn’t use to sleep around. I noticed. That’s all there was to it. Nothing more.”
She visibly swallowed. “There was more—”
“No, Kate.” It was the lack of caring in my tone. She heard the truth and jerked to the side, as if she were going to leave, but stopped. Her hands tore out of her pockets and balled into fists. They raised in the air, but not high enough that they could do damage. I waited. Kate was a bitch. I enjoyed that I was hurting her. “Come on. You went after Marissa because I was friends with her. Now my girlfriend? For what? To get me back? You’re pathetic, Kate.”
“Shut up.” She flinched with every word I said, but she swung her heated eyes back to me. “You shut up, Mason. You have no idea, no f*cking idea why I’m doing this.”
“For power? You lost it. That’s long gone.” When there was no reaction, I laughed. “Haven’t you been watching? No one cares. The girls are turning against you.”
“You think they’ll follow her?” she sneered back.
“No, but they’ll like her. No one liked you. They were scared of you, but no one’s scared anymore.”
“They should be.”
“Why?” There it was. She was starting to show her colors. I could see inside of her now. “Are you going to go after every single girl? You don’t have the time, and all you’ll do is piss ‘em all off again. They haven’t turned on you yet, but they will. You go after every person, it’ll happen.”
“So maybe I’ll make an example out of her? Maybe that’s what I’m doing because people should be scared. They have no idea what I can do.”
It would be so easy to pull everything out from underneath her. I wanted to. I wanted to see that look on her face. She couldn’t match me, but I held back. “One word of advice, let it go. You’ve already lost power. You’re not going to get it back.”
“What do you know about it?”
“You have three friends right now.” I saw the scorn on her face. She was thinking she had more. She was wrong. “If you keep targeting Sam, you won’t. I’ll take them from you.”
Her sneer vanished. “You couldn’t.”
“I could.”
She eyed me, studying to see if I was bluffing. I let her see the truth. “Here’s your last chance. Drop it all and you can keep your friends. I won’t destroy that for you, but keep doing what I know you’re planning on doing, and I will ruin you. You’ll have no friends. You’ll have no allies. You won’t even want to come to this school again.”