Chapter 3 #3
A chill slides across my skin, raising goosebumps I try to ignore.
I hate that he has that effect on me. Hate that a single sentence from his mouth can slip under my defenses and curl inside my chest. His words move the way smoke does, finding cracks I did not even know were there, seeping through until the air feels heavy and poisoned.
I should push him out.
I should shut him down.
But instead I sit here, every nerve wired tight, furious that he can get past my walls at all.
I keep my eyes down. My pen scratches nothing across the page, my hand steady only because I force it to be. “You talking again, or is that the sound of your ego trying to unzip its own pants?”
Cassie snorts so loud she nearly chokes on her laughter, pressing her pen harder into the paper as if she can hide it there.
Zane laughs too, buried under his breath.
“Feisty,” he says, like he’s proud of me, as if I am not a girl telling him to fuck off but some wild animal he has cornered. He sounds like he wants to poke me with a stick just to watch me snap.
He slides into the seat in front of me, the scrape of the chair loud enough to drag every eye in the room for half a second.
It is the first time he has chosen this spot.
Usually he plants himself at the back, half hidden, all attitude, while he does whatever the fuck Zane Rivera does when he is not busy getting suspended.
Now here he is. Too fucking close for comfort.
He drapes one arm over the back of his chair with lazy confidence, the other spread across his desk, his whole body turned toward me as if I am the only thing worth looking at. His posture is loose, almost careless, but the weight of his attention presses against me.
I force myself to look busy.
I flip through pages I have already seen a dozen times, pretending to search for something important. I click my pen again and again, and shift my books into a new stack, then another, arranging and rearranging as if the order of paper and ink could mean something.
But none of it fucking matters.
Because he is watching me.
“Didn’t know I had that kind of effect on you,” he says, voice smooth, every word dipped in arrogance.
I finally meet his eyes and aim the best death glare I have. It is the one I use when I want someone to back the fuck off.
“You don’t,” I snap.
The words land too fast. Too defensive.
His smirk only deepens, spreading slow across his face as if I just handed him proof of something he already suspected. His gaze flickers down to my mouth and lingers there for a half second too long, deliberate enough to make my stomach twist.
Fuck.
Zane Rivera is dangerous.
Not in the casual way people throw that word around when they talk about boys with motorcycles or tattoos. Not the kind of danger that fades when the lights come on.
I force my attention to the front of the room.
Mr. Harvey is at the whiteboard, uncapping markers and scrawling the outline of a lesson we haven’t started yet. Grammar bullshit no one in here will bother to care about.
Then the sound in the room shifts.
The air itself changes.
The noise floods in, cutting across the low hum that had settled before. Laughter slices through it— too smug, entitled in the way only certain voices can be.
Footsteps follow. Every step dripping with that cheap confidence bought with money and last names, the kind of confidence that tells them the world will bend just because they showed up.
It is in their walk, all chest and shoulders.
It is in the tilt of their heads, the practiced roll of their smirks as they scan the room.
Every move says the same thing: applaud us, worship us, hate us if you want, but do not look away.
Three of them.
Football jerseys stretched across their shoulders.
Expensive haircuts, paid for by fathers who solve their problems with cash and lawyers.
They move as a pack, feeding on each other’s noise, amplifying it until it fills every corner of the room.
Alone, they would be just boys in shoes too clean, they wouldn’t matter.
Together, they wear invincibility like a crown.
Zane doesn’t turn to look. His body stays slouched in that lazy way of his, but I can feel his attention fixed on me. His eyes don’t leave, not even for a second, as every muscle in my body coils tight.
I know what’s coming. The script never changes, only the volume.
Liam doesn’t waste time.
He spots me the second he crosses the threshold, his grin already plastered across his face, stretched too wide, too sure of itself.
He makes a beeline straight for our table, carving through the rows of desks, weaving between bodies without breaking stride.
People move for him even when they don’t mean to, pulled out of his way by sheer force of arrogance.
His swagger isn’t earned. It never is with boys like him.
It’s inherited, handed down with the letterman jacket and the empty praise that cushions every fall.
He stops right beside us, staking his ground as if the floor was marked with his name.
His stance is wide, feet planted apart in that ridiculous show of dominance boys of his kind believe makes them men. His hands rest on his hips, fingers splayed, elbows out, his chest puffed up for maximum effect.
“Shit,” he says, dragging the word out, making sure every single person within earshot hears it.
His voice carries that mocking tone, drawn out as if the syllable itself is the punchline to a joke only he finds funny.
He tilts his head toward me, eyes cutting sharp.
“Didn’t know the cafeteria was handing out strays this early. ”
I freeze. Not completely, but enough for it to show in the smallest ways. My fingers clamp down on the edge of the desk until my knuckles ache, white and bloodless.
Because I know this game.
I have played it too many times in too many rooms that reeked of sweat and cheap power. I know exactly what they want. They want the reaction, the spark that turns into fire. They want the snap, the flinch, the proof they can get under my skin.
“Aw, don’t be bitter, foster girl,” one of the other assholes says as he steps closer. “You can sit with us if you want. Rivera doesn’t need to hog all the broken toys.”
Zane shifts in his chair, the movement small but enough to drag the air tighter around us. He doesn’t bother to look at them. His posture doesn’t change, still loose, still lazy, but there is a coil beneath it, a wire pulled taut and ready to snap.
His voice cuts through the noise, stripped of anything human. Deadly in its calm.
“Go sit the fuck somewhere else.”
They ignore him.
That is how this game always plays out. Guys like Liam are built to push, their grins plastered on as if mockery is oxygen. They never stop. They prod, they taunt, because they believe no one can touch them. They believe their jerseys are armor and their fathers’ names are shields.
And Zane is a loaded gun sitting right in front of them, safety long gone, trigger begging to be pulled. They are too stupid, too cocky, too entitled to see it.
“You sharing this one, Rivera?” Liam says, his voice rising, feeding off the audience that has begun to form.
He is louder now, braver under the weight of attention, mistaking their silence for approval.
He leans into it, letting the words drip filth into the air.
“Or keeping her to yourself? Bit greedy, don’t you think?
Thought your type liked to pass it around. ”
Laughter bursts out from a few desks away.
Zane’s chair scrapes back against the tile. He rises in one smooth motion, every inch of him a threat.
The whole room goes still.
Conversations die mid-sentence.
Liam’s shoulders stiffen, but his shit eating grin doesn’t falter. His mouth keeps moving, desperate to prove he isn’t rattled.
“What, you fucking her already, Rivera? I hear she’s easy. Figured we’d have our fun.”
That is all it takes.
One sentence too far and Zane lunges forward, the calm stripped away in an instant. His fist arcs through the air and slams into Liam’s jaw with brutal precision. The crack rings out, echoing through the room with a sound that is equal parts violence and satisfaction.
For a heartbeat, it is the only noise that exists.
Liam stumbles back, head snapping to the side, his body crashing into the desk behind him.
The impact rattles through the room as chairs topple, clattering against the floor.
His friends scatter, all that swagger leaking out of them as they scramble, nearly tripping over each other in their rush to get out of the way.
Their bravado dissolves into panic the second fists turn real.
One girl shrieks.
Someone knocks their water bottle off the table and it rolls across the floor, unnoticed.
Cassie shoots to her feet, wide-eyed, but I don’t move.
I sit there.
Frozen.
My hands stay clenched around the edge of the desk, nails biting into the wood, but I don’t move. I can’t. My body won’t let me. All I can do is watch.
Zane doesn’t stop. He hauls Liam up by the collar, fisting the front of his jersey.
Liam tries to fight back, arms flailing, legs kicking against the floor, but he isn’t fast enough. Zane has been waiting for this. You can see it in the way his movements are sharp, in the way his fists land with precision.
A split lip blooms red across Liam’s mouth. A bruise darkens over his left cheekbone, swelling beneath Zane’s knuckles. Blood splatters the floor, tiny drops scattering across the white tile. The sight roots itself in my chest.
Mr. Harvey rushes forward, his face already flushed, his tie swinging loose as he shoves past desks and bodies.
“Rivera!” he roars, pushing through the wall of students as though the crowd itself is an enemy he has to fight through. He looks less like a teacher and more like a man barely holding himself together.
Zane doesn’t flinch.