Chapter 19 #3
It was the same line he’d given me once upon a time, and I would’ve smiled if the atmosphere of the hallway wasn’t so icy. By then, other students had begun to gather around the fringe of the lockers, waiting to see what would happen next.
“I’m trying to figure out why a freak like you is hanging around a girl like her.” Wes lifted his hands level with his shoulders. “Why risk pissing off that family again? You really want to get expelled this time?”
Hudson still didn’t react. “And I’m just trying to figure out why you’re still standing here, Wes.”
“Maybe she wants a taste of the wild side, huh?” Wes leaned in closer to Hudson, but his gaze slid back to me, raking up from my shoes.
“And you want to give it to her? You trying to get up that long skirt of hers, is that it? I don’t blame you.
Girls like her are fun to screw around with, aren’t they? ”
The tension Hudson had kept tightly wound snapped.
Hudson grabbed Wes’s collar with his left hand and pulled back his right, but before he could land the punch, two things happened.
I grabbed ahold of his elbow with a death grip, squeezing hard enough to no doubt bruise his skin.
And then, almost like she’d been expecting it too, the red-lipped girl stepped between Wes and Hudson, pressing a hand on each of their chests.
Wes, all the while, simply grinned.
“Don’t,” I whispered to Hudson, coming close enough to press my chest against his back. It was much how we’d been last night on the ATV, except the mood of everything had shifted. My heart didn’t flutter now; it thrashed about like a butterfly trapped in a jar.
I tightened my grip on his arm, staring at the fist that seemed to take forever to loosen. I knew what would happen if it didn’t. That thin ice Principal Oliphant said he stood on would shatter.
The red-lipped girl pried Hudson’s fingers off of Wes’s collar and shoved Wes back a step. He stumbled over his shoes, slamming into one of his friends. “Now, you tell me, Bishop,” Wes said as he straightened, raising a challenging eyebrow. “When her parents find out, will she be worth it?”
Hudson lowered his arm, which I still hadn’t let go of, and I could feel the muscles loosen beneath my fingers.
With his last line uttered, Wes stalked away without a backward glance, triumphant expression on his face, leaving his minions to follow.
For a moment, no one moved. Morgan’s face was pale, staring at Hudson as if he was the one who’d started everything. The wariness was as clear as day. I could hear a flutter of phone cameras, no doubt catching in full glory how I held the Grim Reaper.
I took a step back, letting my hands fall to my sides. I could still feel Hudson’s muscles like a lingering ghost touch, my desperation making my knuckles tingle.
“Well, that was dramatic,” the girl muttered, reaching up to tear her fingers through her hair. Then she glared at Hudson. “You’re an idiot, you know that? Are you trying to get expelled?”
I opened my mouth, but my voice still didn’t want to work. Hudson turned around to face me, his eyes dragging up and down in a way that was drastically different from Wes’s slimy gaze. The tension in his eyes was impossible to miss, as was the tightness around his mouth. “Are you okay?”
My head ached from where it’d ricocheted off the lockers, and my upper arms still throbbed from where Wes grabbed, but I nodded. “Perfectly fine.”
He turned to where Morgan and the red-lipped girl stood next. The girl had wrapped her arm around Morgan’s waist, a supportive touch. “How about you, Morgan?”
Morgan blinked at the use of her name, her pale cheeks all at once filling with color. She pressed her hand against her side, and even from where I stood, I could see it shake. “What’s a bruised rib or two?” she teased, but her voice still shook.
“You should go to tell Principal Oliphant,” Hudson went on, clenching his hand into a fist and then releasing it. He looked at me. “Report what happened.”
“But maybe leave Hudson’s name out of it,” the girl interjected, glancing between all of us. “He’s on thin ice.”
So the red-lipped girl knew about the thin ice, too? For some reason, that made my throat ache, like I couldn’t swallow properly. Hudson passed her a look that I couldn’t read, but as he shifted his attention, his focus caught on the students still surveying the scene.
The group of people who’d gathered was small, and only three of them had their phones out.
Hudson seemed to look every single one of them in the eye, and before they had time to scatter, he took a step toward them.
“Delete whatever videos and photos you have,” he ordered in a voice so drastically different than the concerned one he’d used a second ago, and the underclassmen reacted to it as he wanted.
“Or I’ll personally make your life a living hell.
Trust me, I’ve got a good memory.” He walked up to a boy and grabbed his backpack from where it hung off his hip, peering at the black canvas.
“An L4D sticker, huh? Unique. You play?”
The intimidation worked wonders. Those who still had their phones out scrambled to open their photo apps and delete what was necessary, and those who’d already tucked their cells away pulled them back out to do the same. And then they all bolted, fleeing like mice set free from a cage.
When Hudson turned to us, the hallway was empty. “Well,” he said, dusting his hand down his jacket sleeve. “I’d say that was effective.”
Morgan moved over to me and away from the red-lipped girl. “He’s right,” she said to me. “We should tell Principal Oliphant. We should’ve told her the first time.”
I agreed, even though Principal Oliphant would have to tell Mom.
Despite wanting to keep all of this a secret for my sake, it wasn’t fair to Morgan.
I nodded at her, taking her backpack from her.
“Thank you,” I told both Hudson and the red-lipped girl, and even though I knew I should’ve asked for her name, I couldn’t bring myself to do so.
“Keep up the good leg work,” she said with an appreciative smile, popping her knee.
Despite burning with curiosity over how she knew Hudson, a returning smile naturally sprung to my lips.
“Fine, I’ll admit,” Morgan said as we walked away from them and made our way to the office, rubbing her ribs. “He is kind of hot. Did you see the way he pried Wes off you? Like…whoa.”
A startled laugh burst out of me, and I drew my lower lip between my teeth to fight a stupid grin.
I glanced over my shoulder, stealing one last look of the blond boy as we both walked in opposite directions.
Almost like he sensed it, he looked around and met my gaze, and suddenly it wasn’t the Grim Reaper looking but Bridge Boy staring back, his open expression and half-smile on his lips. Whoa, indeed.