Chapter Eighteen
MILA
By midweek, Blackwood had settled back into routine, the gossip about the mountain house party dying down.
Students moved through the halls in restless waves, teachers already assigning essays and midterm projects as if nothing had changed.
Lockers slammed. Laughter echoed. On the surface, it seemed normal.
But Logan hadn’t looked at me once all week. Elise hadn’t either. No pointed comments. No smirks. No staged collisions in the hallways.
The silence scraped at my nerves. There was always something from them. And the absence of it felt deliberate.
As Avery and I turned the corner toward the art classroom after school, Elise stood near the lockers with two girls, laughing at something on her phone. Her gaze lifted briefly, assessing, then moved past us as if we were background.
Avery and I hung out in the art room the way we liked to when there was a moment to breathe—door half-closed, music playing low from her phone, paint streaking across canvas in careless color. For an hour, we were just best friends hanging out again.
She painted abstract chaos in vibrant hues. I worked in charcoal, smudging shadow into shape. We talked about nothing important. Jax’s terrible playlist. Theo’s refusal to follow a recipe. The way Tori had finally stopped hovering at the edges and just joined in.
Normal. Almost.
Her phone buzzed first. She checked it, frowning faintly. “My mom’s blowing up my phone. I need to get home. Walk out with me?”
“I just need ten more minutes,” I countered. “I promised Mr. Lewis I’d leave it clean.”
Avery hesitated. “You text Luke?”
“Yes, he knows I’m here with you.”
“And your mom?”
“Yep.”
Avery’s phone buzzed again. She glanced at it then grimaced. “I’ve really gotta go. But seriously, you’ll only be here ten minutes after I leave?”
I rolled my eyes. “I promise, ten minutes max. Besides, I’m not here alone. There’s still staff in the building.”
She left reluctantly, glancing back once before disappearing down the hall, already typing on her phone. I knew she was texting Luke.
I finished rinsing the brushes slowly then put the charcoal away.
After, I wiped down the counter and finally stacked our canvases carefully off to the side of the counter.
The building had changed into that hollow after-hours hum.
A phone ringing in the direction of the office. A door slamming somewhere far off.
I shut the art room door behind me, my bag slung over my shoulder. It was quiet in the hallway, deserted. Halfway down the hall, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I wasn’t alone. Someone was watching me.
Logan stepped out from the shadowed stretch near the science wing. There was no smirk. His expression looked predatory. “You’re alone,” he observed.
My fingers flexed around my phone as I shifted my weight. “Not for long.”
A humorless sound left him. “Luke’s not here. He’s still at the rink.”
The hallway felt narrower. He stepped closer.
Something in his expression slipped—whatever restraint he usually carried was gone.
“Stay the hell away from me.”
“You don’t get it,” he continued, voice low and uneven. “What happens next isn’t about you.”
I tried to go around him. His hand shot out and caught my wrist. Hard. My phone slipped from my grip and clattered uselessly to the floor.
“Logan. Let go.”
“It’s not personal,” he pressed. “You’re what he cares about the most. That makes you the only way to get to him.”
That was when I understood. I was the instrument. The pressure point.
“You’re dating the favored heir to the family that buried mine when his dad fired my father, stripped his pension, and basically blackballed him,” he continued. “We’re going to lose everything. And you think someone isn’t going to make them pay for that?”
“This isn’t your fight,” I replied.
He tightened his grip.
“Everything is my fight now.”
I twisted my wrist toward his thumb, Edwardo’s voice in my head—break the grip at the weakest point.
His fingers loosened just enough. I ripped free and stepped back, bringing my fist up fast and tight the way I’d been taught. I drove it straight into his nose. The impact jarred up my arm.
Blood bloomed instantly. He staggered. For half a second, I had space. I pivoted, aiming a strike toward his throat.
He caught my forearm mid-swing. Snarled. And shoved me back hard.
My spine slammed into lockers. The impact rang behind my head, and air punched from my lungs.
He grabbed for me again. I dropped my weight and drove my knee toward his hip, catching bone. He cursed and doubled slightly. I went for his face again—this time my knuckles connecting solid against his jaw.
It landed. His head snapped sideways.
But he came back harder. His forearm pinned my shoulder against the locker as he crowded into my space. The smell of sweat and something unhinged filled the air between us.
“Logan, move,” I snarled between gritted teeth, refusing to let fear show.
“You don’t get to walk around untouched,” he snapped. “Not after what his family did to mine.”
His hand fisted in the shoulder of my shirt. Fabric tore at the seam. The sound echoed down the empty hallway.
I drove my knee upward and into his balls, catching him off balance. He swore, staggering a step back.
I lunged for my phone. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and yanked.
The neckline stretched then split. Air hit skin.
Terror sliced through me. He was twice my size, but I shoved him again as hard as I could.
He slammed me back into metal. My head rattled against steel. White sparked across my vision.
His grip shifted to my hip, and then his hand shot up, fingers locking around my throat—not enough to choke, just enough to hold me in place.
“Logan—”
His mouth crashed against mine. Not a kiss—an impact. Teeth. Force. I shoved against his chest.
The locker rattled as my head rolled against the metal door and he pressed in, trying to pin me there. All dominance. I twisted, but his hand squeezed my throat, thumb digging under my jaw to keep me still.
Pain split across my lip as he forced his tongue in. The metallic taste came fast as blood filled my mouth.
I bit down on his tongue. Hard. He swore and jerked back just enough—
Before a fist crashed into the side of his face.
The blow ripped him off me so violently his fingers tore free of my shirt.
Logan flew sideways. My legs gave out, and I hit the floor hard on my knees.
The sound of his body slamming into lockers cracked through the hallway.
For a second, everything tilted. The wood floor beneath my palms felt too cold. My ears rang. My breath wouldn’t settle.
Luke stood between us.
Logan staggered upright, wiping at his mouth, but Luke was already moving. He stalked forward, shoulders squared, something dark and absolute settling over his features. I had seen him angry before. This was different.
He caught Logan by the front of his jersey and drove him back into the lockers again. The metal buckled with the force.
Luke loomed over him for half a beat. Logan swung. Desperate. Sloppy. Luke didn’t even flinch when then the punch grazed his shoulder. His fist came up clean and precise, connecting with Logan’s jaw with a crack that echoed down the corridor.
Logan’s head snapped sideways. Luke stepped in before he could recover and drove another punch straight into his ribs. Air blasted out of Logan’s lungs as his body folded forward.
Luke grabbed his jersey again and slammed him into the lockers a third time. The metal doors rattled violently down the row.
Logan slid halfway down the lockers, dazed, but Luke wasn’t finished.
His fist came down again—another loud crack across Logan’s cheek that snapped his head back against the metal.
Logan collapsed to one knee. Blood streaked across his lip.
Luke stepped forward again, jaw locked, ready to finish it.
Theo and Jax stormed in behind him, grabbing Luke’s shoulders before he could land a final blow.
“Luke—he’s done,” Theo snapped, locking an arm across his chest.
“Enough!” Jax barked.
Logan staggered upright, his face mottled, lip split, blood bright against his teeth. His right eye locked on to me over Theo’s arm. His left was swollen shut. There was no apology or regret in that sharp gaze.
Teachers appeared at the far end of the hall seconds later—drawn by the crash. Mr. Carter first then Coach Ramirez from the gym wing.
“What happened?”
No one answered immediately, and I forced myself to stand.
Luke’s chest rose and fell hard, but his eyes never left Logan.
Principal Miller arrived minutes later, breath tight, expression already assessing damage control.
He took in the torn fabric at my shoulder. The blood on Logan’s lip and his swollen face. Luke’s red knuckles. “This will be handled internally,” he announced, voice clipped.
No police. No public spectacle. Two campus security officers escorted Logan toward the administrative wing. He didn’t fight it.
As he passed me, his shoulder brushed mine deliberately.
“This isn’t over,” he muttered.
It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.
“Mila.” Principal Miller’s voice gentled. “Do you need medical assistance?”
I shook my head. “No.” I hated the attention. The faster this was over, the better I’d feel.
“Everyone—to my office. Jax, Chase, Theo—you’re dismissed.” Principal Miller led the way. Logan was escorted by security and the teachers who’d witnessed the fight. Luke and I followed. Behind us, the guys grumbled about being left out.
Logan was separated from the rest of us. We sat in chairs lining the wall in the reception area, Miller’s office door open as he called Logan’s dad, my mom, and Luke’s parents.