Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
J
Finn Cross is flirting with me.
Which is awful and not at all what I want.
Why isn’t he disgusted anymore? I went all out, even kissing his arm like a lovesick fangirl to really give him the ick.
Everything was going to plan.
What changed?
I’m trying to figure out a way to shake him when the air around Finn suddenly turns charged. He’s glaring down at something.
What is he staring at?
Footsteps clatter beneath us, and Finn takes off like a gunshot, chasing someone down the stairs. I peer over the edge of the railing.
Finn grabs a man dressed in a T-shirt and sagging pants. That’s exactly what the guys outside Redwood Prep last night were wearing.
Did they come back for someone?
The thug flings a punch and Finn ducks it.
He throws another and Finn ducks that one too.
The thug changes tactics and tries to grab Finn by the neck. Moving fast as a blink, Finn evades him and drives his entire body into the other guy.
The two slam hard into the railing.
I wince. Finn still has bruised ribs and that guy looks a lot bigger than him.
Should I call a teacher? The cops?
Metal clatters, and the sound of their punching intensifies.
My heart thuds against my ribs. What should I do?
Beep.
I stare at my watch in horror.
“No, J. Breathe. You have to calm down.”
But the chorus of punches, angry snarls, and the slam of fists meeting bone and flesh swirl around me.
Don’t be useless, J. Do something!
My heart won’t slow down.
Yellow shines through the darkness—a warning signal from my watch.
Finn grabs the thug by the shoulder and whirls him around. The thug’s arm bends at an unnatural angle, and he cries out in pain.
“Finn, hold on…” I say in a strained voice. “I’ll call the police!”
My fingers tremble and I struggle to dial the number.
“J!” Finn’s voice is louder than I’ve ever heard it, and it echoes through the stairwell.
I peer over the edge of the staircase. Finn is looking up. His bottom lip is split, and his hair lies messily over his forehead. He looks dangerous and powerful and wild.
Eyes penetrating mine, he speaks roughly while keeping the struggling thug captive. “Breathe.”
I blink rapidly.
“Breathe!” Finn growls. And the echo of that one word rips through the air.
I inhale and exhale.
“Again.”
I do.
My watch goes quiet.
“Good girl,” Finn says, and I think I see a shadow of a smile cross his face.
I smile back, relieved.
Suddenly, the thug breaks free and elbows Finn hard in his abdomen. He bowls over, clutching the side where his ribs were bruised.
My watch beeps again as I watch the guy take Finn’s head and slam his knee straight into Finn’s chin.
Finn grunts in pain and slides down the wall.
The thug grabs him and slams his fist into Finn’s face. He punches him again and again.
“Finn!” I yell.
He’s not getting up. To my horror, I see blood seeping past the sleeve of his white Redwood Prep uniform.
“Get away from him!” I scream.
The thug looks up at me with a hard glint in his eyes.
Waving my cell, I warn, “I’m recording right now, and I’m sending it to the cops, you jerk!”
The thug ducks and runs down the stairs. The exit door opens and clicks shut moments later.
I push forward.
In my head, I’m running down the stairs, but in reality I’m moving at the speed of a grandmother with a bad back.
“Hoo. Hoo.” I breathe out while taking it one step at a time.
Finn pushes to his feet and jogs up the rest of the stairs, meeting me halfway. “Why didn’t you run away?”
“As you can see”—I motion to where I’m gripping the railing to keep upright—“running isn’t really an option for me.”
He smirks. “If I moved in slow motion, I’d be faster than you.”
I want to snap at him, but I catch sight of his bleeding arm. “Finn.”
“It’s fine.” He pulls his arm back. “This was from a while ago.”
“I’ll take you to the nurse. The medical room is on the third floor, isn’t it?”
He considers me thoughtfully, and then he bends down and scoops me into his arms. I squeal, suddenly airborne. He’s so tall that it feels like I’m standing on top of a massive sky scraper.
My legs dangle. “Finn, put me down.”
“I’ll bleed to death by the time you make it to the third floor,” he mumbles.
“You don’t have to wait for me. Go by yourself.”
He jogs up the stairs, jostling me with every step.
I continue to protest. “Put me down, Finn. You’re injured.”
But he doesn’t care, and he carries me all the way to the medical room.
The nurse looks startled when Finn and I burst inside. She scrambles to her feet, looking me over. “What happened?”
I point to his arm. “It’s not me. It’s him.”
Her face goes pale when she sees the blood staining his shirt. “Mr. Cross, I suggest we call the ambulance. If you’ve lost that much blood, you might need a transfusion.”
“We should call the police too,” I announce.
Those thugs were shooting at Redwood Prep last night, and today, they were lurking in empty stairwells. They’re after something. Or someone. And they won’t stop hunting until they find their target.
“No cops.” Finn glares at me as if I’m the one who punched him. “And I don’t need the hospital.”
“Mr. Cross—”
“I need the room,” Finn says firmly. He doesn’t raise his voice at all, but the nurse jerks back like he scolded her.
“Put me down, Finn,” I whisper. “Your arm.”
He lets me down gently and I realize his blood got all over me.
The nurse’s heels click on the tiles as she walks closer. She reaches for the bloody sleeve of Finn’s shirt, intending to fold it up so she can see the wound.
Finn pulls his arm away.
“Mr. Cross, I strongly suggest that you see a doctor, but if you insist on being stubborn, then at least let me look at it.”
“I said… I need… the room,” Finn grinds out.
The nurse bristles, her eyes ablaze. But we all know she’s not going to fight. Not when one of The Kings is issuing orders.
After she’s gone, Finn looks at me. “J, get that gauze on the shelf.”
All the concern I had flees my body at once. Maybe rather than chasing that thug off, I should have asked him to pummel Finn into the floor. He’s beyond obnoxious. How does anyone put up with this?
“J,” Finn calls again.
I remain in place, considering whether I should let him bleed out or not. “I’m not a doctor. Let the woman with the nursing degree do this.”
Finn stares me down. He doesn’t have to say anything to be frightening. His blank eyes stare right through a person, as if he’s completely detached from his humanity. It’s as if he’s waiting for a reason to snap.
And I don’t want to be that reason.
I obediently reach for the gauze. “Don’t blame me if you end up unconscious on the floor.”
Finn rips his preppy vest off and unbuttons his shirt.
I snap the pin keeping the gauze together and unroll it. “Who were those guys?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they were anti-fans who hated Dad’s last album?”
My lips twitch, but the laughter dies when Finn undoes his shirt and shrugs it off. He’s wearing a white undershirt that’s stained with blood. The gauze wrapped around his arm is soaked too.
“Oh my gosh.” I cover my mouth in horror.
Finn rolls his muscular shoulders and makes a pained face. “Do they have any Tylenol in here?”
“Finn, you need a doctor.”
He juts his chin at the gauze. “Take this off and replace it with the new one.”
“Finn.”
He looks up with a hard expression, and my knees start shaking, but I maintain eye contact. He could kill me, sure. But not right now. He’s too weak from the fight.
“The hospital will ask too many questions. It’s not as bad as it looks.”
I hesitate a moment before giving in and undoing the gauze. Some parts of the fabric are sticking to dried blood, and Finn hisses when I peel it away.
“Gentle,” he growls like a wild animal.
“Don’t get into fights with criminals, and then you won’t have to be patched up by someone without a medical degree,” I answer sharply.
He grunts.
I continue prying at the old, bloody gauze. “Why did you just sit there and let the guy punch you like that? You were dodging him before.”
Silence meets my question.
I jerk the gauze roughly.
“Ah!” Finn jolts and then glares at me.
“Sorry,” I say in a syrupy-sweet voice. “Did that hurt?”
“You’re enjoying this,” he grumbles.
“Answer the questions and I might be nicer.”
He glares at me and then, slowly, with his other hand, he shows me a phone.
“Is that yours?”
Finn arches a brow as if to say “can’t figure it out yet?”
I rip the last of the gauze away. “You got it from the thug?”
He winces and snarls, “I told you to be gentle.”
“Sorry, Finn.” I bat my eyelashes.
His nostrils flare. “His phone dropped, and he was too busy punching me to realize it was gone.”
“Oh.” I fight to hide the admiration from my face. That was really smart of him.
With the gauze fully removed, I work on rolling the fresh bandage around his arm. The cut on Finn’s skin is thin and long, moving in a perfectly straight line mid bicep to just above his elbow. Blood isn’t oozing anymore, but the gash still looks angry and red. How did he get that kind of injury?
My instincts are screaming that something big is going on. The Kings have their share of enemies, all royalty does, but this seems beyond the scope of a bar fight after a concert. Is this Jarod Cross’s doing or something even worse?
“I should thank you, actually,” Finn says.
My eyebrows lift. “For what?”
“Distracting someone. Then stealing their phone? I didn’t come up with that idea myself.” His eyes burrow into me.
My watch beeps as my heart jumps with guilt.
Uh-oh.