Chapter 31 #2
The kind of smile men wear when they think the crowd is protection, when they believe witnesses make them untouchable instead of merely watched. His gaze flicks to me, softening into something falsely warm. God I hate that even more than the sneer.
“Octavia,” he says, glancing back at Silas like he cannot resist making sure the next words land where he wants them. “I see you’re still acting cozy with your family’s stray.”
My heart kicks hard enough to hurt.
For one ugly second all I can hear is that word.
Stray.
Like Silas is something picked up off the road and tolerated until he bites.
Like he belongs nowhere, enough for Kadin to turn his whole life into one sneering little category.
The anger in me rises so fast it feels painful, my hands curling at my sides.
Before I fully think it through, I step toward him.
Silas’s hand catches my hip immediately.
The touch stops me more effectively than if he’d put his whole body in front of me. Not because he grips hard. Because he doesn’t. He just holds me there, fingers warm and firm at my side. When I look at him, he’s already shaking his head once.
No.
Not for me.
Not here.
A slow breath moves through him, visible in the rise of his chest. He is forcing the fury down into something usable.
The bruises from yesterday are still faintly visible on Kadin’s face, softened at the edges now but unmistakable, little shadows left behind by Silas’s fist. Silas sees them too.
I know he does because his gaze lands there before returning to Kadin’s eyes.
“I figured you’d know better after what happened yesterday,” Silas says.
His voice is low, all the more dangerous for the effort in it. There’s no dramatic threat in the sentence. No volume. Just the promise of remembered violence sitting under every word.
Kadin lets out a short scoff, but it comes a little too quickly, a little too sharp. For all his swagger, he can still feel yesterday in his face.
“I should be saying the same thing to you,” he says.
The hallway crowd shifts around us, hungry and uneasy in equal measure. Nobody leaves. Nobody steps in. They all just watch, the way people always do when cruelty starts to sharpen into something they might get to retell later.
Silas’s hand stays at my hip.
Not possessive now. Anchoring. The only thing keeping me from stepping forward and saying something I won’t be able to take back. My whole body is vibrating with the effort of staying still, of letting him handle this when every instinct in me wants to tear into Kadin myself.
Kadin notices that too.
Fucking perfect.
Dropping his eyes briefly to Silas’s hand on me, satisfaction flickers across his face before he looks back up.
That expression alone is enough to make my stomach turn.
He wanted this. Not just the hallway insult.
Not just the scene. This. The public tension.
The audience. The proof that he can get close enough to us to poke and prod and watch something ugly rise.
“What?” he says, spreading his hands slightly like he’s the reasonable one here. “You think I’m the bad guy because my friend made one joke?”
“One joke?” I repeat.
The words tear out of me before I can stop them.
Kadin’s eyes snap to mine at once. I can feel Silas’s hand tighten fractionally at my hip, not to silence me, just because he knows exactly how close I am to losing whatever caution I have left.
“That’s what you’re calling this?” I ask. “A joke?”
Kadin’s expression changes immediately, softening around the edges as if he thinks if he addresses me gently enough, the whole thing might tip back in his favor.
“You know how guys talk,” he says. “You really want to make a whole scene over some stupid hallway comment?”
The condescension in it almost takes my breath away.
The crowd around us must feel the shift, because the silence thickens.
People are no longer just watching a fight.
They’re watching a shape emerge, something uglier than boys posturing at each other.
They’re watching Kadin try to make me feel unreasonable in front of an audience, and they’re watching me realize it in real time.
Silas hears it too.
“You keep talking to her like that,” he says quietly, “and yesterday is going to feel like a warm-up.”
That lands.
Not because he says it loudly. Because he says it with complete sincerity.
Kadin’s face hardens at last, the fake ease thinning enough to show what’s underneath. Pride. Spite. The stubborn disbelief of a man who still cannot accept that the person he’s decided is beneath him might actually be willing to make good on every threat.
“What are you going to do?” he asks. “Hit me again because I hurt your feelings?”
Silas doesn’t answer.
He just looks at him.
And somehow that silence says much more than any threat could.
Kadin’s face hardens in a way that makes him look uglier than the bruise on his jaw ever could.
For a second I think maybe he’s finally smart enough to stop.
The hallway is dead quiet now, every eye in reach fixed on the three of us.
Silas is all coiled restraint beside me, his hand still locked at my hip, his body radiating that terrifying stillness that means violence is only one bad sentence away.
Kadin has to feel it. Has to know he is standing on the edge of something he does not actually control.
And still, he smiles.
Not because he’s brave.
Because he’s cruel enough to think the crowd will save him from consequence.
His gaze flicks from Silas to me, then back again, and when he speaks, he pitches his voice just loud enough for the people nearest us to hear.
“No wonder she spread for you so fast,” he smiles. “Girls raised like that always confuse rot for love.”
The world goes white.
There is no thought after that. No pause. No fear. Just a clean, blinding snap somewhere deep inside me where too many ugly things have already piled up for too long.
My fist drives straight into his jaw.
The crack of it hurts all the way up my arm, sharp and sudden, the pain barely registering because Kadin is already staggering sideways into the lockers with a sound that is half grunt, half shock.
The metal doors rattle hard enough to make everyone around us jump.
A few people gasp. Someone swears. Somewhere behind me, Maria yells my name.
I’m already on him before he can recover.
My hands fist in the front of his shirt, dragging him off the lockers again, hauling him forward until his face is inches from mine. His eyes are wide now, all the smug certainty stripped out of them in one hit. Good. Let him finally understand that cruelty does not make him untouchable.
“You want to fuck with him because he’s a killer?” I whisper.
The words rip out of me so hard my throat burns.
“Fine.” I shake him once, rage making my whole body tremble. “But you better remember that I’m just as fucked up.”
The hallway goes utterly silent around us.
Not fake silent. Not shocked whispering. Real silence. The kind that happens when people stop watching a scene and start realizing they’re standing too close to someone’s actual breaking point.
Kadin is still staring at me like he’s never seen me before.
Maybe he hasn’t.
Because this version of me doesn’t smile through it. Doesn’t swallow it. Doesn’t let boys like him turn my life into a punchline and walk away still wearing their teeth.
Silas is on me a second later.
His arm wraps around my waist from behind, hauling me backward so fast my feet skid. I fight him on instinct, still reaching for Kadin, still trying to lunge out of the hold and get one more shot in.
“Octavia,” Silas growls near my ear.
The sound of my name in his mouth should calm me. It doesn’t. Not enough.
He lifts me clear off the ground when I still don’t stop struggling.
Even then, even hanging half in his arms while he drags me back, I keep trying to get at Kadin.
That’s when Kadin laughs.
Not because it’s funny. Because he can still speak. Men like him always think the last word is power.
“I hope they dump your deadbeat mom’s body on your doorstep,” he spits. “Maybe then you can finally pay what she owed.”
The sentence tears through me so viciously I don’t even feel my own scream leave.
“You piece of shit!” I’m thrashing now, twisting in Silas’s hold hard enough that he has to lock both arms around me and pull me tighter to his chest. “You don’t get to say that! You don’t get to-”
My voice breaks under the force of it.
Behind us, the hallway erupts all at once. Cheyenne and Maria are moving now, shoving through the nearest students, shouting over the crowd.
“Back the fuck up!”
“Get away from them!”
“Stop staring and move!”
They’re not asking. They’re clearing space, turning themselves into a wall between us and the audience of hungry, useless faces collecting this moment for later.
Silas keeps dragging me away.
Every step feels wrong. Every inch farther from Kadin feels like surrender. My whole body strains backward in his grip, still trying to fight free, still trying to get back to him and make him eat every word he just said.
“He doesn’t get to say that,” I choke out again, voice shredded now, less a scream than a ragged sob of fury. “He doesn’t get to-”
“I know,” Silas says.
His voice is rough, shaking with anger of his own, but it’s there, firm and grounding.
“I know.”
He keeps carrying me anyway, hauling me past the staring students, past the lockers, past the place where Kadin is still standing, very much not dead when part of me wants to tear the hallway apart until that changes.
Behind us, with Cheyenne and Maria still cursing at the crowd to fuck off, the whole school watches the wreck of us disappear around the corner, shock consuming nearly every person’s expression.