Chapter 12 - Catherine #5
We sit. The wind picks up. Leaves skitter across the path.
Somewhere inside the building, Xander is supervising the removal of photos from a hallway, and Danny is documenting everything for evidence, and the machinery of damage control is churning, and out here it’s just two people on a bench being honest about the cost of secrets.
“Whatever comes from this,” Kaiden says. “The Jon thing. The locker. Whatever gets dug up or leaked or screenshotted—we deal with it. Together. Your dad, my dad, the lawyers, whatever it takes. But you’re not carrying it alone anymore. That’s done.”
I lean into him. Not dramatically. Just…shift my weight. Let my shoulder press into his chest. Let his arm tighten. Let myself, for thirty seconds, not be the person holding everything up.
“I don’t know how to not carry it alone,” I say. “I’ve been doing it since I was twelve. It’s the only way I know.”
“Then we learn a new way. Both of us. Because I’ve been doing the same thing, and it’s not working for me either.”
The bell rings inside the building. Muffled through the stone walls.
Time to go back in. Time to reassemble the armor, straighten the spine, put the ice princess back on and walk through a hallway where SLUT was painted on my locker an hour ago and every student has a theory about what I said to Jon this morning.
I stand. He stands.
“Ready?” he asks.
I straighten my blazer. Smooth my skirt. Push my hair behind my ears. Lift my chin.
“Ready.”
We walk back in. The paint is gone. The photos are down. Xander is leaning against the wall near my locker with his arms crossed and an expression that dares anyone to comment. Danny is beside him, quiet as always, his presence more effective than any threat.
I open my locker. Pull out my books. Close it.
Turn to Kaiden. He’s watching me with that expression—the one that’s half fear and half awe, the one I first saw in the hallway after I told Jon I’d killed a man.
The expression of a boy looking at a girl and finally understanding that she is not the thing he needs to protect. She is the thing that survives.
I don’t smile. Don’t perform. Just meet his eyes and let him see what’s there—the exhaustion, the anger, the fear, the stubborn, relentless refusal to be destroyed by any of it.
“Last period,” I say. “Let’s go.”
He nods. We walk.
And the hallway parts for us. Not because of him. Not because of the Elite Five or their reputation or the threat they represent.
Because of me. Because the girl who walked through fire and killed her abuser and stood in front of a locker that called her a slut without blinking is not someone you step in front of.
She’s someone you step aside for.
Last period ends and Penny and I walk out together, our project notes tucked into matching folders because Penny may look like a punk anarchist but she’s secretly the most organized person I know.
Iz is waiting outside my classroom door. He falls into step on my left. Penny raises an eyebrow.
“The bodyguard service continues.”
“Pennington cornered her in an empty hallway last time,” Iz says. “We’re not rolling the dice.”
“You know I handled Jon myself this morning, right?” I say.
“Yeah, we all heard.” Iz grins sideways at me. “‘I’ve killed a man.’ Very subtle, Cat. Really flying under the radar with that one.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying—if you’re trying to maintain a low profile, telling the entire school you’ve committed homicide is maybe not the move.”
“It was self-defense.”
“Oh, I believe you. I’m just not sure the thirty kids with iPhones got that context.”
Penny snorts. “For the record, I think it was iconic. Jon looked like he was going to piss himself.”
“He almost did,” Iz confirms. “Danny said he saw Jon’s hands shaking for ten minutes after.”
Xander meets us at the main exit. He falls into step on Penny’s other side—smooth, automatic, like his body has a default position relative to hers that it settles into without conscious input. Their arms are close enough to touch. Don’t.
“You don’t have to walk me out,” Penny says. Not looking at him.
“I’m walking Cat out. You’re a geographical accident.”
“You used that line last time.”
“It was good last time too.”
“It was mediocre last time. It’s embarrassing the second time.”
“You remembered it, though,” he says. Quiet. Almost under his breath.
Penny doesn’t respond. But her step adjusts—half an inch closer. Always half an inch closer.
Danny and Ryan join us at the doors. The five of us spill into the parking lot—plus Penny, who has been functionally absorbed into the group through proximity and force of personality.
“So,” Ryan says, falling into step beside me. “The hallway thing this morning. The Jon thing. The Burke thing. The locker thing. You’ve had quite a day, Cat.”
“Is there a point, Ryan?”
“The point is you’re terrifying and I’m a little bit in love with you. Platonically. Don’t tell Kaiden.”
Danny makes a sound. “She corrected Burke’s math while he was insulting her. That’s the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen a human being do.”
“See?” Ryan gestures at Danny. “Danny never talks. You made Danny talk. That’s your superpower.”
Iz laughs. “Her superpower is making grown men reconsider their life choices. Burke, Jon, and Kaid—all in one day.”
“I did not make Kaiden reconsider anything. He’s exactly the same as he was this morning.”
All four boys exchange a look. The look says: “she has no idea.”
Kaiden is at the Skyline. Leaning against the driver’s door, arms folded, watching us approach.
His eyes find me in the group and his whole body changes—shifts, softens, orients.
The compass-needle thing. He doesn’t know he does it, and watching it happen is like watching a law of physics operate in real time.
Penny nudges me. “Terminal. Absolutely terminal.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Stop making it true and I’ll stop saying it.”
We reach the car. The group loosens—boys dispersing toward their own vehicles, conversations fragmenting. Iz daps Kaiden. Danny nods. Ryan salutes. The casual choreography of boys who’ve been saying goodbye to each other in this parking lot for four years.
Penny stops in front of me. Hands on my shoulders.
“Today was a lot.”
“Yeah.”
“You handled it.”
“Barely.”
“Barely counts. Barely is enough.” She hugs me. Quick, hard, the Penny signature. Then she pulls back and points. “Text me tonight. I want to know everything. And I mean everything, Catherine.”
“You’re not getting everything.”
“I’ll settle for the rated-R highlights.” She turns to go. Xander is still standing a few feet away, keys in hand, clearly waiting to leave but also clearly not leaving while Penny is still here.
“Night, X,” Penny says. Casual. Like his name doesn’t cost her anything.
“Night, Penelope.”
She walks away. He watches her go. Two seconds. Three. Then he catches himself, swears under his breath, and heads for his car.
And then it’s just Kaiden and me, standing beside the Skyline, the lot emptying around us, the late afternoon light going gold through the trees at the edge of campus.
A senior I don’t recognize walks past. His eyes travel down my body—the same look Jon gave me in the hallway, the look that says “I’ve seen what’s under that uniform.” He doesn’t stop walking. Doesn’t say anything. Just looks.
Kaiden sees it. His body doesn’t decide. It just moves.
He steps forward, grabs my waist, spins me so my back is against the car, and kisses me.
Not a peck. Not a question. His hand goes to the back of my neck and his mouth is on mine with a possessive fury that pins me against the cold metal of the Skyline’s door and makes every thought in my head evaporate like water on an engine block.
His other hand grips my hip. Hard. Pulling me into him so there’s no space between us, so every line of his body is pressed against every line of mine, so the entire parking lot can see exactly who I belong to and exactly who will be dealing with the next person who looks at me like that.
I should push him off. We’re in a parking lot. There are still students around. Someone is definitely recording this.
Instead, I grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer and kiss him back with everything the day has cost me—the locker, the paint, the photos, Jon’s face, Burke’s words, the spiral on the bench, all of it poured into the press of my mouth against his because this is the only language that works right now.
He pulls back. Forehead against mine. Breathing hard. His eyes are black. His hand is still on my neck, thumb tracing my jaw.
“I didn’t think,” he says. Rough. “He looked at you and I just—”
“I know.”
“The whole lot just saw that.”
“I know.”
A beat. His mouth finds my ear. His voice drops to something low and dark and meant only for me.
“Every guy in this parking lot is watching right now. And every single one of them knows that the girl against this car—the one who corrected a teacher’s math and told Jon Pennington she’s killed a man and walks through that school like she owns it—goes home with me.”
My breath catches. His thumb presses into my hip.
“And when we get home,” he murmurs, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, “I’m going to do things to you that would get us both expelled if I did them here. So get in the car, Cat. Before I stop caring about the audience.”
My knees are not functioning. I have an advanced understanding of biomechanics and structural engineering, and right now I cannot explain how my legs are holding me up.
I get in the car.
Iz, still standing by his Lexus three spots over, slow-claps. Kaiden flips him off without looking.
“About time!” Iz yells.
“Fuck off, Isaac.”
“You’re welcome, by the way. I drove her home first. I’m basically the matchmaker.”
Kaiden gets in the car. Starts the engine. The RB26 roars to life, and the sound is a mercy because it covers the fact that my breathing has not returned to normal and my face is approximately the color of a fire engine.
But he doesn’t go home.