12. Ryan #6
Kaid reads the next message. His face changes. “He says we got under his skin.” Silence. Ally goes still in my arms. Kaid looks up. “Victor knew he was being recorded. Kept going anyway.”
Danny’s expression sharpens. “Lost control.”
“Not fully,” X says.
“No,” Danny agrees. “But enough.”
Iz looks at me. “He left Ally.”
I look down at her. Yeah. He fucking did. Called me. Expected me to come. When I didn’t, he crossed the hall instead. Then dragged every ugly thing he knew about us into the open because five teenagers laughed at him. Arthur’s right. We’re getting to him.
That should make me feel better. It doesn’t. It makes Victor more dangerous.
Cat checks the clock. Her face changes. “Okay.” Nobody listens. She claps once. “Okay.”
Kaid looks at her. “What?”
“Time.”
Ally’s fingers tighten in my blazer. “We’ve been in here five minutes.”
Penny looks at the time. “Six.”
“Traitor,” I mutter.
Cat points toward the door. “The whole school just watched that happen. Half of them are trying to figure out where everybody went. We cannot have nine people missing from class in the same locked room.”
She’s right. I hate it.
I look down at Ally. “Straight to class?”
She nods. “The girls are walking with me.”
“After school?”
“Cassandra has Tobias.”
“Straight there?”
“Yes.”
She rises onto her toes and kisses me. Quick. Effective. When she pulls back, her forehead stays against mine. “I call you.”
“Okay.”
My thumb catches against the ring when I take her hand. I freeze. Ally looks down. Then turns her hand over and threads our fingers together, hiding the diamond between our palms.
“Temporary,” she says. I look at her. “It’s temporary.”
My throat tightens. “Damn right.”
Cat opens the door and checks the hall. “Clear.” She looks at Ally. “Girls first.”
Ally nods. Then looks at me. Just once. No smile. No kiss. Nothing anyone outside this room could use. She walks out with Cat, Penny, and Becca. The door closes.
I stand there staring at it.
Kaid waits. Thirty seconds. Then opens it again. “Come on.”
The hallway feels different now. Not because anything physical changed.
Because everybody knows. Heads turn. Phones disappear when teachers look.
Whispers start the second we pass. I catch my own name twice before we reach the stairs.
Victor’s once. Ally’s three times. Somebody says Labrador behind us and immediately starts laughing.
Iz turns around. “Which one of you?”
“Keep walking,” I tell him.
“I just want to thank them.”
By the time I sit down in class, my phone has another seventeen notifications.
I turn it face-down. The teacher starts talking.
Something about constitutional law. I don’t hear a fucking word.
All I see is Victor’s hand sliding that ring onto Ally’s finger.
His hand at her waist. His mouth against her cheek. Something that belongs to me.
My pencil snaps. The girl beside me jumps. I look down. Two pieces. Great. I set them beside my notebook. Breathe. Once. Again.
Arthur thinks we got under Victor’s skin.
Dad thinks the video matters. Mom is probably already collecting every clip posted to GlossX while simultaneously planning seventeen ways to ground an eighteen-year-old who is about to have his own kid.
Good. Let the adults use the evidence. Let them build the case.
Let them do this correctly. I’ll try. For Ally.
For Tobias. For the baby. I’ll try it their way as long as their way keeps working.
But Victor made one mistake today. He thought he was looking at five spoiled rich kids whose parents keep saving them from consequences.
He thought Pennington broke Kaid. Lucian broke X.
Daisy broke Danny. He thought Arthur and Darla made Iz soft.
He thought Dad and Mom made me reckless because I expect somebody else to clean up after me.
He doesn’t understand any of us. All that shit he listed?
It didn’t teach us that somebody would always rescue us.
It taught us how to close ranks. How to lie when we have to.
How to dig. How to wait. How to hurt somebody without throwing the first punch.
How to keep coming after the people who think they’ve already won.
Victor Tremblay looked at the Elite Five today and saw five eighteen-year-old boys.
Fine. Let him. Let him keep thinking my father is the dangerous Harrington.
Let him keep thinking Arthur is the Walsh he needs to worry about.
Let him keep thinking the ring on Ally’s finger means he owns anything at all.
I look toward the classroom door. Somewhere else in this building, Ally is wearing his diamond. And carrying my child. My jaw locks.
Arthur can build his case. Our parents can make their calls.
We can keep gathering evidence and smiling and pretending and doing every fucking thing the right way.
But if Victor puts his hands on my family — if he touches Ally, if he goes near Tobias, if he ever gets close enough to hurt our baby—there won’t be a lawyer in Massachusetts fast enough to save him from me.