I volunteered to retrieve it because Ozzy is highly distractible. If I waited for him to do it, I doubt he’d ever return. I’d find him four hours later vaping behind the ice house or lurking around the Solar to chat up some girl.
And now here I am distracted myself by the inexplicable sound of someone saying “Stop.”
After glancing in all directions, there’s nowhere to look but up.
I see a flutter of movement high on the ramparts—something dark that could be a scrap of fabric or the wing of a bird.
But birds don’t say “Stop.”
So I find myself pushing through the orange trees, finding the hidden staircase that leads up through the wall.
I’m nosy as fuck, I always have been.
In my line of work, information is currency. I have to know everything that’s going on around me at all times. What people need. Why they need it. And how I can get it for them.
I climb to the top of the wall with a sense of curiosity and helpfulness. I’m always helpful, for the right price.
When I peek my head up, I find an unpleasant tableau.
A girl, held in place by three boys.
Not willingly.
It’s difficult to see from this angle, but the one closest to me has to be Wade Dyer. Nobody else has that college quarterback build and that Boy Scout haircut. He shifts slightly. Then I see that the dark-haired guy—the one holding the knife—is Rocco Prince.
Which means the girl can only be Zoe Romero.
I’d call Zoe more of an acquaintance than a friend. She’s a little too serious for my taste. Not that I can blame her—it’s hard to be cheerful when you’re engaged to a psychopath.
A psychopath who apparently likes to drag her up on a wall and cut her shirt open.
I watch as Rocco slashes the shirt apart with four quick cuts of his knife. Then he cuts her bra off, too.
My muscles tense and the little hairs stand up on my arms. I really don’t like this shit. There’s nothing bold about three guys ganging up on a girl to cut her clothes off. It’s weak and gutless. It disgusts me.
On the other hand, I’m not the hero type and Zoe isn’t my responsibility. Yes, she’s friends with Anna. But Anna can’t get Zoe out of the bear trap of her engagement, and neither can I. Whether Rocco does this today, tomorrow, or on their wedding night, it’s pretty much inevitable.
I consider turning around and descending the stairs again. That would be the smart thing to do. But something holds me in place, transfixed despite the queasy churning in my stomach.
Maybe it’s the way Zoe stares them down, standing as tall as she can with her arms pinned at her sides. Ignoring the blood running down the side of her face.
She’s tough, I’ll give her that.
Apparently with Rocco’s permission, Wade starts groping Zoe’s tits.
Well, that’s surprising. Looks like Rocco is both kinky and fucked in the head. If I were getting married, which I’m not, I’d break every bone in Wade’s hands before I’d let him touch my fiancée.
The rational part of my brain makes that observation, while the irrational part feels a surging, boiling rage.
Zoe’s not my fiancée. She’s nobody to me. All I should feel is pity for her.
And yet anger bubbles up inside of me, hot and insistent, telling me I should break Wade’s hands regardless, and shatter his arms for good measure.
I watch him touch Zoe and it’s like watching a gorilla manhandle the Venus de Milo. It’s obscene for a fucking animal like that to touch what is, objectively speaking, a perfectly sculpted body. Have some fucking respect.
Wade lets go of Zoe and I tell myself to calm the fuck down. This has nothing to do with me.
Jasper Webb stands on the other side of Zoe, not touching her but definitely helping to hold her down. I can’t see his face as clearly as the other three because his long hair is hanging over his eyes. He doesn’t seem to be enjoying this quite as much as that shit-stain Wade.
Wade, Rocco, and Jasper are not people I want as enemies. Each of them is connected, well-liked—in Rocco’s case mostly by fellow sadists, but the point still stands—and from a powerful family. I’m not scared of conflict, but in my own family I’ve seen the disastrous consequences of starting a feud. The endless cycle of reprisals can trickle down for generations.
I should walk away.
I think it’s over anyway. Wade stopped groping Zoe. Jasper doesn’t seem interested. They’ll probably let her go.
That’s what I think until Rocco lunges at Zoe, and she turns and leaps over the wall.
I watch it happen in slow motion. She whirls around, lifting her foot and planting it firmly in the indent between the crenellations. She pushes off with all her might, intending to swan dive off the cliff, to plummet some five hundred feet to the rock-strewn water below.
Her dark hair streams behind her like a banner, and there’s a look of reckless abandon on her face, a wild determination that is instantly, painfully familiar to me.
It reminds me of my mother.
My mother would jump off a cliff if she had to. And she’d probably drag Rocco over with her.
I’m in motion before I’ve even registered what’s happening. I’m running without thought or decision.
I’m too far away to help Zoe, yet I sprint toward her, desperately reaching out though I know it’s too late.
It’s Jasper who saves her. He grabs her ankle in both hands. The force of Zoe’s fall yanks him forward so he almost tumbles over the wall too, until I grab him around the waist and drag him backward.
Now we’re a jumbled mass of hands and arms, Wade Dyer joining in, grabbing Zoe’s other leg and helping to haul her back over the ramparts.
Not Rocco, though. He stands watching.
Zoe is limp and pale, whether from shock or because she hit her head against the wall. Blood streams from her nose as well as the right side of her face. She can’t stand—her legs collapse beneath her. I try to hold her up, while simultaneously pulling her shirt closed in the front.
Jasper steps back, looking pale and sick himself.
Wade’s eyes dart between me and Rocco as he waits for instructions.
Rocco steps forward, lifting his slim, white hands like he intends to take Zoe from me.
I tighten my arms around her shoulders and pull her back out of reach.
“Don’t,” I growl. “Don’t touch her.”
“What do you mean?” Rocco says, smiling at me. “That’s my fiancée, you know.”
While the rest of us are sweating and breathing hard, Rocco looks as fresh as a daisy. You’d never know he’d witnessed a near-suicide, let alone driven a girl to do it.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” I say again, keeping my eyes fixed on his so he knows I mean it. “I’m taking her to the infirmary.”
Rocco’s smile is fading, his expression hardening like concrete. His eyes dart between me and the dazed, bloody girl lolling against me.
He looks like a child who’s had his lollipop snatched away.
“Be careful, Miles,” he says.
He’s not talking about Zoe. He’s warning me not to fuck with him.
I don’t care. Right now all I can think about is Zoe’s rope of dark hair laying over my shoulder, and her heart beating so hard against my arm that I’m afraid it might burst.