“You really are the dumbest bitch I’ve ever come across,” the guy snarls. His tone is acid, rough from cigarette smoke. “You thought I wouldn’t figure it out? You thought I wouldn’t know?”
“Know what, Jonah? I haven’t said anything!”
“Dad’s been calling and messaging me non-stop. He knows something’s up. He asked me if anything weird happened that night. He wanted to know if we had a fight.”
Chase lets her head hang. She rubs at her temples, shrinking away from this Jonah character like he’s the fucking devil himself. “Just…back off, okay. I haven’t said a word to him. He’s just being overprotective.”
“I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”
Chase gets to her feet. It doesn’t look like she should be standing whatsoever. She looks even more unsteady on her feet when the asshole grabs her by the tops of her arms and shakes her. “Jonah, let me go,” she hisses.
My blood starts to sing in my veins. A red-hot wall of anger comes crashing down on me, a red veil clouding my vision. The next thing I know, some idiot hisses out two short sentences that bring the whole mess to a standstill.
“You heard her. Let her fucking go.”
The idiot…is me.
It wasn’t a conscious decision. As far as my brain is concerned, it issued no orders to move out from the alcove, but somehow, for some reason, I’m standing in the middle of the computer lab now with my bag at my feet and my hands turned into fists. What the fucking fuck?
The stranger’s perturbed expression matches my confusion. “Who the fuck are you?” he asks.
“He’s…no one. Just a guy from my creative writing class,” Chase says quickly.
What in the actual fuck?
Just a guy from my creative writing class? Nice. You save a girl’s life and give her some of the best orgasms she’s ever likely to experience, and this is the thanks you get. Honest to God.
Jonah assesses me darkly. “All right. Well, move your ass, Creative Writing Guy. This doesn’t concern you.”
“Oh, but it does, though.”
He frowns. “How could this possibly be any of your fucking business, bro?”
“Because I’ve decided that it’s my business. That’s all you need to be worried about.”
“Hah.” His bark of laughter drips with derision. “I’m not in the habit of worrying about—”
Chase chooses now to break free from the guy’s hold. She attempts to wrench herself out of his grasp, but this Jonah tightens his grip. “Ahhh, Jonah! That hurts!”
Nope.
No…fucking…way.
I react.
I blink and my hand is locked around homeboy’s throat, and his back is shoved up against the projector screen at the front of the classroom. I have a vague awareness that Chase is safe and standing on her own two feet, out of this guy’s reach, but I honestly have no fucking clue how she just got there. None of it is making sense.
“Back…the fuck…off,” I snarl. “She doesn’t wanna go with you. She’s made that abundantly clear. It’s time for you to leave. Unless you’d like to check out our new clinic. It’s state of the art.”
Jonah tries to dislodge my hand from his throat and fails. I’m lucky. He’s a big fucking guy; he must work out. If he wanted to throw down—and he most definitely does—and I’d given him any warning, I’d have had a real fight on my hands. Thankfully I caught him off guard, and I’ve got a mean fucking grip on his esophagus.
Scowling, he tries to wrench my hand free, which only causes me to tighten my hold on him. “All right, all right, man. You’ve made your point,” he wheezes.
“The point is that you pass out.”
“Wha—?” The word squelches in his throat, cut off by the pressure I apply against his esophagus. The blood begins to rise to the surface of his skin, turning first his neck a deep shade of purple, and then his jaw, and then his cheeks. Clawing, he attempts to tear my arm away, but my legs are spread, feet planted, and this ain’t my first fucking rodeo. His eyelids flutter, eyes rolling back into his head.
“Pax? Stop! Enough. He’s not worth it. That’s enough, Pax! Hey, I SAID THAT’S ENOUGH!”
Chase shoves me. I hardly move an inch, but I’m very aware of her hands touching my arm and my side, and it’s as though the fierce tension inside of me, a rubber band being stretched and stretched and stretched, snaps. I release my grip and turn around, taking three giant steps away from the fucker. I need to put some space between us. I can’t guarantee that I won’t still launch my fist into his jaw.
“Christ!” Jonah hacks, spitting onto the carpeted floor of the computer lab. “What the fuck is your deal, man?”
“I’ve heard from numerous sources that girls don’t like it when you make them do things against their will.” Irony bites at me. Oh, don’t I sound like such a good guy right now, making my good guy speech? I’ve hazed and fucked with girls beyond the bounds of what other people consider right. I’ve caused plenty of pain and suffering. I haven’t given a single shit about a girl’s feelings. Fact of the matter is, I’ve relished being the source of countless girls’ unhappiness in the past. But one thing I’ve never done is laid a finger on a girl without her permission. I’ve never used my greater strength or weight to incapacitate a girl and force her to do something she doesn’t want to do.
I am a monster. No two ways about it. A monster with one hard limit.
Whipping around, I face Jonah, lancing him through with a narrow stare. “Go. Now. Before your day gets really bad.”
“What, you gonna call the cops on me?” Jonah winces, rubbing his throat. “You really think I give a shit?” He turns to Chase. “It’s too late for you to go spreading lies about me now, Red. I was smart. I waited until…” His eyes rake up and down her body. “Don’t think you can go back on our deal, now. That’s all I’m saying, okay? They’ll never believe you without any evidence. The cops won’t do shit to help you now.”
My skin prickles. Adrenalin rolls through me, pushing, pushing, pushing me to do something reckless. I manage to swallow down my rising need to kill this motherfucker. But only just. I laugh. “You see any cops here, asshole? Worry about the threat that’s standing right in front of you. There’s no fucking due process with me. Get the fuck out of here right now before I rip your fucking tongue out of your head.”
Toe-to-toe, eye-to-eye, there really isn’t much between me and this guy. He’s big. He works out. I can tell he just lifts to look good in a t-shirt, though. All of that muscle is for show. It isn’t functional muscle, whereas mine most definitely is. I could shatter every bone in his fucking face if I wanted to. Just as I’ve got a good measure of him, Jonah knows this about me, too. He blinks, and I see the faintest flicker of reason take hold in his eyes. He looks at me, fully focusing on me for the first time, not constantly shifting his attention over to Chase, and I see nothing in him but madness.
“What’s your name?” he asks quietly. “And don’t bother refusing to give it to me. I can fi—”