Kyan met my gaze and he sighed, clenching and unclenching his fist as the last of the tension slipped from his muscles and the fight went out of him.
“I took Tatum out into the woods the other night with the intention of putting a bullet through her skull,” Blake growled.
I stopped glaring at Kyan and we both turned to stare at him instead. It took a lot to shock me. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time that emotion had entered my body. But holy fuck, a murder had nearly gone unnoticed in our circle. Right under my nose. I knew Blake was close to breaking point, I’d even had vague concerns that he might be tempted to snap her pretty neck. But evidently I hadn’t taken that threat seriously enough.
“Clearly I changed my mind,” he added, but the shadows in his gaze said it had been a close won thing.
Kyan blew out a breath and pushed his long hair out of his face. His knuckles were lined with blood, but most of it was his where his skin had split again during our brawl.
“This whole situation is getting really fucked up,” Kyan muttered.
“Did you get it out of your system then?” I demanded, my gaze fixed on Blake. “Because if you can’t be trusted alone with her then tell us now. I’m not having your life destroyed because you murdered some girl out of grief.” My gut twisted in a strange way as I dismissed Tatum as just some girl, but I refused to acknowledge it. There had only been two people in my life who were truly worth a damn for a really long time and they were standing right in front of me now. I wasn’t going to waste my time considering anyone else in this equation.
“Yeah, it’s out of my system,” Blake said firmly, his gaze hollowing out as that fucking grief came for him again, but there was enough conviction in his words to convince me that wasn’t a lie. “I put the gun back in the safe and I have no desire to use it again.”
“Good. Then it’s not a problem,” I announced.
“So we’re all good now?” Kyan asked, his tone suggesting he was getting sick of this heart to heart and he was right. We weren’t the touchy feely kind, and if we kept this shit up one of us was likely to puke sooner or later.
“Yeah.” I walked towards them and they silently moved forward too, closing the triangle until we were standing shoulder to shoulder.
I met Kyan’s brown eyes and the corner of his mouth twitched in amusement as he reached up and caught the back of my neck, pulling me forward so that our foreheads were pressed together. He gave Blake the same treatment and the three of us stood there for a long moment, our heads pressed to each others’ and our souls twisting into one.
I inhaled deeply, relishing the moment as it passed between us and all of our rage just vanished like it had never existed at all. Or maybe it was because we had so much of it that we just cancelled each other out.
We might have been a trio of fucked up monsters with more demons than the ninth circle of hell, but we were a family too. And nothing would ever tear that apart. Certainly not a fucking girl.
“Sorry to break up the three way, but you assholes are late for class.” Monroe’s rough voice washed over us and we pulled apart to look at him where he stood in the open doorway with Tatum at his side. “And I just caught Rivers trying to cut class down at Sycamore Beach too. So tonight you’re all going to be spending detention with me running a lap of the school campus. And unless you’re looking to make that a week in detention, the four of you will get your asses in uniform and run to Miss Pontus’s lesson within the next five minutes,” he demanded.
All three of us were looking at Tatum but she only had eyes for me and her gaze burned with a hatred so pure, I felt it searing away at my flesh.
She was wearing my goddamn coat and it was covered in sand which made my fingers twitch with the urge to spank her. But stronger than that, I was swept up in the idea of pulling her into my arms. Just for a moment. Just to be sure she was back here. Where she belonged. Not that I did either of those things.
She turned away from me dismissively before bounding up the stairs to get her uniform but as I made a move to follow, Monroe called me back.
“I need a word, Memphis,” he demanded, striding into my home like he’d been fucking invited. “Bowman, Roscoe, fuck off and get dressed.”
Kyan and Blake stalked away without a word and I was left with my football coach, folding my arms as I looked at him. “Yeah?”
“The headmaster informs me that you stole the school’s supply of toilet paper,” Monroe began, throwing me off entirely. I’d assumed that Barbie had gone telling tales, but it looked like she knew how to keep her mouth shut after all. His gaze slid beyond me to my hand crafted toilet paper throne and his lips twitched. Possibly with amusement or possibly with rage. Hard to tell with him.
“I’ve had that throne for years,” I commented lightly. “But if he’d like to enter into sales negotiations with me, I’d be open to it. Unfortunately, in the current climate the demand is quite high though, so obviously the price would have to reflect that.”
Monroe lunged at me so suddenly that I didn’t see it coming, my back hitting the wall beside the door as he snarled in my face. “You and your little friends have already got detention with me tonight. After that you can pack up this toilet paper and deliver it back to Brown’s office. Are we clear on that, Memphis?” he yelled.
My jaw locked and my anger rose again, but I couldn’t let it rule me. I needed to play this right. There were a lot of things I could buy my way out of. Hitting a teacher wasn’t one of them. Not easily anyway.
“No problem, sir,” I agreed, though the death threat in my gaze would be letting him know there was a problem alright.
I shoved away from him and headed up the stairs, meeting Tatum as she tried to step out of my closet dressed in her school uniform.
“Move,” she snarled, but of course I didn’t. I backed her into the confined space and shut the door behind me.
“Are you gonna keep up the kicked puppy act all day, Barbie?” I asked, eyeing her uniform carefully before reaching out to straighten her tie.
She jerked back so I couldn’t touch her and I pursed my lips. My gaze snagged on that fucking hicky on her neck and I fought against the urge to ask her what Kyan had done to earn the right to put his mouth on her flesh. He said he hadn’t fucked her and I believed him, but clearly something had happened between them. I just didn’t know if I wanted to hear about it or not.
“Just so long as you keep up the evil asshole routine,” she growled, making a move to push past me.
I caught her arm to stop her, glaring down at her as she tried to walk away from me. “You agreed to belong to me. To all of us. You can’t have thought that would be easy.”
“I hate you,” she hissed and the raw emotion of those words hit me like another punch. “Now let me go or I’ll scream for Monroe.”
I released her without a word and she strode to the door, flinging it open.
“Oh, and you should probably fix your face before class,” she said acidly. “That fucked up nose of yours really looks like shit.”
The door snapped shut in my face and I stood in the silence as chaos reigned inside me. My ritual had gone to fuck. My only friends had been lying to me. Monroe was inside my Temple. And Tatum Rivers had just gotten the last word in. My life was officially in tatters.