Fuck, I broke that just like she broke me.
Gathering her into my arms, I hold her close to my chest. For the first time in forever, it feels like I can inhale a full breath of air. As if the weight that's always been settled on my chest is no more.
Hot, stinging warmth gathers in the corners of my eyes as my emotions run rampant inside of me. Trudging out of the stall, my eyes pin Cassandra to her spot, and I force as much fury into my glare as possible.
"Us?" I growl, baring my teeth at her like some stray animal. "We’re done. Get out of my goddamn face."
Her face falls even more, eyes flickering between an unconscious Harloe and me. "I knew it." She purses her lips and shakes her head back and forth, stepping away from us. "You're still in love with her!"
Leo cuts in before me. "It doesn't take love to be a decent goddamn human being, Cass. Hunter used his words to get back at her for what she did, you crossed a line by going physical. Now get to fucking steppin'."
Tears blur my vision as Harloe instinctively curls into my chest even more. Her tiny voice whispers my name, and it takes everything in me not to break down like a little bitch right here.
I never meant for this to happen. Yeah, I gave her an ultimatum. But I was never going to get physical. It was a scare tactic. I was just trying to be an asshole to get her to go away and never come back.
Even with what Harloe did to me, she doesn't deserve this. For God's sake, her vomit is mixed in with the water, coating her entire body. Her hair is matted from the chemicals of the toilet, and there's a line of blood trailing down below her nose.
My words may hurt, but Cassandra almost fucking killed her.
Stepping out of the bathroom, my guys flock both sides as we make our way down the hall. She doesn't get the hint and starts running after us in her skyscraper heels. The incessant click, click, click is getting on my nerves. I want to wring her freaking neck for doing this.
We don't do this kind of shit, no matter how awful the person is to us. That’s not what the Golden Crew does, and I've aligned myself with Cassandra long enough she's been grandfathered in as a regular in our group.
With steely determination masking my pain, I tell my guys, "I want it known everywhere that Cassandra Radcliff is no longer associated with the Golden Crew."
"Hunter!" Cass screeches, her shrill voice grating against my eardrums. But I grit my teeth and bear through it.
Fuck her.
"We don't do physical altercations unless provoked."
"But she did!"
We've made it outside, and I stop my descent on the stairs, pulling a look toward her. "Harloe would rather chew her arm off than get into a physical altercation. You can bullshit other people all you want to, but you can't bullshit me. I know her. We were inseparable while we were growing up, so you can't expect me to believe the girl I'm holding in my arms right now changed so dramatically."
Her eyes frantically sweep across the campus. "Please. Hunter."
I feel my patience wearing thin with her—more so than usual. And I can honestly say this is the first time in the last three years I've truly been this pissed at Cass and her actions. Usually, I shrug it off and go about my business. But for some reason, I can't with this.
This ... feels too personal.
She went way too far.
"Beat feet, Cass," I grind out, thinning my eyes into tiny slits of fury. My rage is simmering, threatening to boil over.
I don't wait for her to reply, nor beg for another chance. It’ll do her no good, and I can't be fucked to listen to her grovel. She was always a means to an end. Both of us knew that.
"Glad you chopped that bitch loose," Leo growls, and I catch his eyes flicker down to Harloe, softening. "No matter what she did, Hunt … She doesn't deserve this."
An arrow pierces my flesh and lodges in my cold, dead heart. Swallowing hard, I instinctively hug her tighter to my chest. "No." I release a sigh. "No, she doesn't."
By the time we get to the clinic, which is halfway across campus, I'm frantic for a different reason. Harloe is beginning to grumble and releases these little sighs my body is paying a little too much attention to. It dredges up the past as I remember the delicate way she'd stretch like a cat, bowing her back up off the bed as she groaned and whimpered awake. Her tiny smile when her eyes would land on me.
It was always a smile. No matter what I did to her, or how much of an asshole I was, she always had a smile at the ready. Until the night I knocked it off her face forever. Now, the only thing I have are memories, and those memories hurt more than a jagged blade slicing through my chest.
Leo gets the door, so I'm able to carefully carry her inside. We make our way to the registration desk. The nurse looks up and immediately goes on high alert. Jumping up from her chair, she races around the desk and starts fretting over Harloe.
"Oh, my goodness. What happened to the poor dear?" she coos, feeling her head, and then picking at her wet, soggy clothing. "Why is she all wet?"
Without replying to any of her questions, I say, "You know who I am?"
The nurse—I peer down at the name tag on her chest, reading Jolene—swallows hard at the brisk sound of my voice. "Yes. You're Hunter Prince, Landon's son."
I nod. "So, it’s safe to say that you know who is in my arms, correct?"
Again. She nods. "Would this happen to be little Harloe?" She's not so little anymore. She's all grown up.
"Yes."
Easton, thankfully, has already gone for a bed and is wheeling it toward us. I carefully lay Harloe down, but at the last second, her grip on my shirt tightens, like she knows I'm about to leave her.
I'd hate to admit this, but that affects me plum down to my core. Knowing that she unconsciously wants me to stay near and protect her. But the fact of the matter is, I can't. Harloe and I—our past is just too muddied, and our future is nothing more than murky water.
Meeting the nurse’s eyes, I say with a bit of authority entering my tone, "She is not to know who brought her here, do you understand? Do not, and I mean, do not tell her anything."
She seems to read between the lines, a soft smile branching out over her features. "You have my word, Mr. Prince. She won't know a thing."
With that, I can't stop looking down at Harloe, so broken and vulnerable. My chest squeezes tight, and I can barely breathe through the pain. But I have to do this. I can't allow all of my hard work to unravel. If I stay and make sure she's okay, it will do exactly that.
Since the day Cass and her squad nearly drowned me in the girl’s bathroom, I’ve constantly been peeking over my shoulder, waiting for someone to attack. GOU is no longer a place where I am trying to better my life, it’s now turned into a war zone.
Especially since, afterward, I woke up in the campus clinic and had no fathomable idea of how I got there. And the nurse wouldn’t tell me shit. No matter how much I tried to get her to break, she wouldn’t.
We’re now leading into the week before Halloween, and I still don’t know who it was that got me there. I wish I could thank them. You know, possibly buy them a coffee as thanks for making sure I was okay. They didn’t have to, but I’m tremendously glad they did.