She snaps back, “I didn’t take your fucking watch.”
“Then let me look in your bag,” he demands, stepping close enough that my whole body ignites in anger. “I know you’re hiding something.”
He’s right. She’s got her hand stuffed into her bag like she’s shielding something, but I know from experience exactly what it is. Getting caught with that knife is going to land her in deep shit.
“If she says she didn’t take it, then she didn’t fucking take it,” I say, voice full of barely-veiled warning. Used to be people were more intimidated by me than charmed. A couple months off fighting must have put a serious damper on my ability to make shit-stains like this back the hell off.
Big mistake.
The guy doesn’t even bat an eyelash, sneering down his nose at her. “God this place used to have standards. Giving scholarships to Northridge kids was one thing, but now they’re letting in Cliff trash? Enough of this.”
I could have let that go—maybe, maybe—but then he reaches out and clamps a hand around her wrist to wrench it from her bag, and oh, fuck no.
The back of his head meets the lockers with a loud clang, but I can barely hear it over the storm in my head. “You don’t fucking touch her,” I roar, seeing red. I’ve got two tight handfuls of his blazer, fists digging hard into his chest, and it’s not that he just called her trash, or even that his fucking hand was on her when even I can’t do that.
It was the sudden look of pure, spine-steeling terror in her eyes that propelled me forward.
No one makes Sugar look like that. Not me, and certainly not this piece of shit.
“No one fucking touches her,” I seethe, knowing the crowd behind me is watching, listening. “Anyone lays a single finger on her, and I’m going to light your ass the fuck up. Georgia!”
“I’m on it,” she says, knowing exactly what I’m asking her to do; lead Sugar away. Last thing I need is for her to feel more sketchy about me.
The guy looks pissed, reaching up to roughly flick a bit of spittle from his cheek. But he also doesn’t push back. “She took my—”
“I didn’t take it!” Sugar spits, obviously not down with being led away. “I never saw a watch. There was nothing on my desk when I got in there! If you don’t believe me, then take it up with Dewey. I’m done with you. Let’s go, Sebastian.”
But it’s not that easy. The red-hot, raging feeling that’s curled around my lungs isn’t satisfied, wants to bury my fist into this guy’s face. My hands are screaming, balled so tightly into his jacket that the wound on my knuckles is openly trickling blood. My jaw feels locked, nostrils flared as I decide; let it go or let loose? And fuck, just the thought of letting loose tickles at the back of my brain, and I feel just like Reyn had looked earlier. A junkie jonesing for a fix.
“Come on, Bass. He’s not worth it.” It’s her touch that does it, the warm weight of her hand falling onto my arm, not pushing or pulling, just resting there. Steadying. Understanding.
I still give him one last shove before letting go, and the way my fists send him back into the lockers couldn’t be called anything less than head-rattling. It’ll have to suffice. “Watch your back, motherfucker.”
It’s still a little bit like peeling a scab from skin, but I do it. I walk away. It’s not so bad, even if I’m following Sugar down the hall unseeingly, unthinkingly, breathing through the vestiges of rage, batting them down like a slowly dying fire.
I don’t even notice where she leads me until we reach the little spot by the dumpsters, but when I do, it makes it even easier to shake off this restless, frantic thing. The cats will probably come. I didn’t bring any food.
“Sit down,” she says, jerking a nod toward the tree stump and then folding herself down on the ground beside it.
I lower myself to the ground instead, working my jaw around something to say. She doesn’t seem mad or freaked out—not like she had that day in Dr. Ross’s class, or last night when I beat the shit out of my car.
She just digs into her bag and pulls out a smaller pouch, unzipping it. “Let me see your hand.”
I blink down at them—my hands—and flex them into fists. “What?”
Instead of answering, she reaches out, only hesitating for the span of a breath before taking my hand in hers. “It might sting.”
It takes a moment for my brain to catch up, and it’s not really because of the anger. Amazingly, that’s mostly gone now. But she’s holding my hand in hers, resting it carefully on her bare knee, palm-down, fingertips gently grazing my knuckles. It’s hard to spare a brain cell for anything that isn’t the feel of her skin against mine.
I do eventually realize that the pouch has tissues, wipes, and bandages. “What are you, like a girl scout or something?”
Although I try to pretend like I’m not, I watch Sugar closely. I’m not stupid. The way Sugar acts, all of her scars, the fact that she carries bandages on her alongside the knife—these all point to something a lot worse than getting decked by some rando at a shitty river party. Whatever happened to her wasn’t some one-off. It wasn’t temporary.
The corner of her mouth quirks. “Something like that.”
The feel of the alcohol wipe passing over the wound does sting. I couldn’t fucking care less, though. “You should do that more.”
Her gaze jumps up to mine, then back down to my hand. “Get accosted in the hallway by douchebags? I’d rather not.”
I shake my head. “Smile, I mean.”
Her brows pull together in a scowl, but I know it’s halfhearted. Her cheeks start to pinken. “Say something worth smiling about and maybe I will.”
I smirk at her. “I’ll take that as a challenge.”
“You would.” She cleans the blood from my hand and then purses her lips as she inspects the raw, angry-red wound. “You pick scabs, don’t you? That’s how shit gets infected.”
I shrug. “Bad habit.”
Her fingers are careful but firm as she handles my hand, applying some kind of greasy ointment before peeling the crinkly backing from a flesh-colored band aid.
The cats must hear the crinkle because Hades come trotting out of tree line, nose twitching, and Lucy isn’t far behind.
Sugar notices as she’s pressing the bandage to my skin. “I have some treats in my bag if you want to fish them out.”
I watch her skeptically. If there’s one thing my mother’s taught me over the course of life, it’s to never go into a woman’s bag. But I guess this—like the way she’s touching me—is something special. Something only I’m privy to.
I use my free hand to gingerly pluck the sides of the bag open, peering at the contents. The treats aren’t hard to find. “So… you’re okay, right?”
She gives me a confused look. “Uh, yeah? You’re the one bleeding all over the place here.”
Hades circles around us and I throw him a treat. “But that guy grabbed you.”
Her face shutters a bit, but she just shrugs. “Yeah.”
“It scared you.”
“Not really,” she says, finishing up with my knuckle. She doesn’t push my hand from her leg, and I don’t pull it away. “Not in the way you’re thinking, at least.”