I was going in. I had to try.

“Sam! No!”

I didn’t know who yelled at me, but I looked around for a weapon. There was nothing—until I saw the fire extinguisher. It was big. It’d have to do.

Nina was ahead of me.

She was coming out of her room with her phone in hand, pointed right at the group, and a bat in her other hand. I took the bat and shattered the glass. Nina took the bat again while I pulled the extinguisher out.

“Here.” Kitty gave Ruby’s phone to Nina. “Talk to them.” She took the bat from Nina and shared a look with me.

It was the two of us.

I nodded, gripping the extinguisher with a firm hold. She nodded and started forward with me.

I pulled the pin, aimed the extinguisher, and squeezed the trigger, sweeping from side to side. It hit the guys, and they fell back, slightly stunned. It didn’t faze the others, and Kitty ran in. She lifted the bat, already swinging. One guy bent down to hit Logan’s head. Kitty swung the bat, getting the guy clear under his chin. He snapped back, and she hit two of his friends. She kept going.

I kept squeezing the trigger, using the extinguisher on them. When I was out, I took the handle and began swinging like Kitty.

The guys could’ve taken the weapons from us. It would’ve been so easy, but they seemed dazed by the sudden turn of events. We waded in. I got close enough to Logan, and I swung one last time. I clipped Sebastian on the forehead, but he grabbed the extinguisher. I let him have it, even shoving it at him. He was pushed off-balance. As he was knocked backward, I grabbed Logan around the arm and dragged him into my room.

“Kitty!” I yelled.

Her back was to me. She jumped there to protect us, and she was swinging the bat again. She couldn’t hear me. I tugged her backward.

I yelled at Nina, “Get in your room, so they can’t take the phone.”

After that, I slammed my door shut, locked it, and sank down with my back against it. My pulse was racing. My arms and legs started trembling, but I had to keep it together.

Logan still needed me.

“Kitty,” I croaked.

She was standing above me, her chest heaving. She was holding on to that bat like they were going to shove their way inside. “What?”

“I need you to call someone for me.”

She looked down at me. I couldn’t even hold on to my knees. Even my teeth were rattling against each other.

“Okay.” She patted me on the head. “I’ll call your boyfriend for you.”

I looked up, my jaw trembling. “Thank you.”

MASON

Logan got his ass kicked by Sebastian and four of his friends. They’d beaten my best friend. I gazed at Sam over Logan’s hospital bed and knew she was next. They might not physically beat her, but they were going to beat her down somehow. She was right in the aim of fire. If she didn’t see that, she was an idiot.

No matter who got hurt, I was Sebastian’s main target. I’d been sitting back this whole time. I had been waiting. Sam was going to be his weapon against me. I knew it. I was just waiting for the warm-up before he struck.

That time was now.

Logan was kept for observation overnight and released.

That was the beginning of his troubles. The school board asked the police department to step back. It was between college students and occurred on campus. They wanted to deal with it internally. Because Cain University was powerful and a Division One school, the department stepped back, which everyone was happy about—except for Logan and everyone on his side.

The board found Logan guilty of the altercation between students. He’d swung first. He got the blame, and the meeting today was to officially determine if he’d get expelled from school or just suspended. And because it stemmed from my own run-ins with Sebastian, I was called to testify. I knew what I was walking into. They were going to ask me questions about Logan’s past—if he was violent, if he started physical altercations. What else had he done? Had he been arrested? How many times was he arrested?

Logan could get expelled for the mere fact that he’d swung first, but the real agenda was to discredit him so that he looked like the only guilty perpetrator. They didn’t want to suspend Sebastian.

“Is your dad coming today?”

I looked up from fixing my tie. Sam was on the edge of our bed, watching me in the mirror.

Since Logan’s attack, she’d been different. The fight left her. Her cheeks were gaunt. She seemed more fragile. I knew she hadn’t been eating, and her runs had been back up to two hours, sometimes more. I’d started driving around, looking for her, and so many times, I’d find her limping back. She always climbed into the vehicle, and I would bring her home. I’d tended to her while Malinda came and tended to Logan until our mother got in from Italy. That’d been two days ago. Malinda hadn’t wanted to leave, but we’d return to Fallen Crest within a few days anyway.

Finals were done.

Football was done. We hadn’t gotten to the championship game, even though Drew won The Heisman.

The only thing I had to deal with was this meeting…and Park Sebastian.

“Mason,” Sam said again, tucking her hands under her legs.

She’d been doing that a lot lately, always hiding her hands. My mouth twisted, and a jolt of anger started in me. She was still rattled from the fight. She would shake at night, tossing and turning. Some nights, she’d wake up, screaming. I hadn’t been there, and I’d have to live with that for the rest of my life.

She leaned forward, still searching my face in the mirror.

I cleared my throat, finishing the tie, before I turned around. “I hope so. I think so. Helen said she got ahold of him.”

She relaxed visibly, her shoulders softening. “Oh, good.”

Sam and I hadn’t resolved what happened in the library when I found out she knew Summer was Sebastian’s sister. I didn’t care who Summer was, but I cared if she hurt Sam or not. I also cared that Sam hadn’t told me, but even that…I understood that, too. She and my brother both protected me this year. It was still their mission. Sam and I needed to smooth things over, but I didn’t think either of us had the energy to approach that conversation yet.

I sighed and reached out for her hand. “Come on. Let’s go deal with these board dickheads.”

Sam’s cheeks grew pink, and she linked her fingers through mine, squeezing my hand. She walked beside me out the door and remained by my side the entire drive to campus and into the building.