“Let her go now, Raven,” Maddoc tells me.

There’s a gentle, almost hesitance to his tone that has my ribs compressing.

I don’t want to let her go...

Blood drips onto my shoe.

“Raven.”

My head snaps up at the rough command and I freeze.

The party has come to the lawn for the show.

Shit.

I let her go, and slowly push to stand.

Wide eyes and whispers surround me, and I take a half a step back.

I spin on my heels, speed walking down the dirt path.

I ignore their yells when they call me back and keep moving forward.

I spin my arms around, taking deep breaths to try and settle my erratic heart.

This is the least I’ve fought in the last two years and shit’s building up inside me. Anger and resentment I hide until I can’t, a numbness I crave but can’t find without rage to kick start it. And they just saw it.

Fuck.

I groan and glance around.

There’s fucking nothing this way, and thankfully the stars light up the road, but no way in hell will I go back to the party so all those people can look at me like some wannabee groupie fighting for their attention or forgiveness or what-the-fuck-ever.

That’s not what this was.

I was there, those people were playing foul, and it irritated me.

There’s nothing that gets me going worse than a vindictive piece of shit willing to sell someone out, ruin shit for someone else, for personal gain.

It’s weak and pathetic.

Even if these boys are from some privileged family like I’m hearing, if half of what Victoria said was true, they’ve got to have mad underlying issues, and for them to want something for themselves, even if it’s just to win some high school basketball games, is dope. I can get behind that.

Do they go about it wrong? Fuck yeah, they do. But still, they work hard, fight for what they want and no way in hell was some social climbing serpent going to ruin it for the fuck of it. Not without a solid reason or need for revenge – not that that’s the best way to handle things, but in a world like mine, that’s how it works.

If they lose what they’re working toward, it needs to be because they stole it from themselves. Not at the hands of anyone else.

It doesn’t take long for one of those familiar SUVs to pull up beside me.

The door is pushed open, revealing Vienna sitting there with wide eyes, so I slip in.

All three boys are inside as well, but nobody says a damn word. The drive is dead silent.

A little while later, when they park in front of the group home, Captain speaks.

“Go through the front door, don’t worry about being seen.”

I don’t question him and neither does Vienna. We simply do what he says.

And it works.

I’m in the land of Oz right now, I swear to God.

As I step around the corner, I’m stopped yet again by another damn stranger. Each one has some bogus ass compliment or faux interest question about how my weekend was or something else as equally lame. Too bad for this chick, I’ve braved through a solid hundred phonies and I just can’t right now.

She smiles and bounces over, but I lift a hand and walk away.

I keep my eyes forward and shoot straight for English, practically sprinting inside when I reach the door. I drop into the seat and lean against my elbows, my hands shielding my face as I take a damn breath.

What in the hell is happening?

“I’ll tell you what’s happening.”

I jerk, spinning to glare at the fool who must have just now dropped his ass behind me ... who isn’t even in this class.

“Why are you here?” I frown.

He grins. “Not happy to see me, RaeRae?”

“Don’t you have a class to be in or somethin’?”

“I’m in it.”

“No,” I drawl out slowly. “You’re not.”

He winks then waves a pink slip of paper over his head. “Mr. Bell, got something for ya.” His eyes meet mine again. “Transfer form.”

I spin in my chair, fighting the urge to cross my arms over my chest like a child.

The class starts a few minutes later and I don’t miss the curious and not at all discreet stares sliding from our new classmate to me.

A few minutes pass and then Royce’s hot breath hits my neck. “You wanna know what’s going on?” he whispers.

Not sure if the sultry tone he gives is on purpose or if he simply can’t help himself. It’s full of heat and dirty promises I have no doubt he can keep.

“You had our backs. Again. And not because you had to, RaeRae.”

My forehead creases.

“Guess what that means?” he asks but doesn’t give me time to answer – not that I planned to. “It means you’ll be under our watch, constantly. Every move you make, we’ll know about. Every word spoke, we’ll likely hear. You’ll show your cards soon enough. And we’ll be around when you do. Know what us being up your ass’ll look like?”

I roll my eyes, still facing forward and wait for him to answer himself, knowing damn well he can’t not.

“It makes everyone here think we’ve claimed you, that we’ve stamped our names on what I’m sure is a pretty pink puss. It’ll be different from when they thought you were our toy, that was basically like a test drive – can she work a stick or can’t she. Every guy here has been primed for you since, but if they want to play, they’ll have to ask our permission first. You know, ‘cause you’ll be seen as our property now. You’re suddenly the girl everyone will pretend to like when all they really wanna do is take your place.” He chuckles darkly. “They’ll all love to hate you.”

When I spin to glare at him, he sits back in his chair with a vile smirk.

“Trust no one now, RaeRae. This is when the fakes come out to play.”

I face forward again, scowling at nothing.

Shouldn’t be too hard.

I trust no one as it is.

But really, I went from being their groupie to the whore they couldn’t stand and now... what?

With a sigh, I pick up my pen.

I doodle in my notebook the rest of the period, escaping as quickly as possible once the bell rings, but Royce’s maniacal little chuckle when I do should have been my warning, because as soon as I’m seated in my next class, tool number two saunters in, glasses still on and all.

I stare Captain down, knowing he’s watching me behind his dark lenses.

“Is this necessary?”

He nods, his gaze roaming around the room before he turns my way. He drops into the seat beside me.

He seems the most sensible of the three, or at least the one more likely to let me speak even if it does go in one ear and out the other.

I lean toward him, speaking low. “So people saw me rope up that girl, who cares. I’m sure people do stupid shit to get on your buddy list all the time.”

“Not why you did it.”

“You don’t know shit! Pretend it was your idea. Tell them ... I don’t know, that you used me to get what you needed and then broke my poor little heart.”

Captain scoffs, tilting his head as he pushes his glasses up. His light eyes stare me down a moment before he shakes his head and looks away.

“Oh, spit it out, packman. Your boss ain’t here to tie your tongue.”