I bark out a laugh and glance at River. “He wants to sue me. That’s a funny joke, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Hilarious. He’d get real far with that. Maybe we should give him another reason to try.”
Holden gets up and backs away from us. “You know, I think I’ve got an exam to study for.”
“You don’t,” I say sharply. “Sit the fuck down, Holden.”
Holden immediately sits down again.
I smile at all of them. “So who came up with the brilliant plan to throw water balloons filled with piss at Pandora?”
River’s head jerks up, and he stares at me for only a beat before he snarls and takes several steps forward. “They didwhat?”
Tate gets up and crosses his arms. He’s a big guy, muscular from playing hockey, and he’s used to intimidating people with his size.
Of course, he’s never been the sharpest tool in the shed either, so he says, “Yeah, it was me. So what? The psycho bitch deserved it.”
“Tate,” Holden hisses, his eyes going wide. “Bouchard, we’re sorry. It won’t happen again.”
River scoffs. “Yeah, until the next time Tate gets the bright idea to try something else.”
“You’re really bad at knowing when to keep your mouth shut.” I toss the vape at Tate. He catches it, but while he’s distracted, I lunge forward and punch him hard in the face.
Tate cries out and stumbles back a few paces. I see him steel himself though, and he gets into position to fight back against me.
I grin at him. “Think very hard what you’re doing, Tate. Are you sure you want to touch me? Are you absolutely certain you can handle the fallout of going up against me?”
Holden grabs his arm, but Tate shakes him off.
“Tate, just apologize,” Holden tells him, his gaze flicking between me and River. Tate might think that he has the upper hand, but Brock is still injured and Holden is a fucking coward.
“Somehow, I don’t think Pandora’s going to be thrilled with just an apology,” River says, his voice cold as he stares at Tate.
“Given your choice of revenge, I think Pandora might have been on to something about your little watersports kink,” I say. “Did the three of you whip it out together and enjoy some mutual pissing to fill those water balloons?”
Brock makes a disgusted sound. “It wasn’t like that! We weren’t looking at each other’s junk!”
River’s lip curls into a sneer. “You know, we don’t really care about that,” he tells Brock. “WhatIcare about is that you’re too stupid to learn. And you’ll be really fucking lucky if we don’t decide you’re too stupid to live.”
No, the problem isn’t that they’re too stupid.
The problem is that they went after Pandora.
They upset her.
They humiliated her.
Theyhurther.
Pandora has the right idea that they don’t deserve to live. I want to help her saw them apart.
I can’t do that, not without drawing even more attention to us. Ezio’s already asking questions I have no good answers to, and my father would notice if three of our frat members disappeared.
Not that he cares about them, specifically, but their parents would drop their support.
So I do the next best thing.
I grab Tate’s collar and kick him hard in the knees. He cries out and stumbles forward. I land a punch in his solar plexus.
