Page 4 of Forever Relentless

I tried not to react to his harsh words, because I knew he didn’t believe that, though plenty of people did.

“I’d prefer to hear that from her,” Hadley replied coolly. “He may think you’re innocent,” she jerked her thumb at Dante. “I’m still on the fence.”

Wow. She had more balls than any of them.

Mason laughed, and I winced. It wasn’t his friendly laugh; it was his ‘I’m-about-to-fuck-shit-up’ laugh.

“Listen, girl, I don’t give a fuck what you think or what you want. We listened to your shit. We told you to fuck off, and we’re telling you again. Fuck. Off.” He met each of their looks. “Go the fuck away. There’s no story for you here. We’re done.”

“I’m not.”

I looked at Dustin in surprise. “Slater?”

He pulled his phone from his pocket and showed me the screen. I stepped closer to see what it was, then quickly backed away, cheeks flaming.

“Why would you show me that?” I asked him, aghast.

“What is it?” Mason growled protectively, moving closer.

“Him with his dick out and some girl about to blow him!”

Mason pushed me behind him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Showing her that? You have the fucking nerve to question me about sexual assault?”

“I’m going to guess from the reaction that you didn’t take the photo?” Dustin asked calmly as he put his phone back in his pocket.

I gaped at him. “Me? No! Why the fuck would I want to?”

Savannah sniggered as she looked at me. I met her guilty look with a wide-eyed look of my own. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, her hand over her mouth. “You look so . . . scandalized. I just,” she sniffled, laughing. “I wasn’t expecting it.”

“You think I took that picture?” I demanded of Dustin. “Why?”

“It happened the night I met you,” he said with a shrug. “We were,” he looked at Hadley, who raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, we were busy. I was walking back, and I met you as you were coming out the library.”

I frowned. “The night I showed you the picture of the stadium?”

He nodded. “Yeah. A few days later, I got sent this and . . . you vanished.”

“So I was the obvious person because I take photos for social media, and I was the only person you saw?” I concluded. When he nodded, I let out a huge sigh. “Jesus, Wrighton really doesn’t judge on academic intellect anymore.”

Mason snorted in amusement, and everyone else glared.

“You were the obvious connection,” Dustin clarified, coldly. “Plus, you went missing after it surfaced. You’re the obvious place to look—”

“Bullshit.” Mason folded his arms. “It seems to be a theme here. You think you know something, you charge after it, and you fuck up. You’re the star fucking players for your team. If you’re not getting papped you’re doing it wrong. Jesus, fuck, use your brain.” He looked at me. “We done?” I nodded. He turned back to them. “We’re done. Fuck off. Don’t come back.”

“You told us nothing,” Hadley protested.

“You’ll live.”

She looked at Dustin, who looked at Dante. The QB was watching us, and the moment of sweet reprieve I’d felt that Mason had handled them vanished.

“I think we’re far from done,” Dante said easily. “We found you. Both of you. We know Tiffany lives here, or used to. Hadley’s got her teeth into a story,” he said without accusation. “We know,” he gestured to his two teammates, “we know the program’s fucked up. We want to survive it, but not at the cost of others or ourselves. But we can’t ignore it.”

“Basically, man, we don’t want to be you,” Noah said, his dry, blunt delivery somehow making it sound even worse.

Mason turned to him, and I knew that look too well.

I stepped forward, my hand on my brother’s arm. “Don’t. He wants to provoke you,” I said.