Page 231 of Wicked Brutal

Cat opens the door and checks the hall. “Clear.” She looks at Ally. “Girls first.”

Ally nods. Then looks at me. Just once. No smile. No kiss. Nothing anyone outside this room could use. She walks out with Cat, Penny, and Becca. The door closes.

I stand there staring at it.

Kaid waits. Thirty seconds. Then opens it again. “Come on.”

The hallway feels different now. Not because anything physical changed. Because everybody knows. Heads turn. Phones disappear when teachers look. Whispers start the second we pass. I catch my own name twice before we reach the stairs. Victor’s once. Ally’s three times. Somebody says Labrador behind us and immediately starts laughing.

Iz turns around. “Which one of you?”

“Keep walking,” I tell him.

“I just want to thank them.”

By the time I sit down in class, my phone has another seventeen notifications. I turn it face-down. The teacher starts talking. Something about constitutional law. I don’t hear a fucking word. All I see is Victor’s hand sliding that ring onto Ally’s finger. His hand at her waist. His mouth against her cheek. Something that belongs to me.

My pencil snaps. The girl beside me jumps. I look down. Two pieces. Great. I set them beside my notebook. Breathe. Once. Again.

Arthur thinks we got under Victor’s skin. Dad thinks the video matters. Mom is probably already collecting every clip posted to GlossX while simultaneously planning seventeen ways to ground an eighteen-year-old who is about to have his own kid. Good. Let the adults use the evidence. Let them build the case. Let them do this correctly. I’ll try. For Ally. For Tobias. For the baby. I’ll try it their way as long as their way keeps working.

But Victor made one mistake today. He thought he was looking at five spoiled rich kids whose parents keep saving them from consequences. He thought Pennington broke Kaid. Lucian broke X. Daisy broke Danny. He thought Arthur and Darla made Iz soft. He thought Dad and Mom made me reckless because I expect somebody else to clean up after me.

He doesn’t understand any of us. All that shit he listed? It didn’t teach us that somebody would always rescue us. It taught us how to close ranks. How to lie when we have to. How to dig. How to wait. How to hurt somebody without throwing the first punch. How to keep coming after the people who think they’ve already won.

Victor Tremblay looked at the Elite Five today and saw five eighteen-year-old boys. Fine. Let him. Let him keep thinking my father is the dangerous Harrington. Let him keep thinking Arthur is the Walsh he needs to worry about. Let him keep thinking the ring on Ally’s finger means he owns anything at all.

I look toward the classroom door. Somewhere else in this building, Ally is wearing his diamond. And carrying my child. My jaw locks.

Arthur can build his case. Our parents can make their calls. We can keep gathering evidence and smiling and pretending and doing every fucking thing the right way. But if Victor puts his hands on my family — if he touches Ally, if he goes near Tobias, if he ever gets close enough to hurt our baby—there won’t be a lawyer in Massachusetts fast enough to save him from me.

By the time I get home, my engagement ring has been photographed from at least six different angles. Those are only the pictures I know about. There’s one of Victor sliding it onto my finger. Another of him kissing my cheek. One zoomed in so closely I can see the tiny freckle beside my knuckle, which means someone at Edgewood desperately needs a hobby that doesn’t involve me.

The hallway disaster has done nothing to help. GlossX is a mess. Everyone saw Victor come to school. Everyone saw the ring. Then everyone saw him cross half the atrium to confront Ryan and the boys while half the student body recorded it. By last period, nobody was pretending to care about anything else.

I close the front door behind me and let my bag slip from my shoulder. Dad’s car isn’t outside. The relief comes so quickly it makes me angry. I don’t want to be relieved that my father isn’t home.

“Alison?”

Mom is at the kitchen island with a cup of tea and a stack of papers when I walk in. She glances up with a smile. Then her eyes fall to my hand, and the smile disappears. It’s only a second. Maybe less. But I see it. For one horrible moment, my mother looks at Victor’s ring like she’s looking at a bruise. Then she blinks and reaches for my hand.

“Oh, sweetheart.”

I make myself smile. “I know. You may need sunglasses.”

That gets a small laugh from her. “Come here.” I set my bag on the stool and let her take my hand. She turns it beneath the kitchen lights, studying the diamond. “Good Lord.”

“That was almost exactly what I said.”

“Victor chose this?”

“Apparently.” Mom looks at me. I smile sweetly. “I know. I underestimated him too.”

“Alison.”

“What? He did very well.”

She almost smiles again. Almost. Her thumb moves over the band. “When did he give it to you?”