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The boy with the swollen cheek looked at me, then quickly past me.

I waited until he looked back.

He didn’t.

I had wanted ice for Clayton the second I saw him. I had wanted to put my hands on Chief and check every place somebody might have hurt him.

Nothing in me moved toward those two boys.

“Come on,” Chief said quietly.

I went with him, leaving them beside the door.

Clayton had to report to a teacher before first period. I made him promise he would get something cold for his eye.

He promised with a hand over his heart.

Then he grinned again.

It made me angrier.

Chief started toward the main hall.

I stopped at the turn for the nurse’s office.

“You’re coming with me,” I told him.

He looked toward the office door, then back at me.

“All right.”

Just that.

I had prepared an argument. It had nowhere to go.

Sadie fell into step beside us.

The nurse looked up when we walked in. Her attention went to me first.

“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “It’s him.”

She took one look at Chief’s face and set down her pen.

He answered her questions without elaborating on where the injuries had come from. He’d been checked over at home the night before. The nurse checked him again. Nothing was loose. Nothing needed stitches.

I listened to every answer.

The nurse looked unconvinced by his general attitude, but satisfied enough with the injuries to get him something cold.

“He needs something for his cheek too,” I said when she brought over a small bag of ice wrapped in a clean cloth.

She glanced at me.

“I see it, Hazel.”

I shut my mouth.

Chief sat in the chair she indicated, his knees taking up most of the space in front of it.