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Because it must be a joke, right?
The Princes didn’t fight each other.
But the blond quarterback and the boy with raven-black hair stood on the sidelines, shoulder to shoulder, watching seriously.
Mason flicked a glance at them quickly too, then turned back to Elijah. “Okay. Whatever you say.”
He slipped his shirt off too, tossing it to the ground near the edge of the ring, and I gripped the phone tighter before it could fall from my limp fingers.
What the fuck is going on here?
No one called a start. No one spoke. No one cheered or taunted the two boys in the ring.
For a moment, they just stared at each other. Mason’s back was mostly to me, but I could see Elijah clearly on the other side of the ring, and from one second to the next, his face changed. His beautiful, elegant, controlled features morphed into something animalistic, and he charged at Mason with a yell.
Mason swung a fist and ducked out of the way, but Elijah pivoted, and this time he got an arm around the taller boy. The tattoo of the fallen angel on Elijah’s back seemed to ripple and come alive as his muscles flexed, and he drove a shoulder into Mason’s stomach, driving him back and down.
They both went to the ground, rolling on the rough, uneven clearing, grappling for the advantage. The two boys were grunting and cursing, but the crowd around them remained silent, giving the entire thing a terrifying, surreal quality.
Mason swung again and caught Elijah on the side of the face, but it was like Elijah was channeling Cole or something. His head whipped to the side and right back, and he didn’t stop trying to pin Mason. Then his fist flew through the air, hitting Mason’s cheek with a crack.
He hit him again.
And again.
“It was too far! I told you! It was too fucking far!” With every blow Elijah rained down, he shouted at Mason, his voice ragged and rough from exertion and anger. “We shouldn’t have done it!”
On the next punch, Mason managed to move his head out of the way, and Elijah’s fist hit the dirt, throwing him off balance. Mason shoved and rolled, using the momentum to push Elijah off him. And the second Elijah hit the ground, the green-eyed boy was on him.
The emotions I’d sometimes seen bubbling up inside Mason, the ones that seemed to strain the very seams of his being, pulsed beneath the surface of his skin as he straddled Elijah’s waist, grabbing his shoulder in a tight grip.
“We had to, and you fucking know it.” Mason’s lip was bloody, and a cut near his eye streamed blood. He was breathing hard, and his jaw clenched as he stared down at his friend. “You know what she did. We had to do something.”
“No!” Elijah hooked Mason’s arm and bucked him off, swinging at him again. “We didn’t! We should never have let you talk us into your fucked up reve—”
Mason’s fist swung out, cutting off Elijah’s words. Before Elijah could recover, the taller boy gave an inarticulate yell and struck again, and again.
The phone was out of my hand before I even realized I’d dropped it. It hit the ground as I barreled out from behind the tree, shoving my way through bodies before launching myself at Mason.
He was bigger than I was and more physically powerful. But he hadn’t been expecting me and wasn’t prepared. I caught his shoulders in a graceless tackle, forcing him off of Elijah.
“What the fuck?” a voice called from the crowd, and several other voices joined in, resonating with shock and confusion.
I ignored them. I didn’t give a shit about anyone who was watching. Mason was still beneath me, my body sprawled awkwardly across his, our faces just inches apart. For a moment, all the anger in his expression drained away, replaced by guilt and shame. His bruised and bloodied face crumpled, and his arms, which had come around me when I tackled him, tightened in something like an embrace.
Then I shoved at his chest, breaking his hold and standing. He lay on his back on the dirt, his bare chest covered with a sheen of sweat and streaks of blood. Our gazes locked, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do—kick him, punch him, or comfort him. So I turned away, stepping toward Elijah.
He was in worse shape than Mason—it’d never really been a fair fight—and he lay on his side, the tattoo on his back marked with small scratches from the rough ground. Finn and Cole stood motionless, and it was the first time I’d ever seen the two of them wear matching expressions.
Shock.
“Help him if you want to,” I said shortly, gesturing to Mason before crouching down beside Elijah and wrapping his arm around my shoulder. He stood unsteadily, leaning a lot of his weight on me, and I didn’t look back at the other three as we staggered away.
My phone was lying by the tree where I’d hidden—it’d fallen screen-down, thank God—and I leaned Elijah against the trunk and surreptitiously stopped the recording before slipping it back into my pocket.
He hadn’t said a word since the fight, and we didn’t speak
at all as I helped him out of the woods. By the time we passed through the hole in the wall, he was walking a little more steadily, but he still seemed to weave from side to side.
