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9
The next morning I knock on Kate’s door a few minutes before we’re due to head down to breakfast. She greets me with a painful smile.
“Ready to face them?” I ask.
“Not particularly.”
I laugh darkly. “Me neither, but we’re going to anyway. Get your game face on, Kate, and let’s show these motherfuckers we can’t be broken.”
“I’m not sure I can. I was thinking that I’d just stay in my room today. I am supposed to be sick after all,” she responds, pushing against the door, trying to shut me out.
“Fuck that! You’re not hiding away like some frightened little girl,” I growl, forcing myself into her room and slamming the door behind me. She flinches and for the briefest of moments I feel guilty. Thing is, like Ford did for me last night, I’m giving her what she needs, not what she wants.
“I’m scared for Pink, aren’t you?” she blurts out.
“Of course I am. I’m scared to death about what those bastards will do to her, might have already done to her. Don’t think I haven’t agonised over the fact that if we make, ifImake one wrong move, she’s dead. I get it. But you don’t get to hide away, Kate.”
“How can we face those bastards… How can we look at Bram and Red, at Monk’s wolves knowing that they probably had something to do with her kidnapping?”
“Because we have to. We don’t really have a choice.”
“I don’t want to look at any of them. I don’t want to sit in the same canteen, the same class. I don’t want to see them laughing and joking as if nothing’s happened. I. Don’t. Want. To.”
“You have to.” I sigh heavily, flipping my hair over my shoulder.
“I can’t!”
“You know what, Kate. Fuck this! They might’ve won this battle, but they haven’t won the fucking war. We do not show weakness or fear, not to them. So grab your shit and come with me.Got it?!” I grit my teeth and hope that my form of tough love works.
“I’m not a fighter like you, Asia.”
“Oh, yes, you are. You survived your brother’s death, haven’t you?”
“You call this surviving?” she bites back.
“Yeah, actually I do. Some people let their past rule them, twist them into something ugly, selfish,weak. You haven’t done that, and that takes strength. It takes balls, Kate, to live when all you want to do is curl up and die.”
“Maybe…” she concedes.
“Not maybe. It does. I hate those arseholes as much as you do, but you hiding away in here will only put a target on your head.”
“They think I have gastric flu…”
I roll my eyes. “Mr Carmichael might try to convince them that’s true, but do you think any of those arseholes will believe that? Come on. Monk ain’t here. Pink is missing and you returned with Mr Carmichael and Frank last night not long after us. Even if most of the kids here don’t know what happened exactly, it’s not going to take long for them to suspect that something big has gone down. If you insist on hiding away in your room, what’s left of the HH crew will target you next just for shits and giggles. Don’t forget what Monk and his wolves did to me the first week I arrived here. You give them one inch and they’ll take a fucking mile.”
“They already have…” her voice trails off as she winces, rubbing at her arm.
My eyes narrow. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She turns away from me, reaching for a jumper on her bed.
“Kate, what’s wrong with your arm?” I repeat. When she doesn’t answer I step towards her, and grab her wrist pulling up the sleeve. She has a purple bruise wrapped around her forearm in the exact same shape as a four-finger grip. My eyes narrow when I meet her gaze. “Who did this?”
She snatches her arm away, pulling the sleeve down sharply. “Red.”
“That fucking bitch! When did this happen? Why?” I demand.
“The same night Pink was taken. I was going back to Pink’s room because I was worried about her. Red cornered me, accused me oflookingat Bram, warned me off him.”
