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IMANI
After glancing down the hallway, where Jace and Allie chatted tensely and she was crying hard tears, I turned back to the guys and crossed my arms, jaw clenching. “How do you plan on taking care of Principal Vaughn?”
“Imani,” Landon said, jaw twitching. “Don’t.”
João slapped him across the shoulder and stepped closer to me. “Oh, come on, Landon. Imani wants to be a big girl. She’s part of Poison now, and she knows exactly what we plan on doing to him.” He moved even closer, inches from me, and stared down intensely at me. “We’re going to kill him. Would you like to watch?”
Landon shoved João away from me and against the lockers hard, causing some students skipping class to glance over at us. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Landon asked João, glaring down at one of his best friends.
I placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down and pull him away. “It’s okay.”
João straightened out his jacket. “So, you coming or not?”
Once I arched a brow at João, I crossed my arms. “No, I’m not coming to watch.”
But part of me wanted to see that man squirm. Still, I couldn’t help but feel the nerves zip up and down my body. I knew that they would torture our principal, but how would they kill him? Would it be clean? Bloody?
I still didn’t love the thought of killing someone. Honestly, I hated it. But I knew that Principal Vaughn fucking deserved it after what he did to my best friend. He had probably watched that video of Allie and Jace a thousand times and touched himself to it.
It was disgusting.
Shivering, I turned away and walked toward Allie. “I don’t want any part in it.”
“Hey,” João said before I could even get a few feet away. “Be at Landon’s tonight.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the three bad boys who seemed to run my life lately and shook my head. “Sorry, can’t. My mom is making me go to dinner with Akio. And, unfortunately, I can’t get out of it this time.”
Truthfully, I could probably get out of it. But I didn’t want to be around when they made plans on how they’d kill Redwood’s most corrupt principal. I wanted no part in it and didn’t want to aid in murder. It would ruin my life if anyone found out that I was involved.
Kai’s jaw twitched, and then he suddenly turned away from us and stormed down the hallway in the opposite direction. João and Landon glanced back at him, and then João pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, stuffing one into his mouth and lighting it up.
“Next time you see that fucker, why don’t you ask him what his parents did to Kai’s?” João said, blowing smoke from his nostrils and filling Redwood’s hallways with haze. “Unless you want to keep being a bitch to Kai like that.”
I stopped in my tracks. “How am I being a bitch?”
“He fucking told you that he doesn’t like Akio.”
“My mom is making me go,” I said through gritted teeth.
And Akio wasn’t his parents. Didn’t they understand that? They all had fucked up parents, too, but that didn’t mean they were going to turn out just like them. As annoying as he was, Akio only wanted to be friends with me. Hell, he liked Nicole, bitchy head cheerleader, not me. Anyway, I had to hang out with him since he had given me the list of people who had HIV and AIDs in Redwood.
If anyone found out, Akio could get fired and have his college admissions all revoked.
Still, I couldn’t help but feel bad about it.
João was right. Kai had told me multiple times to stay away from Akio, that he didn’t like me hanging around him, that he would kill him if we got too close to each other. And I didn’t doubt that he would with all those weapons at his house.
And that look on his face before he stormed away.
I frowned, took a deep breath, and walked away from Landon and João to comfort Allie.
After pulling her away from Jace, I decided that we might not be going home now, but we weren’t going to class. I looped my arm around hers and hurried through the empty hallways to the library, where there was a small reading corner that nobody ever used.
I sank down in one of the bean bag chairs next to Allie and pulled her water bottle from her backpack, making sure she drank some. She sat next to me with her arms wrapped around her body and tears streaming down her face, quietly sobbing.
Wrapping my arms around her body, I pulled her closer to me and rested her head on my shoulder, stroking her hair gently. She cried into my shoulder, and I let her because that was what good friends did.
Good friends also took care of the men who tried to take advantage of them.
