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My hands travel up and go to his jaw, trembling. “You’re bleeding.”

He grabs both my wrists, pulling them away from his face. “Whatthe fuckare you doing here, Echo? How the… How did you even know I was here?”

“Your bruises were healing. They were getting better and fading and —”

His fingers around my wrists flex and tighten with irritation. “Who told you to find me here? Who was it? Was it that motherfucker out there? Was it Ledger? I’m gonna —”

“Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” I scream then, fisting my hands in his tight grip. “Do youunderstand? Your bruises were healing. Your bruises were fading. They were going away. You were getting better. You’d just stopped looking like you were hit by a wrecking ball and now you look as if you should be dead. You look as if you’regoingto be dead soon. And I want to knowwhy.Why were you out there? What were you doing? Why were you fighting when you’re a soccer player? When you’re not a freaking fighter.What is this? What is this stupid fucking place where people were chanting while you were getting beaten up like it’s the Hunger Games.”

“Listen —”

“No,” I scream again. “You listen.You! If you don’t answer me right fucking now or if you make some stupid off-hand, sarcastic remark and try to boss me around or gross me out, I swear to fucking God, Reign Marcus Davidson, I will bring this whole place down. I willburnthis whole place down. Burn it to the ground, okay? And then I’m going to cry and sob like the hysterical, dramatic girl that you think I am. So you answer me right now: What the fuck were you doing out there?”

I’d think that screaming like a banshee and getting all up in his face would probably calm me down a little bit. But I’m just as keyed up as I was when I was watching that awful fight out there. And it doesn’t help that Reign keeps me waiting for a couple more seconds while he stares down at me with anger reflecting in his eyes, and grits his teeth.

Then, very,veryreluctantly, he rumbles, “Fighting.”

If he was trying to appease me, then he needs to do better than that. “I thought this was a gym.”

“It is.”

“What kind of a gym is this?”

“The kind that puts on occasional fights.”

“Why were you fighting?”

“Because it’s my summer job.”

“Summer job?”

“A job you have over the summer.”

I breathe out sharply. “Sincewhendo you have a summer job?”

“Since I can’t exactly have a job like thisandplay soccer.”

“Don’t get smart with me,” I snap, lifting my chin. “Why do you need a job when you’re filthy rich?”

This time around when he grits his teeth and works his bruised jaw back and forth, I feel like he’s turning his teeth to dust.

Or ash maybe.

With the way his reddish-brown eyes are on fire.

“Because I’m not,” he says finally.

“You’re notwhat?”

“Filthy rich.”

“What, you’re —”

“My father,” he says with a sharp breath, “wrote me out of his will before he died.”

“What?”

His nostrils flare. “Which means he cancelled my Amex and took away the keys to his filthy rich coffers. And so now I have to work for it. Like the rest of the mere mortals. But with soccer and my classes, I can only do it over the summer.Hencea summer job.”

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