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“What’s going on?” Cohen asked.
Scout was still seething.
I needed to put my trauma aside because this was so very, very not good.
“We need to find Trenton.”
19
SCOUT
“Dude. This is insane,” Cohen said under his breath as we were going through the hallways.
“I’m aware.”
People knew shit was going down. The Maroney triplets were on the warpath, and Cohen and I weren’t far behind. Whoever leaked this was going to be in a world of hurt.
“Who do you think leaked it?”
I shrugged. “A piece of shit.”
He cursed. “That’s for sure.”
We were turning down the senior hallway when we heard the shouting, followed by someone hitting the lockers. We took off.
We didn’t need to push through the crowd because, with one look, everyone scattered. We could see in the clearing Trenton pushing a guy up against the locker, and he was about to do it again when Clint and Alex got there, pulling him back.
Trenton tried to reach for the guy, climbing over his brothers. His hand in the air, he yelled, “I wasn’t going to touch her, dickwad. I was asking her a question.”
Whoa. What?
A girl—I saw who it was, and it was making sense. Trenton went to the school gossip.
“Stop!” Alex took over, stepping between the two.
Trenton went at him again, but Alex slammed him back before standing in the middle again. He had two arms up, stretched toward both guys.
“What is going on here?” he asked again.
Trenton was beyond reasoning, and Clint was having a hard time holding him back.
Cohen stepped in, and I got ready in case Trenton shoved him off, but he didn’t. He was letting them hold him back, calming a little, but he was still shouting. “I asked Mallory where the information came from about Ramsay. I was all nice about it—”
She snorted, coming out from behind her friend, holding a bag in front of her. “You were not. You were an asshole, accusing me of stuff I didn’t do. I wouldn’t dare.”
Now I got involved, stepping into the middle and giving her a hard look.
She saw it and gulped. “I mean, I didn’t start it. Okay?”
“I wasn’t asking if you started it. I was asking who told you,” Trenton snapped back, now calming enough that the guys didn’t need to hold him back.
Cohen pulled his phone out, his head bending down. He shifted back a little.
I felt the prick then.
It was like a little trickling sensation on the inside of my skin, but I’d started to recognize it as feeling her. Ramsay. She was near, but I couldn’t see her.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Alex said. “Just answer the question.”
Clint added, “You don’t start talking, I got no problem doing something about it.”
Her eyes widened. “What does that mean?”
His words were cold. “You got a brand new pink car, didn’t you? Your daddy bought it for you.” He paused for effect. “Hate to see something bad happen to it, and again, and again, and—you get my drift?”
She gaped at him. “You would never!”
He snorted. “Fuck that, I would. I have no problem fucking shit up. Just give me an excuse, and for your information, you’d never be able to prove I had anything to do with it.”
She held her bag even tighter, getting red in the face. “Except for your threat just now.”
He shrugged, stepping back. All calm-like now. “Words are words. Start sharing and nothing’s going to happen to your little pink car.”
Her mouth snapped shut, but she looked my way.
I frowned, not liking that look.
“Uh . . .” Cohen started behind me, moving beside me.
I said to her, “What?”
She bit her bottom lip.
Now I was pissed. “What?” I barked.
She jumped back.
No one had heard that from me, but I was getting sick of this. She was wasting time. We needed to handle this. Handle Ramsay and whatever she needed. Then I wanted to handle my friends, get us all back on the same team. I hadn’t enjoyed not talking to Alex for a whole fucking week. The apology over the phone this morning went well, but now everything had been stirred up.
“Dude,” Cohen whispered, shoving his phone at me.
I looked at it, then looked at it again because it wasn’t making sense.
Then it did, and a new feeling went through me. Not a good one.
Shit.
The school’s gossip sidled closer, moving around her friend.
She told me, but she didn’t need to. I knew.
This was on me.
Fuck.
20
RAMSAY
The look on Scout’s face said everything. I didn’t need to hear the words, the explanation, because I knew I was right. No matter how it happened, he brought this here. To me.
I was back by the lockers, but he turned, as if knowing exactly where I was, and he knew that I knew.
He did this.
My phone was buzzing in my hand, and I didn’t care about who was calling me, texting me, sending me death threats. I followed my cousins, heard everything, every single word that was said, and that school gossip, she knew too.
