Within the blink of an eye, the boys are following right behind him and I’m racing out after them. I push through the boys and come right up beside Nate. He looks down at me and I wait for him to tell me to go, but he never does, instead, he takes my hand and brings it up to his lips. He gives it a kiss before looking up the hallway. “Which one?” he asks, referring to the three different broom closets in this long hallway.
I point it out and a fierce determination sets itself across Nate’s face. He storms towards the door with Jesse behind us, groaning about how this is a bad idea, and he’s right, but there’s no stopping Nate. Not this time.
Nate reaches the door and practically rips it off its hinges before darting in and pulling Josh out into the hallway. The shock has barely registered but when he sees Nate before him surrounded by the rest of the boys, his eyes widen in fear. He knows he’s fucked.
Nate rears back and Josh attempts to duck but he’s too slow. Nate cracks his right fist across Josh’s jaw and a spray of blood comes spurting out of his mouth and splatters across the wall of the hallway.
Josh tries to charge him but Nate isn’t putting up with any of his shit and gets an uppercut to Josh’s stomach. It winds him and he gasps for breath. “What’s the matter?” Nate grunts. “You don’t like it when someone touches you against your fucking will?”
“Fuck you,” Josh grunts as he tries to right himself.
People start crowding around but Nate doesn’t seem to care. He’s not nearly done with him. “Nate,” I call out, not wanting him to get in trouble. “That’s enough.”
He starts to pull back but then Josh looks across at me. “You fucking wanted it, you little whore. You always have.”
I see red and launch myself towards him at the same time Nate does. Jesse catches me around the waist and holds on, making me kick and claw at his arm, desperate to get my hands on Josh.
Nate doesn’t have the same issue and freely beats him to a pulp against the wall. Other students try to break through Maxen, Tyson, and Parker to pull Nate off him, but they have no chance of getting past that wall of muscle.
I hear the sound of Nate’s fists beating into Josh’s flesh and I watch each one, hoping they hurt as bad as it looks. Nate rears back one more time and cracks Josh right across the face.
His eyes roll back and before I know it, Josh is knocked out cold and falling in a crumpled heap on the floor; only then does Jesse let me go.
Nate turns around to check on me and I race forward into his arms. “Are you ok?” he asks, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“Yeah,” I murmur into his chest, using his shirt to dry the tears off my face. I pull back and reach for his hands to find his knuckles red and bloodied. “Thank you,” I say as I gently run my thumb over his sore hands, hoping I can somehow take his pain away.
Nate pulls me back in and wraps his arms right around me. “If he ever touches you again, the fucker will be getting a one-way ticket to hell.”
I don’t doubt that one bit. I look up at him and he brings his lips down on me.
Brooke’s gasp has me reluctantly pulling away as I watch her dart into the broom closet and come out a second later with a digital camera. “He filmed it all,” she says in disgust.
“What?” Nate grunts as he reaches forward and snatches the camera out of her hands.
As he goes to start searching through the camera, a large body pushes through the students. “How did I know this would have something to do with you?” Principal Watkins demands as he looks at Nate. “All of you, my office now,” he roars before looking down at Josh then across to a few of the guys on the football team. “You two, get him to the nurse.”
With that, he turns and stalks away.
With the show over, the students break away, and I follow Nate with a cringe as we walk towards Principal Watkin’s office. “Fuck, this is not going to be good,” Jesse murmurs beside me.
“It’ll be fine,” I say. “It’s not like he did it for fun.”
“I don’t know,” he cringes.
We fall into silence and I watch as Nate plays on the camera before bringing up the video. Rage takes over him once again and I don’t doubt that he’d turn around and have another go at Josh. Nate goes to delete it when I take the camera out of his hands. “Don’t,” I rush out.