A girl I must have hit while I was thrashing to free myself is sitting on a bench, covering her face and crying. Keisha and Diana are huddling around her, Diana with a wad of wet paper towels on her bleeding arm where I scratched her.
“She attacked us,” Keisha says flatly. “That bitch gave me a bald spot and took off half the skin on Dee’s arm. Not to mention she gave Cassie a black eye and Scar a fat lip right before the game. How’s my squad going to cheer for y’all looking all busted up?”
“You took her clothes?” he demands.
“No,” says a voice behind him. “I did.”
We all turn to see Scarlet standing in the doorway, looking kinda badass taking responsibility instead of sniveling like usual. She crosses her arms and smirks up at Maddox, and I see the other girls exchange glances, looking impressed as hell that she’s standing up to the most feared guy in school, a thuggish gangster with neck tats that make him look like he belongs in prison.
“You did?” he asks, no inflection in his voice, almost like he’s just stating facts.
“What about it?” Scarlet asks. “I don’t see the big deal. We do shit to lots of girls who are losers. It’s not like she’s a Crow.”
“She’s mine,” Maddox growls, drawing me closer to his body as if by instinct. He’s still looking at her, and again I get that feeling like he’s holding onto me for his sake as much as mine. Like maybe I’m holding him up too, in some way I don’t understand.
“I don’t see what’s so special about her,” Scarlet says, her fat lip curling in disgust as she looks at me standing there in a t-shirt that swallows my body, the body she laughed at for being unshaven and childish. How was I supposed to know what girls are doing with their pubes nowadays? No one’s ever seen mine, so it didn’t really seem important to find out. And who am I going to ask, anyway? My mother? The bird on my roof?
Maddox takes a slow step toward her, dragging me along. His voice is low and deadly, iced with loathing. He speaks each word carefully, delivering them slowly, as if he knows the devastation they’ll cause her self-esteem. “What’s so special aboutyou?”
Scarlet swallows, her eyes widening with real hurt. “I…”
“If you were anyone else, I’d grab you by the throat and pin you against the wall and let you hang there, struggling to breathe until you passed out,” he says. “But you’d like that shit too much, wouldn’t you, you fucking whore? You don’t deserve to feel that good. And the janitor doesn’t deserve the mess he’d have to clean up when you’d cum all over the floor like a fucking dog.”
Scarlet’s face goes as red as her name, and she looks at the floor and blinks hard, not saying a word.
“Because that’s what you really want,” Maddox says, prowling forward. “For someone to treat you like what you are. You know that’s all you deserve. To be treated like a pathetic little mutt, just begging for a scrap of attention, so desperate you’d do anything to get it. Isn’t it?”
His words hang in the silence, not one person moving or daring to breathe. Scarlet swallows so hard I can hear it echo in the silent locker room. Then, slowly, she nods.
Maddox chuckles. “What was that?”
“Yes,” she whispers, a tear spilling from her lashes and trickling slowly down her cheek.
“That’s what I thought,” Maddox says. “Now apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” Scarlet says, her voice shaking.
Finally Maddox turns to me, acknowledging my existence instead of using me like a crutch. He moves his hand under my hair, from gripping the back of my neck like he was about to shake me around like a ragdoll again to gently cradling the back of my head like a basketball in his huge palm. He uses his other hand to stroke my disheveled hair back from my face, letting his knuckles linger on my skin. His lips quirk into the softest smile, one I’ve never even imagined could grace his hardened features. His eyes are sharp and burning, though, and when our gazes lock, I understand.
I understand that it’s a lie, just like Lennox’s flirtations and dimpled smiles that feel like they’re just for me, like we share a secret. But Lennox doesn’t share the secret. The lies are at my expense.
This lie isn’t meant to deceive me. Maddox is letting me in on the lie. It’s one we’ll share, only the two of us knowing, like we’re on the same side against these bitches. These outsiders.
For once, he’s letting me in. I’m not the outsider. Because I may not be a Crow, but I’m from Mill, like him.
“You good?” he asks quietly, moving a step closer, so we’re almost touching. His hand behind my head guides me, turning my face up to his. His gaze smolders into mine, and suddenly, it doesn’t feel like a lie. I swallow hard, my pulse thrumming in my throat. The corner of his mouth quirks again, and I wonder if he can feel it, how hard my heart is hammering. His thumb gently strokes my cheek, and I’m not sure how long my knees will hold me.
I nod faintly, and he chuckles and brings me in, his arm circling me and holding me tight against him. I’m relieved for the moment to hide my face in his chest and get my wits about me, even though it’s not easy with his warm, bare skin all pressed up against me. I can smell the sweat on his damp skin from the workout, and it’s all I can do not to run my fingers down his torso, exploring every ridge of muscle, tracing every line of ink. I want to know what they mean, each tattoo, each secret.
“You got off easy this time,” he growls over my head at Scarlet. “But if I ever hear about you fucking with this girl again, there will be consequences. And crew consequences aren’t the kind of thing a girl like you wants to get mixed up in. Go back to your daddy and your rich little frat boys while you still can. You don’t want to fuck around in our world and find out the hard way. And next time, you will.”
“Her gym unform is in the trash can on the far side of the gym,” Scarlet says, still staring at the floor.
“Where are her regular clothes?” he asks, looking around at the others.
No one moves.
“Who the fuck has her clothes?” Maddox demands.