RAMSAY.

I was getting looks the next day. Lots of them.

During first period, I just thought word got out about the time I spent with Scout last night. Like what Kira thought, that others thought the same thing. Then a girl in my second period started to say something, but she choked on her words as soon as I looked at her. She wouldn’t turn to me the rest of the class.

There were looks in the hallways. People turned away, their heads almost bumping against each other in their haste not to make eye contact with me.

Something was up. Something way bad.

Between classes? Looks.

In classes? Looks.

I was starting to think this wasn’t about Scout and me.

Lunch came around, and as soon as I stepped into the cafeteria, Trenton appeared behind me and ran into my back when I stopped short.

“Okay. What’s going on?” There was too much weirdness happening.

He grabbed my arms, his mouth in a flat line. “We have to talk.”

My heart sank. “Okay.” He didn’t wait to hear me. He was walking me out of the lunch room, out the door, into the hallway, and through to an empty classroom. My other cousins were there, looking grim and pissed.

Clint was glaring at the door, his arms crossed tight over his chest.

Alex gazed at me, pity in his eyes.

Oh, boy. My heart dropped all the way to my toes.

“What’s going on?”

There was a brief knock. Trenton exploded in a curse, “Finally.”

He wrenched open the door. Cohen and Scout came in. Cohen had the same look as Alex, while Scout had—nothing. His gaze flicked to mine but passed to Alex’s, which had the two of them sharing a look.

“What’s going on? You guys are talking again?”

“This takes precedence,” Alex said.

As if it were decided, everyone turned to Clint, who was back to watching me. His anger was there, but it was banked. Just slightly. He started for me. “You’ve not checked your phone today?”

I frowned, looking at my phone. “What?” The answer was no because I had an emotional hangover from last night. The party. The photo. Coming clean to Scout, who I looked at, and still, his eyes were so unreadable.

“Why?” I started to open my phone.

“Don’t!” Alex reached forward.

Trenton jumped. “Jesus, stop!”

“What?” I was getting really scared.

I scrambled, opening it. I’d turned my notifications off last night. I hadn’t thought of it, I’d just did it in case a new number sent me another picture of my dad. I’d not told my mom about what happened.

I ignored the guys and saw.

I saw everything.

Gem: Holy shit. Call me! ASAP!

Unknown: U crazy cunt. Leave our school or we gonna make you leave.

Unknown: psycho bitch

Unknown: U shld die, thanx

They’d sent me screenshots, and each one had my stomach shrinking. I’d seen the headlines. I’d already lived through them. I knew what each article was about.

Boyfriend Murders Father, Daughter Blamed!

Love Gone Murder?

She Told Me To Do It!

She’s To Blame?

High School Boyfriend Tragedy.

Each headline was wrong and twisted. Sick.

They were as hard to read as the first time I’d seen them. I felt punched with each one, right back to that night when Max had held me down.

My phone was ringing.

Gem was calling me. I answered because she’d not been in school yet. “Hello?” My voice was shaky.

“Oh. My. God! Where are you?” She stopped, her voice coming back calmer. “Sorry. I was panicking. Of all the days for me to have a dentist appointment, but I’m here and you weren’t answering your phone and I saw everything. Where are you? Theresa said she saw one of your cousins take you out of the cafeteria.”

“I’m—” I looked around, to five guys giving me not-happy looks. “I’m . . .” What did I do? I turned toward Clint.

He read my unspoken plea and took the phone from me. “Hello?”

I could hear Gem’s voice from the other end.

He nodded. “Let us have her for a bit. We’ll let you know when we’re done. She’ll need you.”

She was talking again, until he said, his voice soft, “Yeah. I know. Bye.”

He didn’t hand my phone over, going through it instead, sitting on the teacher’s desk.

“Clint?”

He was shaking his head, his eyes burning. His anger was surfacing again. “This shit—this fucker. He doesn’t get this attention anymore. He doesn’t get to do this shit to our cousin.”

“Clint.” Trenton’s entire body was vibrating. His tone was low.

Clint’s eyes flicked up, cold. “I’m not doing shit, but I’m going through here and clearing out the crap she doesn’t need to—” His finger clicked, and he froze.

I knew it then. Felt it because the room took on a whole new suffocating level of anger. It was sweltering. His eyes locked on me. “The fuck? He sent you this shit?”

It was the picture.

I nodded, feeling faint. “Last night.”

He was off the desk and coming at me.

I jerked from the abruptness.

The rest of the guys startled too, but Scout got between Cint and me. “Calm it, Maroney.”

He had a hand to Clint’s chest, and Clint looked at it, looked at Scout, and growled, “I don’t give a fuck how good you hit. You get between me and my cousin, we’re going to have problems.”

Scout was two inches taller than my cousins, but the way Clint was looking, none of that mattered.

Scout didn’t move back, but his hand dropped. “You’re coming at her pissed. How’s that going to make her feel?”

Clint’s eyes were narrowed, and his tone sent chills down my spine. “Don’t forget she took the brunt of the school gossip last week because of our fallout, and we all know that was coincidental timing because you didn’t want that other shit to come out about Amalia.”

“Clint.” Cohen entered the exchange.

Clint swung his gaze his way, but his head was lowered and locked. He wasn’t chilling. “Don’t fucking start, Rodriguez.”

Cohen’s eyes narrowed to slits too.

Alex coughed. “Okay. Stop. Scout called me this morning because he knew about the text Ramsay got sent last night.”

Trenton and Clint both exploded.

“What?”

“Are you kidding me? You say this shit now?” That was from Clint.

“We were at the party together.” Scout started, but I tuned him out.

People knew. It was out.

It hadn’t been before.

It was now.

I’d told him.

I’d told only him.

“You piece of shit,” I said it quietly, but it got their attention.

They’d still been arguing.

I was standing behind them.

They all turned to face me.

Now my body was vibrating. Anger. Rage. It was filling me up, and filling me fast, and I needed an outlet for it. Scout was my outlet. “You goddamn piece of fucking shit. You told? You did this. You let it out—”

“I didn’t.”

“Bullshit. I tell you and the very next day it comes out?”

His face had been unreadable, masked, but then it switched, and white-hot rage was staring back at me. He took a step toward me, “I didn’t! That’s the whole fucking reason I’m here. I called Alex this morning to let him know about the text because you don’t seem rational half the fucking time. The other reason I called him was to apologize and to let him know that I knew. That you told me. I’m tired of not talking to three of my best friends, and with what you laid on me last night, I really didn’t want to keep not talking to them.” He stopped after that, his nostrils flared.

He was in his emotions.

I was in my emotions. “You’re lying.”

Those nostrils flared again. “I don’t fucking lie.”

“He doesn’t lie!” Cohen growled from the side.

I needed to take a minute, one minute. I needed to think clearly, and as soon as I made that decision, I could see everyone in the room wasn’t thinking clearly either. Alex was warring, going between his friends and his family. Clint had moved so he was standing at my side, now ready to get between Scout and me.

And Trenton . . .

“Where’s Trenton?”

He was gone.

“Fuck,” from Alex.

This wasn’t good.

He said, “Oh no.”

This was bad. Really bad.

Trenton was a wildcard. With what was said in here, who knew what he would do?

“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.”

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.