“Oh, shut up.” I got up, squeezing past him. “God, you’re all intolerable.”

“Yeah, throw a tantrum a little louder, Jess!” Lucas yelled. “Cry about the attention you didn’t get!”

I wanted to kill him. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but word vomit was coming up and it was going to be messy. But as I turned, I realized someone else wanted to kill him a lot more than I did.

No one was prepared for how fast Alex ran up. Before anyone could react, he’d pulled back his fist and slammed his knuckles against Lucas’s face.

12

Vincent

Alex’s punch knocked Lucas back against the El Camino and everything slowed. Lucas’s eyes rolled blankly as shouting echoed around me. Jason grabbed Lucas, preventing him from going down —

Then everything came rushing back to full speed.

Manson was in Alex’s face and Alex grabbed his collar, fingers knotting in his shirt as he shouted. As Lucas slumped dizzily against the hood, Jason shoved Alex’s shoulder hard, pushing him back from Manson and getting in between them, fists clenched, voices rising.

I wasn’t a fighter. Never had been. I could talk my way out of most situations and I didn’t see the point in escalating shit. Sticks and stones, man. I wasn’t built for it anyway; I was just a skinny stoner with a fried egg for a brain.

But I’d been dealing pills and potions since ninth grade, so being able to de-escalate a tense situation was lifesaving. Unfortunately, de-escalation wasn’t always an option. Sometimes, things went to shit.

Jason whipped back his fist, the punch landing so hard that Alex’s lip split open, blood streaming down his chin. Nate thundered toward them, but Manson watched him approach with a look in his eye that made my blood run cold.

It was high school all over again. Us against them.

Alex grabbed a glass beer bottle from the ground, smashed the end on the asphalt, and held the sharp, pointed glass in Jason’s face. “Hit me again, you fucking f—”

I was already reaching under my jacket before the sentence was fully out of his mouth. My fingers brushed against the handle of the pistol tucked into my jeans, cold determination keeping my hand steady as my fingers closed around it.

“Stop! Stop it!”

Jessica ran up and shoved herself between Alex and Jason, a damn foolish move on her part. Alex didn’t care who got in his way; she was another obstacle to be removed. His hand snapped out and grabbed her throat, squeezing, with the glass bottle still raised.

The moment his hand touched her, it was like a dark cold shadow settled over my mind.

“Hey. Don’t you fucking touch her.”

It wasn’t my voice that made everyone go still. It was the click that accompanied it, the audible sound of a bullet prepared to fire. Everyone stared, wide-eyed and still.

Alex was panting, the glass inches away from Jessica’s face. I had the gun aimed for his skull, and Manson had reached his arm around Jess’s shoulder to press his knife against Alex’s throat. Jason was right behind him and Lucas stepped up on his other side, blood pouring from his nose and staining his bared teeth red.