“You don’t know her. I need to make sure my friend is all right,” he snaps, giving her a hard stare that almost makes me feel bad for her. She clearly has no idea who she’s up against. She opens her mouth to respond, but then stops. Kane has that way about him. People listen to him.

He obviously feels bad for snapping, though, because a second later, he says gently, “I’ll walk her to her class, if that’s all right with you?”

The nurse nods and hands me a pass. “I’ll have a janitor look into that locker. What number?”

I glance at Kane, then back at her. “Oh. Um. Five thirteen.”

We walk into the hallway, and he turns to me, putting both hands on my shoulders. “What? You told her you cut your wrist on a locker? And she bought that?”

“I did,” I insist.

“Right, and in the exact same place where…” He runs his hands through his hair. He’s not buying it. “You need to stop this, Hail. You want to go back to Shady Harbor?”

I can’t meet his eyes.

“Hail. You have to move on. You can’t do this. You know Declan would want that.” He picks up my wrist and lets it fall, disgusted. “I mean, you were good at gymnastics. Dance. If you just took a few—”

“Stop,” I mutter. Dancing is the last thing on my mind. My muscle tone is so nonexistent that I’d probably fall over if I tried to do a cartwheel or get back on pointe again. “Give it up. You’re not Mr. Fix-It.”

No, that was Declan. Suddenly I flash back to the first time Declan came to my dance class. He’d shown up with Kane, who’d come to pick me up. It was the night my grandmother died, and Kane hadn’t understood how upset I was. Declan had. Declan, who barely knew me, understood me a million times better, even then.

“Well, it’s clear someone has to help you, and it’s not going to be Declan.”

I scowl at Kane who’s pulled me back to the present. “You have no idea. You didn’t know him like I did.”

He laughs. “Yeah, we were only stepbrothers for two years. We shared a roof, and that’s all.”

I pull away and start down the hallway. I’ve always been the weak one, the one who cared too much. Then I whirl around and nearly smack into his broad chest. I hadn’t realized he was so close. I take a step back. “Why did he do it?” I murmur.

He strains forward, as if trying to hear me better. “Come on, Hail, don’t—”

“Why?” My voice is louder and stronger.

He exhales again and shrugs, digging his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t know. Stress? He was stressed trying to get into college.”