For a beat, Kyla doesn’t respond. Then she bends down by her tent, and Dawn thinks maybe she’s just letting it slide, ignoring Christian, finally, like maybe if she just shuts her mouth he’ll go away. But that’s not what’s happening here.

Kyla stands back straight, turning around as she does, and she’s holding a huge, jagged rock, and her face is lined with tears.

“I fucking hate you!” she shrieks.

And she lunges at Christian with the rock. Pointy end first.

Chapter 38

“WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!”

Amber moves faster than Dawn’s ever seen. In an instant, she’s between Kyla and Christian, shunting Kyla backward, hugging her, holding her upright. “Whoa now,” she says again, softer, like it’s only for Kyla’s ears. “Whoa now, let’s all just relax, kay?”

Kyla’s still glaring murder at Christian, her whole body shaking, still sobbing, but Amber doesn’t let her go, doesn’t stop talking, and Dawn watches as Kyla just, like, deflates, collapses limp in Amber’s arms, dropping the rock with a thud and just breaking down, crying, the kind of crying you do when you’re exhausted and broken and beaten and you just want to give up and, like, go die somewhere.

But Amber doesn’t let go of her. Amber hugs her tight, and pets her hair, and Kyla lets her, still crying, and Dawn watches as Kyla’s arms wrap around Amber, too, until they’re hugging each other, hard, like neither one wants to let the other go.

And gradually Kyla stops crying.

Meanwhile, Christian is standing there like the piece of shit he so obviously is, watching Amber and Kyla with his lip curled like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, and anyway, it’s doubtful his piece-of-shit language could permeate the barrier that Amber and Kyla have thrown up right now with their moment.

So Christian straightens and kicks a rock and glares around at the rest of the Pack. “All right, the show’s over,” he tells them. “Get packed up already. We move out in ten.”

Dawn glances back at Amber and Kyla and thinks, Fat chance. Nobody else moves, either. Dawn watches Brandon and Evan exchange meaningful glances behind Christian. She feels her heart start to pound, though she isn’t exactly sure why.

All she knows is Christian is suddenly very alone in the middle of the Bear Pack. And Brandon and Evan have looks on their faces like they know it, too.

The moment seems to hang there. Time seems to stop. Everyone’s waiting to see what happens next.

Don’t do it, Dawn mentally urges the boys, though there’s a part of her that would like nothing more than to see Christian get his face kicked in.