If Vivvie had known me for longer than a few hours, she would have been concerned. Very concerned. I reached the boys’ bathroom, put my hand on the door, and shoved it inward.
“Tess!” Vivvie said. I glanced back at her. She studied me for a moment and then shrugged. “Godspeed.”
A ghost of a smile pulled at the ends of my mouth, but as I stepped into the guys’ bathroom and the door shut behind me, the expression hardened on my face. Three boys stood nearby, passing a single phone between them.
“No, this one is my favorite. Totally this one. The expression on her face!”
“Fresh meat, man. You should have heard her. ‘Are you sure? Do I look okay?’ ”
Fury worked its way through my body as I sidled up behind them. The phone was passed from hand to hand, and inadvertently, they passed it to me. The third boy’s eyes registered my presence just as my hand locked around the phone. He attempted to pull it back, but I twisted. Hard.
“What the—”
I tucked the phone into my waistband. They all stared at me like I had just announced an intention to set myself on fire.
“This is my phone now.” I let the weight of my words sink in. The biggest of the three boys took a threatening step toward me.
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “Hand it over.”
I hated bullies, and I’d had a very long day. I stared at him for several seconds, daring him to come closer. Somewhere inside that empty skull of his, an alarm should have been going off.
It wasn’t.
“That’s private property,” he grunted, towering over me. He reached for the phone, and I caught his wrist. He was bigger than me. Stronger than me. But my hands were callused, and he’d probably never worked a day in his life.
“There are a lot of ways to castrate a bull,” I said, my words deliberate and slow. “You can band the balls off so they shrivel up and die. Or you can take a knife and slide it just so.” I demonstrated with my free hand. “I grew up on a ranch. I know a lot about castrating bulls.”
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“Are you threatening me?” the boy asked. His friends glanced uncomfortably at each other. In my experience, it was pretty much impossible for the male of the species to be comfortable while listening to someone reminisce about castration.
“No,” I said, my eyes locking on to the ringleader’s. “If I were threatening you, it would sound more like this.” It took everything I had not to ball my hands into fists. “She’s fourteen. Ever heard of Andrew Stinson? That case got some press, didn’t it? If I remember correctly, they found pictures on his phone, too. And you know where you can find good old Andrew now?” I could see the wheels in the boy’s head turning. “I’ll give you a hint: it’s a registry, and it’s not for weddings.”
I took the phone out and scrolled through the sent texts, then through the e-mails. One of the boys tried to stop me, but a strategically placed foot and a tiny bit of applied pressure gave me the space I needed.
“You haven’t sent them to anyone,” I said. “That’s good.”
“You psychotic little—”
I didn’t bother listening to the coarse insults that came pouring out of his mouth.
“I’m not psychotic,” I said. “I’m just used to dealing with creatures a lot bigger and a lot meaner than you. This is my phone now. I suggest you get a new one.”
I turned and walked out of the bathroom.
“You just made a very big mistake,” one of the boys yelled after me.
I didn’t bother turning around. “That’s the only kind I make.”
CHAPTER 9
Bodie picked me up after school. “Body count?” he asked as we pulled past the security gate and out onto the road.
“Very funny,” I told him.
Bodie shrugged. “I can’t help it if I recognize your true ruthless nature.”
I had to remind myself that he didn’t know me. He wasn’t here for me. “Because my sister is infamous fixer Ivy Kendrick?” I retorted.
“No,” Bodie replied with a generous roll of his eyes. “Because I’m an impeccable judge of character.” He merged onto the highway and then glanced over at me. “And Ivy prefers the term consultant.”
I would have preferred not to feel like I was the last person in the entire school—if not the DC metro area—to be clued into Ivy’s occupation. I would have preferred if she’d asked me, even once, what I wanted before she’d packed up my life and swept me across the country like it was nothing. I would have preferred that my closest living relative not treat me like a fire that needed to be put out, or a situation that needed to be handled.
Like a job.
“You didn’t answer my question about the body count.” Bodie prodded me out of my thoughts, like he knew no good could come from letting me stew for long.
“No casualties,” I informed him.
“But?”
I looked out the window so he wouldn’t see the edges of my lips tick up as I thought about the dumbfounded look on the boys’ faces when I’d confiscated the phone. “But what?”