Page 97 of The Forbidden Note

How calm I am with them.

How accepting.

She’s turned me into a monster. Or maybe I already was and she just makes that monster bold and unafraid of the light.

“You’re getting blood on your steering wheel,” she says.

“It’s Finn’s car,” I mumble.

Her chocolate eyes land on me. “Even worse.”

My jaw flexes.

She sighs. “Should we have just left him there?”

“As opposed to what? Taking him for coffee?”

“The stones are uncomfortable.”

I grunt. “He attacked you and you’re worried about his freaking comfort?”

“He might need to go to the hospital.”

“Screw that. Let him bleed out like the animal he is.”

Her teeth dig into her bottom lip.

My eyes drop there. Her lipstick is smudged and it streaks a little at the corner. The collar of her shirt is stretched out. Curls expand all over her head, frizzier than normal.

Holy crap.

Looking at the damage Hall inflicted makes me want to turn the car around and beat him to a pulp again until his brains splatter out of his skull.

I’m sinking into darker and darker thoughts and I don’t realize my fingers are tightening over the steering wheel until I feel a soft sensation on my knuckles.

Grey’s feather-light touch descends on my bloody hands. “You should probably go to a hospital too.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure all this blood is his?” Her eyebrows quirk.

My stomach tightens in the strangest way. “I’ve been beating my drums instead of people for a long time. This isn’t anything I can’t handle.”

Those soft brown eyes meet mine. “Why did you come back to school? I heard you’d been suspended.”

I suck in a sharp breath.

She stares through the windshield. Light from the lampposts spray gold and silver all over us.

Her voice is bleak and withdrawn. “Did the fight in the hallway today have anything to do with me?”

Rather than answer that question, I turn down the air conditioning.

“Zane.”

“Your mom said your car was in the shop. She was worried about you catching the bus so late at night.”

“She’s always worried.”

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