Page 69 of Beware of Dog

Side-eyes and whispers had been happening for weeks now, so Cass ignored them. She listened to her professors’ lectures, took copious notes, and checked her phone once every half-hour. Shep didn’t text anything further, but she hadn’t expected him to; it didn’t matter. All she needed to see, over and over, was that little red heart he’d sent. Each time her eyes landed on it, her own heart swelled. Her stomach filled with giddy little fizzes that echoed down between her legs where she was sore. The soreness, she’d decided, was welcome, becauseeach time she shifted in her seat, she thought of Shep heavy and panting above her.God, Cassie, holy shit.

When a girl two rows ahead twisted in her seat and curled her lip in clear disgust, Cass smiled back, and remembered Shep’s head bent over her chest, the warmth and wetness of his mouth.

When a guy on the sidewalk looked her up and down like a piece of meat, she thought of Shep blushing like a teenager on the sidewalk this morning.

People here might hate her, might be so deep in Sig’s raping little rich-boy corner that they couldn’t see where the danger lie, but none of them mattered when she had a Dog inhercorner.

Who was even now on his way to pick her up.

She ducked into her dorm building, head up, walking fast, ignoring the group of girls sprawled across the couches over against the wall.

“Hey,” one of them called, and Cass kept walking.

Then another one said, “Hey, you lyingbitch.”

The venomous tone stopped Cass short. She paused, and turned, and called upon her years of Raven exposure to school her features into a cool, haughty mask. “I’m sorry. You aren’t addressingme, are you?” Her accent snapped like something off the BBC, and she realized how much America, and spending hundreds of hours with a Jersey-born man, had sanded off the corners of her London consonants.

There were three of them. Cass recognized the girl with the coppery dreads and the effortless Boho fashion sense from her Ceramics class, Krystal-with-a-K Mendoza, because she’d made a point of telling their professor so during their student introductions. The other two, a blonde and a brunette, she’d seen around the dorms, but never met nor spoken to.

It was the brunette who’d called her a bitch, who had turned around and was kneeling up in her chair, her expression a sneer of contempt. “Yeah, I’m talking to you.” She wasn’t from New York originally, but parts farther South. Cass was still too British to decipher exactly where. “Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re not evenfromthiscountry, and you come over here, thinking you’re hot shit, landing Sig infuckingjail—”

“He’s not in jail. He’s out on bond.”Getting punched for hassling dealers, she didn’t add.

“You accused him of rape,” Krystal said, low, tight, furious. She, Cass could tell, was the brains of the operation. The one to watch out for.

“No, I didn’t,” Cass said, as calmly as she could manage. Her pulse was accelerating, and her hands tingled with nerves, but she wasn’t going to show these girls a shred of weakness. “But he did rape someone. He raped a student here. He raped one ofus, and it could have been any one of you.”

The blonde sat up straight. “Are youthreateningus?”

“That’s what she does,” the brunette said, lip curling somehow more dramatically. “She’s in the fucking mafia or some shit. Some gang. That’s what you people do, isn’t it? Commit crimes and frame innocent people for them.”

“Whatare you talking about?” Cass thought she sounded dismissive, but a high whine of panic started up in her ears. She thought of Bryce asking her if she was a Lean Dog. Thought of Melissa saying Sig was trying to learneverythingabout her.Everything she cared about.

If she pulled out her phone right now, and called Shep, and told him Sig was trying to ruin her life, she knew he would go back to that pretty white townhouse, kick in the door, and kill not only Sig, but anyone who got in his way of doing so.

And then he’d go to jail, and she’d get to see him once a week, chained to a bolted-down table, their hands all that could touch.

Krystal said, smirking, “What’s that saying? ‘Bitches get stitches?’ Lean Bitches ought to watch their mouths.”

How did she know what a Lean Bitch was? How much had Sig been able to learn, andhowhad he learned it in the first place?

Heart racing, Cass kicked her chin back and said, “You’ve all lost the plot.” Turned, slowly, and marched to the elevator. Only once she was shut inside, and alone, did she let out an explosive breath and spiral into full panic.

“Oh God, oh God, oh bollocks,” she murmured, fumbling for her phone with shaking hands. Her palms were slick with sweat, and she dropped it to the floor. “Shit!”

When she retrieved it, a new crack bisected the screen, but it still lit up when touched.

This morning, she’d wanted to prove something, to herself and to Shep, and she hadn’t wanted him to make unnecessary trips. Now, she typed out a hasty text that read:need to bring a bunch of stuff with me 2nite. Won’t fit on the bike.

He pinged her back as she was letting herself into her dorm room.I’ll get a cab. It’s gonna rain anyway.

A beat later, a second text arrived:u ok?

No, she certainly wasn’t, but talking to him, even through text, was already helping. Shewould beokay.

She sent back a simpleyesand three hearts, then set about packing up everything she wanted to take to the flat.

Rain had begun in slow patters by the time she hauled two wheeled suitcases and her portfolio down to the curb, cold, fat drops that threatened to thicken into a downpour at any moment.

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