“All right, Amo. You can take Chloe to class.”

“What? No. We need to all walk together,” Elle told Nero, not wanting to take a chance they would try something again just after they had tried to take her out during lunch.

Chloe wanted to agree with her friend, but Amo’s voice spoke low, commanding, “Come on, Chloe.”

Seeing Elle push at Nero’s chest in disagreement, she realized how much she had truly held Elle back all these years. Like today, when her friend had gotten hit, she hadn’t even moved to see if she was okay. Instead, she had been stuck in her own hell inside her head. It was time to start pulling away from Elle just a little so Elle could be free.

Having to look away from Elle, Chloe looked at the floor as she walked away with Amo.

She could hear the little fight Elle tried to put up, but Nero wasn’t having it, keeping her in place. It was hard to walk away from her like that. But I have to start cutting the cord a little … for her.

Chloe fell in line behind Amo, causing him to quickly stop and turn around.

“Don’t make me show you again …” His voice was so low it was like he was daring her.

Her eyes almost popped out of their sockets. She quickly moved directly beside him before he even finished his sentence. There was no doubt he was still furious from lunch, and she couldn’t help wondering if someone might have suffered a terrible fate while they had been in their last half of Spanish. Last time, it had been obvious the boys had skipped the last half of their classes and gotten to Sebastian, giving him a black eye. Her instincts told her they had gone back for round two.

Walking beside him was exactly as terrible as you would think. Everyone—and I mean everyone—stared at them while giving them a wide berth. It was like the hallway had split, and everyone lined up against the lockers to watch them pass.

She was sure she had drawn blood in her palms with how hard she was pressing into them. Please let it end!

Getting closer to the classroom door, she couldn’t take the stares anymore, so she made a run for it, and she had barely touched the doorknob before his voice boomed.

“Chloe!”

Suddenly, she dropped her hand.

Amo approached the door, opening it himself.

Why couldn’t you just let me run away?

She felt even more embarrassed by the scene he had caused.

After walking into the classroom slowly, the door slammed behind her from Amo making even more of a spectacle. The room of students drilled their eyes into her even more than the ones had in the hall.

Finally making it to her seat, she scooted to the very edge of the table as Amo sat down beside her.

“Why did you just run for the door?” he demanded quietly.

She could feel the blood start to trickle down her nails at this point.

“Tell me why, Chloe,” he demanded again.

She had yet to look at him, let alone give him an answer.

Staring at her, he finally noticed her twitching hands. “Open your hands.” He could see the little bit of red peeking out under her fingers. “Chloe, open your damn hands before I open them myself.”

Gently, she opened her hands, too afraid he would follow through on his threat. She didn’t have to look at him to know what he was thinking. Freak.

“Fuck.” Jumping up, he didn’t waste time before going to the front of the class and grabbing the whole box of Kleenexes. Coming back, he ripped a bunch out. You could see he wanted to grab her hands and hold the tissues to the marks, but he didn’t. Instead, he carefully laid them on her hands, making sure he didn’t touch her. The act was almost … sweet. It made her wonder if he was even a beast or jerk at all.

Closing her hands, she let the tissues start to soak up the blood.

This time, his voice was soothing when he asked, “Why did you run for the door?”

She found out she could talk to this Amo. “E-Everyone w-was staring at us.”

“Is that why you did this to yourself?”

Solemnly, she nodded her head.

Pulling out more tissues, he made her change them out. “Put more pressure on it.”

She closed her hands more firmly to stop the bleeding.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you. I thought you were doing it just so I couldn’t hold the door open for you again.”

She was finally able to meet his dark eyes. To actually see how badly he really did feel about it made her heart twinge a bit. She wasn’t sure if she really knew him at all. Finding out he had only made the scene because he had wanted to hold the door open for her was cute in a chivalrous way.

“It’s o-okay. I’ll let you hold the doors from now on.”

He actually cracked a smile at her joke. It was the first one she had really seen on him.

Brrring.

She quickly averted her eyes. The bell had made her realize she was staring at him. Her cheeks flushed a bit when he didn’t move his eyes off her right away.

Their class seemed to creep by, and about a third into it, Amo made her check her hands to see if the bleeding had stopped. It had, so at that point, Amo got up, uncaring of the teacher lecturing, and threw away all the used tissues, as well as placed the tissues back on the desk.

As he walked back to his seat, Chloe felt his stare until he sat down.

The remainder of the class, she felt herself get a little bit more comfortable next to him. It wasn’t much, but a small difference was some kind of progress. This seemed to make the class go by faster, and when the last bell of the day rang, she was surprised for once.

“You’re not gonna try to make a run for it again, are you?” he asked when she quickly got up.

“N-No, Sebastian’s locker is out there, and you basically said you wouldn’t help me, remember?”

A smug look crossed his face. Instantly, she forgot all the nice things Amo had just done for her.

“Y-you d-did something to him.”

His face dropped. “No, I didn’t. I went back to class. Nero and Vincent were the ones who went and saw him.”

Chloe bit her lip, “Really?”

“Yep,” Amo reassured her.

Staring at him for a moment, she began to believe him. At least, I think he’s telling the truth …

Standing up, he went to the door then stopped when she didn’t follow. “You coming?”

Chloe didn’t want to feel the stares on her again.

Seeming to read her mind, Amo asked, “You know why they’re staring like that, don’t you?”

She looked to the floor. “Because they think I’m a fre—”

“No, you’re not a freak,” Amo snapped. He paused for just an instant before he said, “It’s because they’ve never seen me walk a girl to class before.”

She didn’t believe him at first, but thinking back, she realized she hadn’t, either. Nero and Vincent were always the ones with girls wrapped around them between classes.

Building up the small amount of courage she had inside of her, she took her first step toward the door. The beast might not be so bad after all.

* * *

Anger exploded out of Chloe as she stared at the beast. It was a feeling she hadn’t felt this pure probably ever in her life. It only grew worse with each tear that fell down her friend’s face. She had seen Elle get the shit beaten out of her, but she had never witnessed her in this much pain.

They had just caught Nero, Amo, and Vincent in a fight, but that wasn’t the worst part. When girls in tight dresses had wrapped themselves around the boys, Chloe certainly hadn’t been shocked Vincent accepted it or even Amo, but she had been shocked Nero had a girl wrapped around him. Chloe could see it in Nero’s eyes every time he looked at Elle: he loved her. She didn’t know why he would fuck all that up.

“Let’s go,” Elle told Chloe through the tears. She had basically just told Nero to go fuck himself and only wanted to get away from him.

The anger hit its reaching point inside of Chloe. I thought we were all starting to be friends.

Nero and Elle were what was holding the alliance together. Without them, there was no friendship, especially since he had done something like this to cause such heartache to her.

She knew exactly who had played the major part in this. I can see it on his freaking face.

Rearing back her foot, she kicked him in the shin as hard as she possibly could.

“Ow! What the fuck did I do?” Amo yelled, holding his shin.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.” She then pointed at Vincent who started to back away from her, afraid of the safety of his own shin. “And you, too.”

Looking back at Amo, she let him know she knew this had all happened because of him. “I know you put him up to this.”

Walking over to her now crying and somewhat smiling friend, Chloe stopped and looked at Nero. “I have nothing to say to you. You know what you just lost.”

With each step to her car, the anger slowly left her body, making her realize what she had just done. It was like … I was possessed.

Getting in her car and seeing Elle in the passenger seat wiping away the tears, Chloe felt the need to cry hit her, too. If she could, she was almost certain she would cry right beside her.

Fear set into her, but it wasn’t the kind she was used to. Back there, she had thought Elle was the one with the most to lose with Nero. However, she felt like she had lost something just as great. Every day, Amo surprised her; every day, she had trusted him a little bit more; and every day, she could feel the start of a friendship blooming.

The fact that she was feeling the start of a friendship with Amo scared her. The fact that a strong sadness came over her since she wasn’t going to see their friendship bloom truly frightened her …

* * *

Did she just fucking kick me? Amo’s leg still stung as he walked to the car.

Damn, she did just fucking kick me!

She had blamed him for Nero going out with another girl, but the only reason Nero had gone out was because he really hadn’t had much of a choice. He had set the date up before Nero had realized he fully wanted her. Amo knew Nero would come to the conclusion of picking Elle over the job. It was obvious he liked her too much. However, Nero had to pretend to the boss that he wasn’t falling for her, because if the boss found out about them and then they canceled, it would look suspicious. Nero’s father was already skeptical of his loyalties.

Cassandra had also been supposed to be here tonight. Since she had been suspended this week, they hadn’t seen her. They wanted to talk to her outside of the school, force her to tell them all the shit they had done to Elle and Chloe.

Nero had planned to kill two birds with one stone tonight: gain his father’s trust and get his hands on Cassandra. But it all had gone to fucking shit the moment Elle had showed up.

They didn’t even understand why she had come to Poison, anyway. It was a lounge for teens and definitely not somewhere Elle or Chloe had ever gone before. Elle had said she had gotten a text from Nero to come here, but he hadn’t sent one.

We’re getting played somehow. Someone was one step ahead of them, and he could feel it. He just hoped it didn’t come to bite him in the ass before he could see it coming.

You should be ashamed of yourself … Chloe’s words swirled in his head. She could barely look him in the eyes day by day, yet tonight, she had stared the beast down and kicked him. He was used to seeing that hint of fear in her eyes every time she looked at him, but for the first time, he had seen it disappear for just a moment.

Fear was the only thing he had thought lived in Chloe. But, damn, I was wrong.

A smile touched his lips. No girl had ever dared to do something like that to him. Not only that, but he had let her live to tell the tale. Whatever he had done to change her image of him had worked. He hadn’t seen it until now, but that was exactly what he had hoped for.

There was no doubt Nero was getting Elle back, which put him right back where he wanted.

Before he opened the door to his car, the clicking of heels came up behind him. “Amo, you didn’t forget about me, did you?”

Turning around, he saw Christa perking her boobs out for him to stare at. Instead, he turned back around to get in his car. “No, I didn’t.”

“But-but, I thought I was going over to your house tonight.”

Amo opened the door and slid in, ignoring her obnoxious baby voice and fake tears.

“How am I supposed to get home?”

“Walk.” He slammed the door in her face.

Starting the car, he ignored the girl yelling profanities through his window and throwing a hissy fit. I can be a nice boy.

He revved his engine, pulling out and leaving behind the girl as she tried to throw her shoe at his car but miserably failed. I can at least pretend to be.