Page 136 of Boys Who Taint

Maybe I’m scared Grey or Apollo could be the stalker.

Or maybe … just maybe … I’m more scared that this insane deal I have might end.

CHAPTER 32

Levi

The next day

When the doorto the dean’s office opens, the shouting still hasn’t finished. I’m impressed he stood his ground against my mother. It’s not often someone lives to tell the tale after meeting her.

Dad’s still sitting on that chair in the back of the room, and his eyes connect with mine. He hasn’t moved an inch since their conversation about what happened at the Phantom Society began, but I do know they’re trying to protect me from whatever consequences it might entail.

After Felix was done scolding me for my participation in the fight at the Phantom Society, he told me to exit the room so he could have a more private conversation with my parents. Whatever that means because I could still hear everything.

“He wasn’t the one doing the killing!” Mom shouts.

“He instigated it by putting the target on his back,” Felix retorts.

“What target? The ones you put on him?” she retorts.

“Lana, calm down,” my dad says.

“No, I willnotcalm down.” She slams her fist down onto the dean’s desk. “Goddammit, Felix. Give us a goddamn break. You know as well as I do that Apollo murdered that kid. Not Levi.”

“There were multiple injured people. And the fight broke out because Levi was there in the first place.”

“He’s a Phantom. He has every right to be there.” She folds her arms. “Unlike your son.”

“I dealt with my son on my own terms. That doesn’t mean your son is off the hook,” Felix says.

“He didnothing!”

“Then tell me why I have to explain to the parents of that dead kid why he died!”

They’re quiet for a second.

“That was Apollo, and you know it.”

“Who was defendingyourson.”

“Levi’s already been punished enough for his crimes,” Mom says.

“Something happens on this campus again that involves him, and he’s out,” Felix growls back. “End of story.”

She grinds her teeth, then waltzes off, her heels click-clacking on the wood as she marches through the door. I sit up straight when she walks by.

“Don’t do anything stupid, got it?” she says as she leans over to look me dead in the eyes. “Before your dad and I are forced to do something we don’t want to do.”

I know what she means. They’re gonna pull me out of Spine Ridge University if this continues.

Behind us, Dylan, Aspen’s father, walks up the steps to the dean’s office, and the moment she spots him, the entire room loses ten degrees in temperature.

“And stay the hell away from Aspen,” Mom adds.

But that’s just the thing. Aspen is right there, sitting in the seats across from me, staring us both down through the invisible barrier that separates us. Mere feet away, but oceans apart from each other.

My dad exits the room too and bumps shoulders with Dylan, their eyes shooting lightning bolts at each other. The air is thick with tension, enough to suffocate everyone here.