Page 40 of Cry Madness

“You.” Alice uses her phone to point at me. “It’s always you.”

“Sweetheart,” I drawl, “if I were up your ass, trust me, you wouldn’t be all in a snit about it.”

Alice has bony knuckles.

I learn this the hard way when those pointy little joints catch me square on the chin, and although she doesn’t hit hard, she has splendid aim. “The fuck?”

She jabs her phone at me, this time directly in my face again. The face she had the gall to punch. “I won’t let you make a fool out of me.” Then, in a disgusted mumble, more to herself than to me, “Got me meeting you here in our spot when you… Ew.” Her dramatic shiver could win an Academy Award. “I can’t even. You’re disgusting.”

“Did you lose your fucking mind?” I tap the side of my hat to punctuate the question. “Is that it? Did that big brain of yours melt out of your pretty little ears?”

“Go. Fuck. Yourself.”

I move my jaw from side to side, testing it as if she did damage. She didn’t. “What is your problem? And don’t you dare say my name again, or, Alice, I swear to God?—”

“You’ll what?” The audacious woman gets all up in my face. “You’ll make a fool of me, in public,again?”

“Again? What the hell are you babbling about?”

“Oh, I’ll give you fucking babbling.” She spins on the chunky heel of her shoe, presenting her back to me. Then promptly tries to stride away. Yeah, no. I grab her arm, and she looks down at my fingers like a snake wrapped around her. “Get your hand off me before I break it.”

I release her arm because I don’t want her to get physical. God forbid she hurts herself trying to beat the snot out of me. “Youwilltell me why you’re spitting hellfire.”

Because let’s get her bullshit out of the way and get to theactualreason we’re here.

“You know why.” She’s got her cell phone up again with the screen pointed at my face. “Scarlett.” She barks out the name in a nasty accusation, as if I’m supposed to have some ‘aha’ revelation.

But the only ‘revelation’ I have is that Alice found out Scarlett told me what happened in Riverton, and that’s got her panties in a wad. Well, boo-fucking-hoo. Maybe if Alice hadn’t kept shit a secret, we wouldn’t be here now, both of us ready for battle.

“What the hell are you mad at her for? You’re the liar.”

Jesus Christ, you’d think I slapped her. “Me?” Her jaw drops, and she shakes her head before yelling, “You’ve got some nerve. Me, the liar? How dare you?” Again with that goddamn phone. “Look! This was today, wasn’t it?” She shakes the phone. “What game are you playing, Maddox? Are you that mad at me for leaving that you’re pretending you want me while cozying up to that…that…bitch?”

“I’m not playing any game, Alice, and I wasn’t cozying up to Scarlett.”

But she’s not listening to a goddamn word I say. “Why did you sneak into my house? Why are you watching me at school? Why did you kiss me in a bathroom?—”

“Youkissedme.”

“Don’t throw semantics at me,” she snaps. “Scarlett is the one person in this world who actively tries to make me miserable, and yet there you were, practically nose to nose with her!”

“The one person?” I ask quietly. “Think you might want to rephrase that, sweetheart.”

“You need to leave. Go.” She points down the cobblestone path to the break in the hedges, to the web of trails that cut through the maze. “Get the hell off my property.”

“Oh, no, Malice, I’m not leaving. You’re not getting rid of me this time.”

“I hate you,” she growls.

“No, you fucking don’t,” I counter. “If you hated me, you wouldn’t have come here prepared to go to war with me over Scarlett McQueen. Yet here we are, and you know what I think, Alice?”

“I don’t care what you think.”

“Yes, you damn well do.” I destroy the space between us in only a few angry strides. “It was you who made a fool of me, not the other way around.”

Oh, really?” she shouts in my face. “How in the world didImake a fool ofyou? Please, Maddox, do tell me. I’m dying to hear this bullshit.”

Cold fury simmers to the surface, begging to be released. “What happened in Riverton, Alice? I want the truth. I demand the fucking truth.”