Page 49 of Shattered Stars

“Let’s go! Let’s get out of here before …” her friend says, releasing the pig girl but hanging on to her hand. “Trent found us a taxi.” The friend peers over at me and frowns. “Was he …”

“I saved her ass,” I mumble.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Pig Girl mumbles.

“Hmmm,” the friend says, eyes flicking between the two of us before she seems to settle on something. “Do you want to grab a lift with us?” she asks me.

My gaze falls to the floor. That wouldn’t be a good idea. Dragging the pig girl to safety when she was in danger was one thing. Confined with her inside a vehicle, another – especially with the beast struggling to break free.

“No, I’m going to walk back.”

“Walk?!” Pig Girl cries. “It’ll take you all night.”

“Spencer,” the friend says seriously, “we’d be grateful if you came with us.” My mouth opens. “The man you were fighting was Renzo Barone.”

We’resilent on the drive back to the academy, the three of them huddled together in the back, me in the front with the driver, staring out at the country lanes.

Renzo Barone.

Renzo fucking Barone.

I had him there in front of me, right in my grasp. I could have ended him, killed him. He was only a pace or two away. I could have destroyed him and ensured he never ever came for her again. I could have ensured her safety, kept her safe. Obliterated that danger. Instead, I fought him like it was a game, like it didn’t really count.

Shit, it counted. Shit, it counted a hell of a lot.

If I’d known …

“You should have told me,” I say.

“Pardon?” the driver says, eyes diverting from the road towards me.

I ignore him, catching the Pig Girl’s caramel eyes in the rearview mirror. “You should have told me he was Renzo Barone.”

“Renzo Barone!” the driver screeches, almost swerving off the road before he regains control and quickly crosses himself. “You’re in trouble with Renzo Barone?” He peers at me anxiously and if I give him the wrong answer here, I think he might turf us out of the car.

“No,” I say, crunching my knuckles. “I was fighting him at the Warehouse tonight.”

The driver stares at me open-mouthed, before crossing himself a second time and putting his foot on the gas. He’s obviously decided he wants to deliver us to the academy as quickly as possible.

“I didn’t want him to know I was there,” Pig Girl explains. “If I’d called out to you, if I’d tried to let you know …”

“You shouldn’t have come in the first place,” I say gruffly, snapping my eyes away from her gaze. “You had no business being there.”

“Everyone was there, man,” the guy sitting next to her says. “Everybody wanted to see you fight.”

I snort. Yeah, that’s all I am to these people. A source of fucking entertainment. Doesn’t matter how beat up I get, how hurt or damaged, just as long as I’m putting on a show.

I crunch my knuckles again. I haven’t healed that graze on my side and it throbs.

“You’d have to be an idiot to step foot outside the academy with Barone searching for you,” I mutter.

“Barone is searching for this girl?” the driver asks, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly I can see his knuckles through the skin.

“Keep driving,” I growl. Anyone knows if Barone is searching for someone, that someone has a price on their head and I don’t want this dude getting any ideas. “I could have taken him out,” I mutter, more to myself than the three people in the back of the car.

“It was pretty evenly matched,” the pig girl says and I can’t help turning in my seat to scowl at her. Unlike so many others, she doesn’t flinch away from my scowl, simply stares right back at me, sending the thing in my stomach into a turmoil.

I snap back round and huff out a sigh of relief as the academy comes into sight. There are other vehicles on the road now too, Tristan’s car somewhere up ahead as well as the campus bus, everybody returning home with their tails between their legs.