“I know,” she replied.
He stared at her, hurt cutting through anger. “You didn’t trust me.”
“Things just… escalated. Compounded. I spiraled and didn’t know how to ask for help.”
His hands flexed at his sides. “You thought I’d make it worse.”
Chase had always responded first, thought second. It was part of what made him loyal. It was also part of what made him dangerous. He stepped forward and pulled her into him abruptly.
His arms wrapped around her shoulders and held tight enough to feel like an apology.
She stiffened for half a second before melting into it.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured into her hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t see your pain or what you were going through.”
Her hands fisted in the back of his shirt. “I didn’t want you to see it,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to look weak.”
“You’re not weak.” He pulled back just enough to look at her. “Don’t ever think you can’t come to me with anything. I’m your twin. If you leave, you’re taking part of me too, and I couldn’t survive without you.”
Avery’s composure slipped then, just enough for her eyes to gloss over. “I’m sorry.”
Behind them, Tori shifted closer to Theo. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders without hesitation, steadying. “You should’ve told me too,” he said gently.
Tori’s voice was quiet. “I didn’t know who would believe me.”
Theo’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t react explosively. “We believe you. All of us.”
Jax exhaled slowly and folded Avery into his embrace after Chase released her.
I laced my fingers through Mila’s. Her grip was firm. Resolved.
Down the hall, Charles Dunn escorted Elise toward her locker. Our conversation cut off as we tracked them.
They stopped at her locker as she opened it. Charles’s voice wasn’t overly loud, but it cracked like a whip nonetheless. “Clean it out.”
“Why? I’ll be back.”
“I didn’t ask for information. I gave you an order.”
Elise’s lips pressed into a tight line, her shoulders locking with humiliation as we watched. Her dad didn’t offer any other words—just turned on his heels once she’d finished, expecting her to fall in line behind him as he left the building.
She didn’t look back again.
But that wasn’t the end of it. The war hadn’t ended. If anything, it had escalated.
We’d won the room by exposing the behavior. But as Charles Dunn and Elise walked out, and the administrators closed their files behind us, I understood something with absolute clarity.
We had just stepped onto a much larger board—and the players weren’t confined to hallways.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MILA
The campus felt wrong the morning after the hearing. It wasn’t loud or chaotic, but the opposite.
I crossed the courtyard slowly, feeling eyes follow me even when no one turned their head. The morning air carried a cool coastal edge, the kind that slipped through light jackets but never quite became cold. Normally the campus buzzed at this hour. That morning, the energy felt restrained.
Blackwood had always thrived on voices echoing through corridors, laughter spilling across the courtyard, rumors moving faster than teachers could shut them down. The sound had thinned into something restrained and watchful. Conversations dropped when people passed each other. Groups clustered closer together than usual, heads turned toward each other.