He was angry…

And I feared him.

He was a gangbanger, a Heighter. He’d been arrested multiple times. His brother had served time. And I was now alone with him. Alone with him and he was seething. His anger seemed directed toward me. There was no one there to help me.

Carillo began to move forward but stopped a few steps away. He radiated danger and darkness like the sun radiated heat. It was a force field around him, an aura, and it only served to scare me even more.

Almost black-brown eyes narrowed as Austin studied my face, and I gripped my gym bag harder. But something in his expression changed as his eyebrows rose, and I frowned.

What’s he seeing that’s so shocking?

And then I remembered. I hadn’t reapplied my makeup. I’d been so shaken by how easily the voice had gotten through to me I’d just wanted to flee home.

I felt embarrassment, an intense embarrassment that he was seeing me so raw and imperfect. I couldn’t understand why it bothered me so much. He hated me, and I feared him. But I did care. I cared so deeply that he’d seen the real me.

The girl who didn’t measure up.

The girl with too many flaws.

“What the hell’re you doing in here?” Carillo said coldly, shattering my thoughts, his emotionless expression again firmly on his face.

“I-I-I—”

Austin stepped farther forward. From his nearness, I could smell his scent, a deep woodsy musk, the smell of a hard-played game. It just added to his darkness.

“I-I-I what?” He laughed, unfeeling. “Why d’you always turn up where you’re not wanted? When you’re not wanted? In places you ain’t supposed to be?”

I swallowed back nerves and tried to back away, but he thrust out his hand, gripped my arm, and jerked me forward.

I let out a small yelp. His touch wasn’t painful. In fact, he was barely touching me at all, but he’d surprised me, and I reluctantly looked into his eyes.

“Did you tell that guy cheerleader anything today?” he hissed quietly.

Unable to find my voice, I just frantically shook my head ‘no’.

Austin’s fingers tightened on my arm. I instinctively tried to pull away.

“Answer me! He was staring at me in fear the whole f**kin’ game!”

Inhaling deep, I managed to squeak out, “I didn’t tell him anything.”

Austin’s narrowing eyes told me he didn’t believe me.

“I promise, I didn’t. I swear it. I told the dean nothing when he spoke to me. And Lyle… Lyle caught you staring at me a few times and warned me about it. That’s all.” Wrenching back my arm, I rubbed at the tender skin.

Austin ran his hands over his dark hair and exhaled a relieved breath. But his eyes didn’t leave me for one second.

As I watched him, it seemed like he was fighting against something inside. But then his face frosted over. His intimidating Heighter mask was back in place.

“You better not let what you saw get out,” he warned icily. “I’m watching you.”

Finding strength from somewhere unknown, I moved right before him, and this time, he stilled. “I told you I wouldn’t say anything, and I won’t. I know what it’s like to have a secret, to have something revealed that you want to keep well hidden. Believe me, I do. So I won’t say a thing to no one, but you are making people talk. You are the one messing up, glaring at me like you wanna murder me, garnering people’s attention when the dean already suspects I’ve seen something. You’re not successfully hiding your emotions.”

He didn’t say anything in response, and I lowered my eyes from his intense gaze, only to come face to face with a huge tattooed crucifix on his bare chest, a crying Mary, Mother of Christ at its base and Mary looking up at Jesus in agony, her face ripped apart by grief at seeing her son strung up on the cross… dying.

They were everywhere—religious tattoos—covering almost every inch of his upper body, and he had full sleeves on each arm. Most were religious, some in a foreign language. It looked like Italian.

Austin’s huge arms suddenly crossed over his chest and his nostrils flared with anger. “Just get the f**k out,” he ordered coldly.

Without hesitation, I turned around to leave, only glancing back to bravely say, “You terrify me, Carillo. I’m afraid of you. Are you happy about that? I know who you are, the family you come from, where you come from. I’ve been reliably informed. So you can stop with the threats, the dirty looks. I get that you’re bad news. I get it. You’ve got me unable to sleep at night with fear. I know you’re dangerous and you would probably have no remorse in harming me, if I talk. I’m not dumb. So I beg, please, just leave me alone. I will never speak about what I saw. But I need you to leave me alone.”

I didn’t stick around to see his reaction. I just ran all the way back to my sorority house and up to my room on the fourth floor.

Just as I passed Cass’s open door, Ally’s voice shouted, “Lexi! Come here, darlin’!”

Stopping dead, I dropped my bag and walked into the room, plastering on my usual fake smile. Cass and Ally were sitting on her bed.

“Hey, guys!” I sang, seeming like the happiest girl in the world.

“Argh!” Ally shrilled and jumped up to hug me. “You were amazing today, honey! I’m so proud of you!” As Ally pulled back, her mouth dropped open.

I immediately became self-conscious. “What?” I asked.