He pulled the door open and Beck, Jasper, and Dylan were waiting on the other side. Stone faced. Dressed in dark jackets with windswept hair. The weather was wild out there. Their eyes were almost the same. Fierce and untamed.

They filed in silently, and as Evan closed and bolted the door again, I was swept off my feet. Dylan held me tightly, his arms trembling slightly as he lifted me. He’d moved so fast that I hadn’t seen a thing until I was in his arms.

“I’m so sorry, Riles,” he murmured close to my ear, sounding broken up. Evan’s words hit me then, I remembered everything he’d said, and I allowed myself to relax against Dylan. Even going so far as to wrap my arms around him and hug him back.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” I said over and over, like I was trying to convince us both.

When he finally set me down, his face looked as devastated as his voice had sounded. “I can’t believe we let them touch you,” he growled in that graveled tone. “Fuck. I wish I was there to kill them all.”

Evan snorted. “Yeah, trust me, Beck needed no help.”

My gaze was drawn to Beck. Everything about me was drawn to Beck, and I fought the natural urge to go closer. Jasper distracted me when he swept me into a hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” he told me, pulling back so he could see my face. “No more separation at school.” He was dead serious. “I don’t care what’s going on in our personal lives. If you still hate us, that’s fucking fine, but you will not be separated from all of us again.”

He set me on my feet, and I swallowed some of my angry pride and nodded. “Agreed. We will present a united front, because that Katelyn is definitely here to fuck shit up. To separate us. To create chaos. I don’t know exactly what Huntley’s end game is, but I’m determined to destroy them first. And to do that, I need you all. I need Delta.”

“You have us,” Dylan said quickly. “We have your back.”

Jasper whipped out his phone then in a rush. He was dialing as he lifted it to his ear. “Yeah,” he said when they answered. “I need you to buy a couple of apartments.” He then rattled off the address and name of this building.

I opened my mouth, slammed it closed, before opening it again. But I didn’t protest. I’d agreed to this outward showing of unity, and I would still have my own place here. A little protection around me was not something to complain about.

“Kick them out,” Jasper replied to whatever the other person had said. “Or offer them double what they’re worth. I don’t care how you do it, just get us a few apartments on Riley’s floor.”

He hung up.

Beck shook his head. “If you’d asked me, I would have told you that I’ve already arranged to buy out this floor. Even if Riley didn’t want us to move in here, I still preferred she have no neighbors that could be easily manipulated into betraying her.”

I closed my eyes, searching for some inner peace. These spoiled, arrogant assholes, were so used to ramrodding their way into everything. Always getting their own way. I was kind of glad I’d made it a little hard for them. At least for a while.

“It’s time for you all to go now,” I said. “I’m tired. We have to be at school tomorrow, and I don’t need to keep up appearances until then.”

Jasper, Evan, and Dylan didn’t argue with me. They just hugged me tightly, and one by one filed out the door. I always knew Beck was going to be the most difficult to reason with. He was a fucking immovable rock.

“You can go too,” I said to him when we were alone in the living room.

He responded by dropping his ass on the couch.

“Beck…” I said warningly. “I’m grateful you saved me. I really am. But I don’t forgive you. We are not friends. You don’t get to spend the night in my home with me. I need the space. I need you to fuck off, just for a while.”

He shook his head, picking up the remote. “I let you out of my sight today, and you almost got raped. Gang fucking raped. Don’t push me on this, Butterfly. Not tonight.”

All of my fury and fear and pain rose up in me then. Tonight was my breaking point, and suddenly words were spewing from me with a ferocity that was almost scary.

“I hate you, Beck!” I snarled. “I fucking hate you! Don’t push you? You fucking pushed me right off a goddamn cliff. How could you betray me like that?”

I curved forward as if to protect myself, but I was really holding my chest so that my heart didn’t burst from it. Something that might have been impossible, but the pain I was experiencing made it feel like it could happen. A sob escaped.

This fight was a long time coming. I’d tried icing him out, but that hadn’t done anything. So now he could see my fury. My agony.

He was on his feet again, paying no attention to the television. “I told you, Butterfly,” his soft voice about killed me, “this is a game. If you don’t play the game, you lose. Losing is not something that I’m interested in.”

I shook my head violently, straightening. “No. No fucking games any longer. That’s just an excuse you all use to do fucked up shit. This was real life. This was a real choice that you made. You hurt my best friend. You hurt Dante.”

Beck’s face darkened, shadows crossing it and turning perfect, handsome lines into something that scared the ever loving shit out of me. “Trust me, Dante deserved everything that was coming to him.” He was very close now. I could have reached out and touched him. “Not to mention, it was Dante or you.”

I had not expected those words to come out of his mouth, and I gasped a few times as I tried to comprehend what he was saying … or more accurately, implying.

“What did Dante do? Why was it Dante or me? What does that even mean?”

Beck moved with that stealthy speed that was almost inhuman, and his spicy scent hit me. I forced myself not to step into him. Not to touch him.

“Our parents are not good people,” he said without much inflection. “You must already have seen that. They will stop at nothing to get what they want. To force our hand. If they knew that you meant more to any of us than just the fifth seat of Delta, they would use you against us.” His hands twisted in the hair at the base of my neck, pulling me to him. “They would hurt you, Butterfly. Break those perfect wings. Destroy your fighting spirit.”