Page 71 of They Break Beauty

Fortunately—as fucked up as it was—finding out he’d broken into my apartment while I’d been sleeping was managing to keep them at bay and to keep me from doing anything even more stupid, like falling for him all the way, or letting him draw closer to me.

But this… this act of bullying… it meant he wasn’t the only one targeting me now.

It meant, it was becoming dangerous in a whole other way.

And now, I couldn’t just retaliate in a one-shot way when an attack came, as much like an afterthought, while I kept my primary focus on college and the life I’d been building here.

I had to pull much more of my focus into dealing with this.

Shit.

My phone sounded and I pulled it out of my bag to see a text.

Blocked ID: You’ve been marked by Hex.

I’d heard rumors that Hex had been restarted and even that their tentacles were spreading all over the campus and the surrounding area of the town already. While it was known that Levi, Mason, and Colton had been the driving force before, the actual members were more on the down low, so unless you were one of them—one of their soldiers—it was difficult to discern who they were.

That meant anyone could have done this to my food.

It could’ve been one of the onlookers in the quad moments ago.

What I knew for sure, however, was that once you were marked by Hex, you were done for, your life cursed and ruined beyond repair.

Brianna: What was my offense to warrant this?

Blocked ID: Leave Stonewell or this will just be the beginning.

I glared at the message, my initial freakout replaced by seething rage.

The hell I was going to be forced from the life I’d managed to create for myself, this fresh start that I’d fought tooth and nail to obtain in the first place.

By a bunch of college bullies who were basically some low-down new adult mafia.

Before I could contain it, I was texting back rapidly and definitively.

Brianna: The hell I will.

Blocked ID: So be it.

I glared at the ominous words.

I’d made a promise to myself last night when I’d left the bar that I wouldn’t allow fear to rule me anymore, that I wouldn’t freeze in the face of it, or duck and hide until a threat passed on by. It was stifling me.

And, more than that, it was causing me to be unprepared to respond to threats, as things lately had served to highlight in one hell of a brutal way.

No more.

These assholes were about to discover how much of a mistake they’d actually made with targeting me.

16

~Mason~

I hadn’t waited forty-eight hours.

After Levi’s reaction during breakfast the other day, it had become extremely apparent that immediate action was required, that there was no time to wait.

Besides, the deadline I’d given him had now come and gone anyway and he hadn’t come to me with the truth. Just as I’d anticipated.

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