Page 90 of The Pretty Psycho

My phone started ringing just as I was about to head inside the building and as I pulled it out I saw it was Ethan.

"Ethan! Jax?—"

"Get your ass to the admin building. Now!" he barked.

"Almost there."

I had no idea how fast I ran, how much time had passed, but as I ran upstairs, keeping my phone to my ear, I could already hear them—shouting, arguing, someone was crying. The moment I stepped onto the second floor, I saw them—Vin, Ethan, and Dante standing above somebody, while a girl I’d seen around the Academy sat on the floor not too far away from them, crying.

Bodies littered the area, at least five of them, none belonging to us. But there was only one body I could look at, and he was there on the floor, with Gabriela pumping his chest, screaming at the other three.

Vin was on the phone, barking orders in some other language. My eyes connected with Dante's and I knew that I would never forget that sight for as long as I lived.

My friend never cried. Hell, sometimes I feared that the woman who was now working on our best friend stole it all from him, yet there he was, with tears in his eyes, shaking his head as if he was trying to tell me something with the movement.

Footsteps echoed behind me, and I turned around, ready for another fight, when I realized it was Vega. Vega who'd run after me.

Vega who looked equally as worried as I was.

I didn't wait for her to reach me before running toward Gabriela and sliding down on the floor.

Gabriela's dark eyes connected with mine, the terror in them enough to have my heart climbing up my throat.

"I've lost his pulse twice," she said, breathing heavily. "I need you to continue for me. Can you do that? I'm getting tired already." I simply nodded and she quickly moved away, letting me take over.

"What the fuck happened?" Vega asked the moment she came closer to us, but I couldn't pay attention to her. I looked down at Jax, at the angry red cut going over his eyebrow, his eye, and finishing halfway on his cheek. I looked at all the blood seeping from a deep wound on his body. Bleeding through the cloth the guys must have placed there. "Yolanda said?—"

"Murderer!" the girl who was sitting on the floor screamed, pointing at Vega. "She is a murderer!"

I looked at Vega, then back at the girl.

"Hailey, what are you talking about? What do you mean, Vega is a murderer?"

"No," she shook her head, crying harder and harder. "Y-Yolanda," she stammered. "Yolanda did this. She let them in. She?—"

No.

No, no, no.

She was Vega's friend. Her only friend.

She was there with us. She saved us. She?—

"You're lying," Vega murmured. "No. It can't be. You're lying!"

"I'm not lying," the girl, Hailey, stood up now, wiping her cheeks. "I was hiding in the office when I heard them arguing. Jax caught her red-handed. He fucking caught her speaking with Dain. He confronted her the moment Dain left, and she did that." Hailey pointed at Jax. "They started fighting and she cut him across the face. She begged him to listen, but he wouldn't. H-He," she wheezed. "Another guy came and shot him in the chest. That one." She pointed at one of the soldiers on the ground. "Yolanda killed him."

"No." Vega shook her head. "No. It can't be."

"It doesn't matter now," Gabriela cut her off. "What matters is getting Jax out of here and to the hospital. His pulse is weak." Vega dropped down on her knees, right next to me, and when I looked up, I saw the devastation rocking her to the core. "Where the fuck is that chopper?" Gabriela yelled.

"It's landing right now," Vin informed. "We need to go now. We need to get him out of here."

Vin, Ethan, and Dante bent down, two of them opposite of me and Dante right next to me, slowly moving Vega away. We lifted Jax, and started going down the stairs as Vega held the makeshift bandage to the wound on Jax's chest, Gabriela and Hailey trailing after us.

"I'm going to kill her," Vega said. "What I did to Dain is nothing compared to what she has coming," she added, her voice dripping with pure malice.

I looked at her as we pushed outside of the building, seeing the hatred directed at the girl she once called her friend.

---