Page 152 of A Heart of Bluestone

I just aim my frown at him, digging deeper into my skin.

“We need help,” he shouts, still flapping his hands.

“I don’t need detention,” I shout back at him. I was already given a week’s worth after socking my brother in the face, and that cost me a lot of time I could have spent on literally anything else.

Piper arches her neck to look over his shoulder at me. “Build our ammo!”

“No!”

Courtney leans around James to shoot me a bewildered look, one that asks why the hell those two are trying to recruit me.

And, with a glance up the path at the unmoving Serena and Dray, I see that they, too, wear the same dubious look.

I don’t know.

Maybe they learned I have mad skills when we built snowmen. I don’t consider them friends or anything.

“I’ll cover you!” Piper shouts, as though I have agreed, which I fucking haven’t, then she piles just five lame snowballs on one hooked arm before she takes a crouching stance. “It’s just a bunch of juniors—I’ve got you.”

Juniors are still university students. They are nineteen years old. I doubt they have weak, lame and unusable arms for throwing snowballs at my face.

But then Teddy adds, “I’ll do your history essay!”

I arch my brows.

He nods, urgent, “I swear on the moon, I’ll write the whole thing!”

I don’t give it another moment’s thought.

I just push from the wall and, ducked low, bolt for the shrubs.

Piper holds true to her word. She jumps up and starts swinging those snowballs as far as she can.

I’m struck on the hip, hard, and the bite of pain is sharp enough that I wince, and I know there was a stone in that one, little fuckers.

I dive behind the shrub. And the look I aim up at Piper is anything but kind.

“Sorry,” she hisses, then drops, empty-handed.

I flip onto my knees and start stacking snow into balls. I make sure to shove as much of the gravel and stones into them as I can.

And I work, fast.

Teddy and Piper and, down at the next lines of shrubs, my brother and Landon, pelt snowball after snowball at the now screaming juniors.

“Stones!” I shout down at Landon.

Mildred is quick to throw a snarl at me.

But they listen.

“They’re putting stones in them!”

Oliver’s face twists, furious, then he starts to dig under the shrub. I’ve made more for Teddy and Piper than they can use as quickly as I build them.

So I help.

I jump up and—did I mention I have a wicked aim? Shot put was an easy pass for me in P.E. and I’m a star at darts.

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