Page 54 of Fearless

Mason chuckled. “Keep telling yourself that.” And he deposited both tablets on his tongue and closed his mouth over them.

“Jesus Christ, Mason,” Carter groaned. “What are you doing, man?”

“Is it any good?” Beau asked. “Can you feel it yet? I want one.”

“Do you even know what you just put into your mouth?” Ava asked, fear crawling down the back of her neck. “It could be lye, for all you know.”

“What?” Megan asked. “Did your dad sell him lye?”

“No,” Ava said through her teeth. “My dad didn’t sell him–”

Mason went stiff. Ava saw the way his arms snapped to his sides, the way his spine went rigid and his muscles clamped together. Like a marionette, he drew up totally straight, totally still.

“Mason,” she said. “Shit–”

And then he fell to the ground, in the grips of a full-on seizure.

“Mason!” Ainsley screamed.

“Get him on his side,” Ava said as she tried to move toward him. “On his side, hurry!”

Beau reached him first and complied, rolling his friend over. Mason’s arms flailed and his legs kicked and he made a freakish grunting sound.

“He’s got foam coming out of his mouth!” Beau shouted. “Oh, shit! Shit, shit, shit!”

“Here.” Ava moved in to help…

And was tackled backward. Her head thumped the turf and the air was forced from her lungs as she made impact.

It was Ainsley, her perfect nails going for Ava’s face. “What did you do to him, you bitch?”

Okay, that was it. That was fuckingit.

Ainsley may have been a cheerleader, may have been athletic, may have been half-drunk and fueled by rage. But her anger had nothing on that which lived in Ava’s DNA. And she hadn’t been raised by an army boxer-turned-outlaw-biker and a teenage mother with a mean right hook. Ainsley wasn’t in love with a man who tortured for a living.

Ava brought her knee up in one swift move and caught Ainsley just beneath the ribs, knocking the breath out of her. She heaved at both the other girl’s shoulders and sent her sprawling backward. By the time Ainsley got her legs under her – she was swearing and screaming and sobbing, as Carter and Beau yelled at Mason, asking if he could hear them – Ava was on her feet and ready.

“You bitch!” Ainsley screeched. “What did you do?!”

Ava ducked Ainsley’s clumsy slap and popped back up, fists raised. It wasn’t a left jab, but her mama’s hook she threw at the blonde’s face full-force. Ainsley’s nose crunched. Blood spewed on impact. Ainsley screamed again and dropped to the ground, clutching her face.

“I didn’t do anything to him,” Ava spat, rolling her shoulder; she’d almost thrown it out of the socket with that punch. “He did it do his fucking self.”

She glanced over at Megan, who seemed to have no idea if she should be crying, helping her friend, or running for her life. “Call nine-one-one,” Ava said. “If you’re even capable.”

Someone, probably Jerry the live-in janitor, cut on the stadium lights with a deafeningwhump – hummmmm. And the night was flooded with white light. Ava closed her eyes against the assault, and the tears she refused to shed.

“So help me God, if I don’t get to see my daughter…”

The interview room door closed, sealing off Maggie’s squad room tirade.

“We’ll let her know you’re okay in a minute,” Officer Fielding said as he returned to the table and took his seat opposite Ava. “For right now, let’s just you and me talk.”

They were in the cushy interview room, the one that made you feel a little less criminal. But Ava could see the judgment lurking behind the cop’s façade. He was a longtime acquaintance, never a friend. He’d gone to school with Maggie, had even, if the rumored whispers were true, carried a bit of a torch for her. He was a pleasant-looking man, fit and unremarkable; his brown eyes carried a professional amount of sympathy at all times. His uniform was always spotless, his belt and tie straight. Ava would never forgive him for the time he’d come to visit them in the hospital when Aidan broke his arm falling off his dirt bike at fourteen and Fielding asked Aidan if it had truly been an accident, or if Ghost was to blame for the injury. He thought they were scum, the lot of them, and no amount of understanding nods and soothing platitudes could win Ava over.

“Officer Fielding, I’m seventeen,” she said, folding her arms. “You can’t talk to me without a parent present.”

He twitched a humorless smile. “I was hoping you wouldn’t know that. Then again, you weren’t brought up by your average soccer mom, were you?”

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