Page 46 of Heartbreak Kings
He recovered slightly and glared at me. “How?” he asked, voice cracking. “How am I wrong?”
“It’s simple. We’re not her toys, she is ours. We have her completely in hand. That’s why she has done no more negative reporting on the campus and why she’s been quietly doing her work instead of sending the police after you already.” I stared hard into his eyes until he blinked and glanced away. He feared the police.Good.
“As for opposing the administration’s ham-handed move, we’re going after them directly. With lawyers. Not by terrorizing the girl caught in the middle, not by threatening her family or friends, not by being sexist pieces of shit who eagerly break the law.”
He tried on a smirk. “Well, that’s awfully politically correct of you.”
“Cuck,” one kid with him said.
I turned on him, a skinny, colorless kid with an underbite and dull hazel eyes. “What, like your dad? From the looks of you, Mommy cheated on him with a salamander.” The guy reddened and shut his mouth, glancing away.
I turned back to Carmody. “You shouldn’t have been allowed to hang your maladjusted ass around our campus causing problems for so long. And now, you’re about to go to jail because you’re too thickheaded and full of hate to knock it off and focus on school. Or pledging. Or anything else. Meanwhile, we’re handling this. The right way.”
“Then why isn’t she gone?” he screeched suddenly, exploding out of his seat, purple-faced, sweat breaking out all over him. “Why isn’t that fucking idiot out of our space?”
“Because we don’t take orders from you, pledge,” I replied coldly. “Something you have conveniently forgotten repeatedly for years. But now? Now, you can fuck off.”
His jaw dropped, and he started hyperventilating. “You can’t throw me off the list. My father…”
“Your father’s support hasn’t been needed for years,” I sighed. “And if you get yourself thrown in jail, you can’t expect him to go to bat for you with us anyway.”
His mouth worked as he slowly sat back down. “You’re telling me this, why? To scare me away from your piece of ass?”
“To keep you from doing something so goddamned stupid that you end up in jail and drag your dumbass followers with you.” I panned my eyes around. “You guys want to catch a record and maybe jail time for this dick? Think about it.”
A few of them appeared doubtful, but most just glared back at me stubbornly.Dumbass kids.Carmody had gone and found himself the youngest, stupidest antifeminists he could to back him. I wondered if any of them were students here at all.
“My father has an excellent lawyer,” Carmody scoffed. “And it will be hard to have me thrown in jail when I have witnesses handy who can say, for example, that you threw the first punch.”
“Nobody’s throwing punches here, you damn idiot. I didn’t come to kick your ass, even if that is pretty fucking tempting. Are any of these kids students? Because you’re supposed to register guests at the front desk.” I glanced around.
“Fuck administration’s rules,” he spat. “They’re the ones who got us into this mess.”
“Then why the hell don’t you go after them instead of after Sabine, who can’t change the basic situation? You know, unlike the people running the school? Like we’ve been doing for weeks?” I couldn’t believe this idiot.
“I don’t believe you’ve done a damn thing,” he started, then stiffened when I set my briefcase on the table in the center of the room and snapped it open.
“The suit is a matter of public record.” I pulled out a copy of the brief and slid it across toward him. “Here’s a copy.”
“I…” He hesitated, then scooped up the papers and glanced through them. “The hearing isn’t even happening until next month!”
“That’s the legal system for you. That’s what has to happen if you take the high road. That’s exactly what we’re—”
“That’s not good enough!” he screamed, weakly flinging the papers in my general direction. They flapped to the table and the floor chaotically, none of them landing near me. “I want her out now. Now. Get the cunt out now.”
“My God, do you need psychological help,” I groaned. “This is not how life as an adult works.”
I heard a noise behind me and felt someone coming up in my blind spot. I snapped my briefcase closed and, purely on reflex, spun around and brought it up, just in time to block the chair one of his fuckboy followers was swinging at me.
The impact sent a shock up my arm and broke the cheap wood in two places. He tried to swing it again, and I stepped forward, slamming the corner of the briefcase under his jaw. “Call off your dogs, Carmody!” I warned, but it was too late.
These little shits had come here spoiling for a beatdown and were ready to jump anyone their piece-of-shit leader pointed them at. Maybe they were too young for regular jail and figured why not. Or maybe they really were that dumb.
The three who tried to jump me first went down, one unconscious under a broken chair, one bleeding from his nose and sobbing on his knees, and one holding his balls and retching. I didn’t give a shit. They kept coming, and I kept striking back.
Carmody’s smirk slowly dissolved. His eyes looked worried as I shoved my way toward him, shaking loose two of his goons as I went. Blows rained down on my back and arms as I moved toward him, determined to pin him down for security. I was sure as hell that someone must have overheard the fight and called them by now.
“Get him!” one of his idiot followers yelled.
