Page 114 of Cruel Prep (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 1)

Still, I run after her through the trees towards the house.

When Caleb came out of the house, fists raised, and Viktor trailed after him with a baseball bat, half of the bikers took off immediately. Most of them had had enough run-ins with Caleb in the past to know this fight wouldn’t bend in their favor.

The rest of them stayed and fought.

But as I get closer to the house, I don’t hear anything still happening.

I could take a left and go to check on the progress, but if I do, I could miss Lily. And if I miss her, I’m not sure she’ll ever be alone with me again.

So, I turn right.

There’s enough light coming from the security lights around the house that I can see her dark silhouette moving through the trees.

I follow behind her. My leg is throbbing with every step where one of the bikers kicked me with his steel-toed boots, but I push through the pain. I can’t stop now.

Lily is just about out of the trees when suddenly, she slams to a stop. Her arm wraps around a tree to slow down her progress, and I follow her eyeline to the yard.

One of the Hell Princes is walking across the grass. He is moving strangely, like he is drunk or stoned or both, and Lily doesn’t want him to see her.

Knowing this is the only opportunity I may have to catch up to her, I keep moving, picking my way across the uneven ground. My bare feet are so cut up that I’m almost used to the searing pain.Almost.

Finally, I’m close enough for her to hear my footsteps, and she spins around, fist raised like she might have to fight me off.

“Lily,” I say softly, quietly, so the biker won’t hear us. Though, when I look over her shoulder, I see he is now lying face-down in the grass. “Please. Let me explain.”

She is leaning against a tree, her chest heaving with exertion, tear tracks down her cheeks. “You lied to me about … about everything.”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you.”

She lets out a bitter laugh. “That’s the same thing, Finn. You were there that night. You told Nico to hurt me.”

“No.” I shake my head firmly and move towards her. When she takes a step back, I stop, not wanting to scare her off. “I didn’t, Lily. You found us on that trail and it was obvious how freaked out you were. You screamed and—”

“You were hurting that girl!” She drags a hand across her cheek, wiping the tears away. “I saw you all around her.”

I shake my head. “She was a friend of Nico’s. She was up for a good time, and some of the guys … partook. But it was consensual.”

“And you?” she asks.

“What?”

“Did you partake?”

The question nearly makes me smile because, on some level, Lily cares. She wouldn’t ask unless the answer to that question mattered to her. She wouldn’t have asked if there was no chance of me ever being redeemed in her eyes.

But she is still trying to make up her mind.

So I vow to tell her the truth no matter what.

“No.” I take a slow step towards her.

We are only five feet apart now, and I can see a bruise welling up on her cheek. “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, but I swear to you—I didn’t touch that girl that night.”

She turns away from me, eyes wary. “But you told them to go after me.”

“To explain.” I run a hand through my sweaty hair and sigh. “I thought they would stop you, explain, and then intimidate you a bit to stay quiet. But when I followed, Nico was on top of you and—”

The memory makes my vision go red.

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