Page 98 of Cruel Academy (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 2)

Guilt twists in my stomach. I should have checked in on her. If I’d turned my phone on, I could have—what? I can’t be with her all the time. I can’t protect her from everything.

The thought feels like a stone sinking through my center.

The only thing I wanted to do was protect Haley. Even when I didn’t understand anything else, I understood that … and I failed.

“Caleb?” Her voice is soft and shaky. She may say she is fine, but I can hear that she isn’t.

“Tell me what happened.”

I stand perfectly still, listening as she explains going for her run, the text from Estefania, and the attack. Two men attacked her, one of them Levi.

With every word, the rage I longed to feel for my father appears and grows. It unfurls inside of me, filling the empty spaces.

It feels like purpose.

Even after I called Levi out at the last fight, he came for Haley again. I should have known. Levi is just a symptom, not the root cause of all this shit.

The root cause is Bumper.

He is the reason Levi cares about Haley at all. Bumper is the one running that show. If Levi attacked Haley, it was on Bumper’s orders. I’m almost sure of it.

I’ll kill him.

I don’t realize I’ve spoken out loud until Haley gasps. “No, Caleb. Don’t. Levi isn’t worth it.”

“Bumper.”

“He isn’t worth it, either. It’s just a few bruises,” she says. “With some makeup, they won’t even be that noticeable.”

Injuries. They fuckingdared. They touched her. They hurt her.

I’ll kill them all.

“I actually fought them off … because of you,” she says. “I heard your voice in my head during the fight, telling me what to do. Because of you, Caleb, I’m fine.”

“Where are you? I want to see you.”

My keys are lying on the coffee table. I snag them, drop them, growl in frustration.

“I’m at home.”

Perfect. I won’t even need to drive. “I’m at Finn’s. I’ll be over in a minute.”

“Caleb. No.”

I frown. “What do you mean? Why not?”

“Number one, my parents are asleep in the room next to mine. Number two, you’re drunk.”

I have no idea how she can tell I’m drunk through the phone. I thought I was hiding it relatively well. Apparently not.

“I’m not that drunk.”

“Even if you were stone-cold sober, my dad would kill you for coming to my house this late at night,” she says. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

I grind my teeth together. It’s too late to go back and fix what happened—I know that—but the idea of sitting here and doing nothing is unbearable. I want to fix this. I want to make it right.

“Go to sleep,” she adds. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

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