Chapter 200
I lurched forward and grabbed Liam around the collar before Brandon could even move, though I’m sure he’d hesitated because he was doing his best not to annihilate Liam. I had lost my cool, and I could no longer control myself. I backed him up into the closest wall, my free hand in a tight fist. “You’re the biggest jerk I’ve ever met in my whole life, William White!” I spat, wishing I could punctuate my sentence with a few of my father’s choice words. “I ought to punch you in the face! Then we’ll see who’s not as pretty as Cadence!”
I saw an expression of sheer terror sweep across Liam’s face as his pupils dilated, his lips began to quiver, and his skin went pale. And I realized it wasn’t my fist he was afraid of. I closed my mouth and ran my tongue across my teeth. They were there. They’d dropped. Becoming angry had made my fangs appear. Horrified, I began to panic. How would I get out of this one?
Brandon either saw them or sensed what was happening. “All right, Cass, very funny,” he said, pushing me back. “Give me those fangs. Halloween isn’t until next week.” He turned his back so that it was to Liam, and I pretended to take something out of my mouth and hand it to him. He faked putting my fangs in his pocket.
“Let’s get out of here, Cass,” Emma said, wrapping her arm around me. “We’ll let the men handle this—well, the man and the boy.”
Jason stayed with Brandon, not that he would need any help, and as Lucy and Emma directed me back to the stairs, I heard Brandon say, “Seriously? A pair of kids’ vampire teeth had you shaking in your boots? You really are pathetic.”
Everyone started chanting, “Fight!” but I didn’t turn around. I kept walking until I was inside the Lamborghini, afraid to open my mouth for fear of what might be there.
Emma and Lucy both ran around to the driver’s side and managed to squeeze in. “Are you okay?” Lucy asked.
Still afraid to open my mouth, I just shrugged.
“Let us see,” Emma said calmly.
With a deep breath, I turned to face them, with Holt’s house to my back, and opened my mouth. They both smiled at me. “They’re gone,” Lucy assured me.
“Thank goodness,” I replied. I took some deep breaths, calmness beginning to return to my body.
Until a rapping on the window next to my face made me jump out of my skin. I checked with my tongue, though, and my teeth were still normal. I turned to see my sister standing there. I couldn’t roll down the window without the keys, so I had to open the scissor door.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine. But you should leave. You shouldn’t even be here.” The idea that my college-aged sister was hanging out at a high school party, especially after Liam’s comments, was mortifying.
“Yeah, that’s what Aaron said, too, but I wanted to make sure.”
I noticed he was nowhere to be seen. “Just go.”
“Fine,” Cadence huffed and walked away. I saw Brandon and Jason headed across the yard now anyway, and the looks on their faces let me know that whatever had happened, Liam had gotten the worst of it. I wasn’t surprised at that, though.
The girls got out of the car and came around. “What happened?” Lucy asked.
“One punch, and Liam was crying like a baby!” Jason gushed. “It was totally sick.”
I looked at Brandon, wide eyed. “I didn’t even hit him that hard,” he assured me. “Listen, Jason, it was nice to meet you, man. Next time I’m in town, we should totally hang out. But we’ve gotta go.”
“Totally,” Jason agreed, shaking Brandon’s hand.
“Take good care of these two,” Brandon warned, gesturing at my two best friends.
“Yeah, I think we’ll head out now, too,” Jason said.
“Thank God,” Emma sighed. This had been way too much party for her for one year.
“See you guys later,” I called as Brandon hugged both of them and closed my door.
He came around and dug the keys out of his pocket, starting the car without a word. We were almost back to my house when I asked, “Did you punch him?”
“Let’s just say he ain’t pretty no more,” Brandon replied.
It sort of made my stomach flip flop. “You’re so much stronger than him,” I reminded him.
“I know. Even if I were human, I’d be a lot stronger than him. Trust me, Cass, he got what he had coming to him. Guys like that, ones that will lie about a girl’s reputation, ones that will date other girls just to cause trouble, they need someone to come along and knock some sense into them. The punch to the face might be what stings, but the message will stay with him a long time. I made sure of that.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I turned my attention back out the windshield. A few minutes later, we pulled into the drive, and I noticed my sister’s car was already there. She and Aaron must’ve just arrived, but they were inside already by the looks of it. I turned to Brandon. “I know it probably seems like I’m mad at you. I’m not. I’m just… confused. About everything.”
“I know,” he nodded. “I don’t blame you for it, either. It’ll get better, though. Especially when you come to LIGHTS, and you can leave all of these immature children behind.”
He had no idea how I was longing for just that. “Thanks for standing up for me. And pretending to be my boyfriend.”
“Anytime,” he smiled. I saw a bit of hurt there, though, behind his green eyes, like the word “pretending” was a zap to his soul. “Come on. There are a lot of other people waiting to talk to you.”
I didn’t know if that was necessarily true or not, but I got out of the car just the same. I knew I’d feel a lot more comfortable with the people in my parents’ house than the ones I’d just left at Holt’s. Knowing what I knew, knowing what they didn’t know, just kept widening the chasm between us, and there was no question at this point nothing was ever going to bring those two sides back together.
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