Page 79 of Final Drive

“I’d rather fight something I picked than hide from something somebody picked for me.”

Okafor studies me, then nods once, like I’ve confirmed something she already suspected.

“Your teammates are downstairs. Mr. Strickland has been pacing the lobby for an hour. Mr. Lockwood hasn’t moved from his chair.” The corner of her mouth moves. “They aren’t subtle.”

“They never are.”

“Go home, Ms. Callahan. Take the weekend.”

I pick up my bag and walk out into the third-floor hallway. The fluorescents buzz. My heels click on the tile. I feel scraped out, like something’s been taken and I haven’t identified what yet.

The elevator takes too long, so I use the stairs.

He’s on the second-floor landing.

Quinton Whitmore, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, standing exactly where I’d have to pass him. Like he knew which room, and when it would finish, and which way I’d come out.

“Congratulations,” he says.

I stop three steps above him. The stairwell is empty and his voice comes back off the concrete.

“Get out of my way, Quinton.”

“Kinsley’s finished.” He doesn’t move. “Suspended, no-contact order, probably expelled inside a month. You must be delighted.”

“I’m not discussing this with you.”

“No. I don’t imagine you are.” He pushes off the wall and comes up one step. One is enough to change the geometry. He’s taller than me by nearly a foot, and from here he’s looking down. “The thing about Kinsley is she was never especially bright. Good at being angry. Bad at thinking ahead.”

“Unlike you.”

His smile is nothing like any I’ve seen on him. Not charming, not warm, not the careful performance he’s been running since the first day he sat down beside me in Hawthorne’s class. This one is flat and cold and real.

“Unlike me,” he agrees. “I’ve been thinking ahead since Gray and I were sixteen and he took the only thing that mattered to me. I’ve been thinking ahead since I watched your little pack assemble itself and realized Gray finally had something worth breaking.”

The mask is gone completely. No warmth anywhere in his face, no concern in his voice, nothing left of the helpful classmate who tore down photographs and offered to walk me home. This is what has been underneath the whole time.

“You never cared about me at all.”

“I cared what you represented. An Omega playing house with eight Alphas, one of whom ruined my life. You were useful. You were fun.” He takes another step. The railing is against my back now. “And you were easy. Give a lonely girl some attention and she’ll follow you anywhere.”

“I didn’t follow you anywhere.”

“No. You didn’t.” He sounds annoyed, which is the first honest thing he’s given me. “That was the problem. You were supposed to trust me over them. You were supposed to come to me when it got hard and let me take the whole thing apart from the inside. You kept going back.”

“Because they’re worth going back to.”

“They’re territorial animals fighting over a toy.” He’s close enough now that I get his cologne, sandalwood and leather, a smell I used to think was pleasant. “When the novelty wears off and they work out what they’ve actually signed, they’ll drop you the way every Alpha drops every Omega.”

“You don’t know anything about them.”

“I’ve known Gray since we were children. He’s his father’s son, and you’ve met his father.” He leans in and drops his voice. “You think you’re special. Sophia thought she was special.”

“You assaulted Sophia.”

His shoulders come up half an inch before he puts them back down.

“Sophia had a different understanding of that evening. So did the school that cleared me.”