Campfire Chaos (Hood River Hoodlums Book 3), стр. 19

Charlotte

I scan the lunchroom, only wincing slightly when I realize my close friends are no longer here. They’ve all moved on. Penny has a different lunch than me, so I can’t even sit with her. Lovely. Oh well. I’ll just text with Roux and Loden. I grab a chicken sandwich and a water before heading toward a table of girls I know. Several are cheerleaders who were a grade below me.

“Hey,” I chirp, forcing a bright smile. “Can I sit here?”

A girl named Shellie smiles at me. “Of course—”

“No,” Heidi says, rising to her feet so that we’re eye level. “The trash sits there.” She points to a garbage can.

I skim my gaze down her front, taking in her gym clothes she was forced to change into after Cal sent her to the office. “Why am I trash?” I arch a brow, subtly indicating she’s the one looking like a hot mess right now.

Several girls giggle and she silences them with a glare. Then, she turns her hazel eyes back on me.

“Everyone knows what a whore you were last year. You slept with three guys at once. There were pictures that went around.” She scoffs. “Is that where you disappeared to? To get rid of all those diseases? Did it take them a long time to pick out all the crabs?”

Reminders of the crap Ryan pulled creep up on me like a cloying fog. So often he’d make me pliable with the pills he’d all but force down my throat. I could have said no. I could have fought it. But I didn’t. I became what they said. A whore.

“You know nothing about me,” I say finally, my voice steady despite the way I barely contain a tremble. “Nothing.”

A guy named Rowdy starts cackling. “Fight! Fight! Fight! But can you do it naked? I totally want to see Heidi and Charlotte wrestle around naked.”

“You don’t belong here,” Heidi states, not backing down and ignoring the idiot who’s chanting. “Maybe you should sit at the whores’ table instead with the Rockford reject.”

She points to a girl sitting alone.

“Does Coach Jenner know what a scathing bitch you are?” I ask, cocking my head to the side. “She’s been known to kick people off the squad for bullying.”

Heidi’s eyes flare with anger. “I’ll deny it. But you can’t exactly deny this.” She pulls her phone out of her gym shorts pocket, flips right to a picture, and holds it up for me to look at.

I’m stunned speechless seeing the picture. I knew they existed—vaguely remember them being taken—but didn’t realize they’d been spread to bitches like Heidi to use against me as ammunition.

She’s too busy glaring at me in triumph to notice the imposing presence behind me. My skin prickles at his nearness. A strong, toned arm with a dress shirt rolled up to the elbow reaches past me, snatching the phone right out of her hand.

“What’s this?” Cal demands.

Heidi audibly gulps, her eyes wide with terror. “N-Nothing. I was telling her she should delete these before they get in the wrong hands.”

“I should make you go visit Ms. Frazier again,” he growls, “because having pictures of underage teens performing sexual acts is a crime that carries time, Miss Fulton. Do you feel like going to jail today?”

Heidi whimpers, no longer the badass she was moments ago. I wonder why Cal is coming to my aid, but I don’t argue it. Not over this. I want these pictures gone and this dealt with. I already have too much on my plate as it is.

“I’m deleting this now.” He messes with her phone and then glowers at the table filled with wide-eyed teens. “If I hear so much as a whisper that any of you have these pictures on your phones, I will bring the police here in a heartbeat so they can investigate every damn one of you.”

Kids start scrambling to open their phones, no doubt worried at what Cal threatens. I could kiss him right now in thanks. He grabs my elbow and then motions at the table—now named the whores’ table—with Heidi’s phone where the girl sits alone.

“Sit over there,” he rumbles, his hard voice holding no room for argument.

The girl—a beautiful black girl with a Rockford hoodie on—grins our way. I decide she’s clearly an outcast like me and could use some company. Before I get far away, I hear Cal tell Heidi he’s keeping her phone until the end of the day and she can pick it up after school from the office.

I set my bottle of water and chicken sandwich down before sitting across from the girl. Extending my hand across the table, I shake hers.

“I’m Charlotte English. Nice to meet you.”

Her eyes widen for a moment, and then they dart over to Cal. “Wait? You’re—”

“The girl who put your cousin in a coma?” Cal offers, taking the seat right next to me. “That’s her.”

My heart skips a beat. This is Terrence’s cousin? Guilt swallows me up and I fear I might drown in it. Two people at this table who are directly affected