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I rolled my eyes.

Drama queen.

I was almost to the locker rooms when a guy’s voice carried from behind me.

“She’s got legs for days,” he said.

I slowed. The legs comment instantly clued me into who he was talking about.

“You think she’s skinny until you catch her out jogging with all that tan skin showing,” he went on, apparently unaware that his voice carried. “Girl’s got a fucking body on her. Toned abs, flawless ass, tits are a perfect handful—”

He was finishing with an exaggerated chef’s kiss and a disturbing grunt.

I turned. There were about six guys that I vaguely recognized listening to his little diatribe.

And there it was. A Bishop brother was already headed his way.

Ruckus was handling it. Of course he was.

The guy folded around Ruckus’s fist with a startled grunt. Ruckus looked over and caught me watching. He smiled. Sweetly. Innocently. “What?” he asked.

The crowd of guys dispersed. No one wanted trouble with the Bishops.

I glanced around. No teachers in view, at least.

I stared at Ruckus. “He choke on something?”

He glanced down at the guy, who was still trying to recover his breath. He shrugged. “Looks like it,” he said mildly. “His words maybe.”

The funny part was he’d been holding my backpack through all of that. He handed it off to me.

“Thanks, psycho,” I said, shaking my head.

I started walking again.

I paused briefly when I heard Ruckus pitch his voice low, his tone going mean like someone had flipped a switch.

“You’re lucky it was me that heard that,” he told the guy under his breath. “I’m the nice brother. If Mayhem—or, God help you,Chief—catches Hazel’s name on your mouth like that you’ll be lucky to keep your teeth.”

I kept walking.

In the locker room, I changed into the cut-off shorts and T-shirt I’d packed.

By first period, I was tired enough to regret the six miles. By second, I was starving. By lunch, I could’ve eaten one of Mayhem’s steaks raw.

Sadie was waiting for me outside the cafeteria. She took one look at my face.

“You look terrible.”

“Good morning to you too.”

“It’s lunch.”

“Then your timing is even worse.”

She fell into step beside me. “Max?”

I’d texted her about it first thing in the morning. I was really hoping to have a better update by the time I saw her at school. “Still gone.”