It was Clancy.
I took a step toward him, toward that smile. I could…I could forgive him, couldn’t I? It would be easy. Everything with Clancy was easier. My feet moved on their own, knowing exactly where I needed to go. Where I was supposed to go.
But Liam didn’t let me, and Chubs wasn’t about to, either. I felt the latter’s hands grab my backpack. The moment Liam stepped back in front of me, Clancy disappeared from sight, and I couldn’t remember why it had felt so important to go to him, to let him walk me back to camp.
“Stop it!” Liam yelled. “Whatever you’re doing to her, stop it!”
“He’s not—” Mike began, looking between Liam and Olivia. I saw her just beyond Liam’s shoulders, her face a grim mask. Behind them, the other kids from Liam’s watch detail were abuzz, unsure of where to look.
“I’m not doing anything,” Clancy said, his voice taking on an edge of ice. “You’re the one that’s jealous of the relationship she and I have.”
The boys around him began to nod in agreement, their faces strangely expressionless.
“You’re the one that’s trying to break the rules here,” he continued. “Because it is a rule, isn’t it, Liv? If you want to leave, you have to ask me, right?”
She hesitated, but nodded.
Liam’s arm dropped from in front of me slowly. His brows drew together, and he seemed to incline his head toward Clancy, as if listening to something the rest of us couldn’t hear. I felt, rather than saw, the tension leave the lines of his shoulders. He took a step back, and then another away from me, one hand going to his forehead. “Sorry…I just…I didn’t mean…”
“You’re happy here, aren’t you?” Clancy asked, pleasantly. “There’s no reason why you can’t go back to feeling that way. There are rules here. You know them now, and you won’t break them again, will you?”
“No,” Liam said, his voice hoarse. He was staring at me, but his eyes had taken on a milky quality that I recognized at once. And so, apparently, did Chubs. His own eyes narrowed, zeroing in on Clancy with pure, razor-sharp fury.
“Let me tell you what I think about your f**king rules,” he said, his voice dripping with venom as he pushed past Liam. “You sit up in your room and you pretend like you want what’s best for everyone, but you don’t do any of the work yourself. I can’t tell if you’re just a spoiled little shit, or if you’re too worried about getting your pretty princess hands dirty, but it sucks. You are f**king awful, and you sure as hell don’t have me fooled.” The full force of Clancy’s cold gaze fell on Chubs, but he went on, undaunted. “You talk about us all being equals, like we’re one big happy rainbow of peace and all that bullshit, but you never once believed that yourself, did you? You won’t let anyone contact their parents, and you don’t care about the kids who are still trapped in camps your father set up. You wouldn’t even listen when the Watch kids brought it up. So what I want to know is, why can’t we leave?” He took another step forward, cutting off Clancy before he could start speaking. “What’s the point of this place, other than for you to get off on how great you are and toy with people and their feelings? I know what you did to Ruby.”
The others stood by in silence, but the longer Chubs spoke, the clearer their eyes became; Mike, in particular, shook off Clancy’s influence with a look like he was about to be sick. The other kids’ eyes flicked around, nervous and unsure.
Clancy had been perfectly still the entire time Chubs had torn into him, but now that Chubs was finished, Clancy leaned in close, as if he were about to whisper a secret to him. Only, when he spoke, his voice was loud enough for us all to hear. “I toyed with more than her feelings.” His eyes flicked to Liam’s face. “Didn’t I, Stewart?”
The sweep of furious crimson that washed up over Liam’s throat to his face was enough to tell me exactly what kind of image Clancy had pushed into his head.
“Don’t!” I screamed, but it was too late for that.
What happened next passed so fast that half of the people gathered there must have missed it. Liam raised his fist, ready to launch it into Clancy’s smug face, but his hand got no farther than his shoulder. Every part of him—every muscle, every joint, every sinew—went board-straight, like he had received a great electric jolt. He froze, and a breath later, he was on the ground and Hayes’s fists were slamming into his face.
“Stop!” I begged, ripping free of Chubs’s grip. I knew what Clancy had done to him, and why he couldn’t even raise a hand to protect his face. I saw a spray of blood hit the dirt, and it was more than I could take.
It was more than any of us could take.
“Clance,” I heard Olivia say, “that’s enough. You made your point. Hayes—you’ll kill him!”
Again and again and again, on whatever surface of skin he could find, Hayes drove his fist into Liam, like he could pound his fury into him. The blows didn’t stop until Clancy put a hand on his shoulder, and even then, Hayes made sure to get one last punch in across the face. He heaved Liam up by the front of his shirt, and when Clancy nodded to him, Hayes slammed Liam back against the ground and stood up, leaving him a limp mess of raw skin facedown in the dirt.
The moment the two of them were out of sight, Chubs and I both lurched forward, pushing through the circle of kids that closed around Liam. We got maybe two steps before Mike blocked us from going farther.
“Don’t,” he said. “You’ll only make it worse.”
“What are they going to do to him?” Chubs said.
“Go back to your cabin,” he told us. “We’ll take care of him.”
“No,” I said, “we’re not leaving without him.”
Mike rounded on me. “I don’t know what the hell you said to him or made him think, but Lee was happy here. This is exactly what he needed, and you’ve screwed him over—”
“Don’t you dare,” Chubs snapped. “Don’t you dare blame her for this. Your head is so up the Slip Kid’s ass you can’t see anything that’s going on around you!”
Mike bared his teeth. “We all put up with you at Caledonia because Liam asked us to, but I don’t have to do that here.”