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Tiff unhinged

Tiff felt good, it’d beenin her skin whenever that bathroom door squeaked as it shut

And Hamilton ay

She even went to the bathroom by herself now The first tis

Tiff didn’t tell anyone that she passed out froale about it though She was kinda stiff but what the doc said

"You’ve associated the bathrooer for you" Those clear blue eyes aze

"Now, let’s go over the fainting episode so we don’t have a recurrence"

Fainting episode Gawd it was all so dumb "I don’t knohy I bit it," Tiff said, her hands straying to where her guale watched her nervous twitch and waited

"Okay, so u it like it was a lifeline

Nightingale nodded, a ghost of a s around her lips "As it should"

Tiff tore her gaze off the floor andeyes

It was no bullshit, the doc cared about Tiff She saw it and recognized the genuineness of her iale said softly, "It wasn’t your fault, Tiffany Weller"

Tiff broke

She burst into tears for the first tiale wrapped her up, holding her tightly

A tough girl and her E each other

CHAPTER 8

Jonesy

April

My ar around Jade’s neck as we paced an easy rhythun and I swore that everybody had their head wedged, running around hollering and cheering that school was out for a week

Jade and I were thinking of all the things we could do to each other in a week

Well, I was anyway

John and Tiff alking together, he acting as her protective shadow When it had beco her alone again ever, she had stopped yelling about bodyguard shit

It just hat it was And that was all

Sophie was hu the latest pop tune (badly) as her internal disc was fired up on whatever loud as hell, and ere suffering

A singer she was not

Then she drowned us with the exterior sound She’d recently gotten an app that let the music come out of her mouth

Kinda like the karaoke of the past, pulse style

That’s when Jonesy came up out of nowhere and did the typical launch at unsuspecting people thing He was expert at it and today’s target was Tiff and John

I thought later that it had been eneral mood of the school; Jonesy had been swept up in the euphoria (iroup he stumbled on

Sophie’sJonesy’s approach

There were a million people everywhere so he was just another person in the crowd

He swung both ar between the

Jade stiffened a moment before Tiff’sat as going down

I saw Jonesy but was too late to stop it I knehen his six feet of iddiness nailed Tiff she’d freak

Jade told o took her froive it a lot of forethought He was a Reactor, plain and siht act as an anchor as she sunk like a rock to the floor

John’s face was coe the next

He belted Jonesy so hard he flew, his dark head kicking back

I didn’t think Terran had it in him I also think that for the first time ever he hadn’t used his Frontal Lobe

Yeah, looked like Terran’s wasn’t fully developed either Here was the proof

Alex, Archer and I stood stupidly for a second as Terran realized he’d belted Jonesy Terran didn’t even try to apologize He grabbed a hysterical Tiff, as screarabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him In a loud voice he said, "It’s John, Tiffany!"

She blinked, the tears and snot fro her face

"John?" she asked like she didn’t know hiht in front of her face

He slowly nodded from above her

She jumped into his arms and John snapped theot you" he said, pressing her head against his chest His eyesokay, ht it was him" Tiff said as fresh tears fell

"He can’t hurt you Tiff, you’re safe" John’s eyes met hers and she held on to hi in the world

Then John said the unthinkable, "I’ll keep you safe I love you, Tiff"

He said it in front of the student body of KPH, his friends and a girl that had rejected him countless tiave him a look and Jonesy backed aith his palms up in surrender

"He didn’t rape me," she said, so quietly I barely heard her

Jade hiccuped a sob back into her throat, covering her , Tiff," John said, dis the semantics of the assault

"He touched me, he he touchedon the material of his shirt as she shook with her sobs "I woke up to hi it" she whispered her confession miserably

I’d never seen death so eloquently held up in a stare I’d raised it, conquered it and called it

Yet the death I saw in John’s flat blue eyes was for one person: Carson Hamilton

God help hiized for punching Jonesy and of course, Jonesy thought it was cool that John would So that ended that With guys, you could duke it out and still be friends later