God of Pain novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Paid to Watch

By noon on Wednesday, everyone at Hartwell had picked a side.

Girls I had known for years squeezed my arm in the hallway and whispered, "You're so brave."

Boys I barely knew leaned against lockers and watched me with a new, sticky interest.

"Is it true your dad kills people?" one of them asked.

"Is it true your mother dropped you on your head?" said Nellie, passing with a tray, and he went red and left.

Then a senior with a gold watch stopped me outside chemistry.

"Tino Dellarocca's property doesn't get to skip class," he said, smiling, his friends laughing behind him. "You should be careful where you walk."

I opened my mouth.

I didn't get to use it.

Cormac was suddenly there, two steps behind me, saying nothing at all.

He didn't touch the boy, and he didn't raise his voice.

He just looked at him, with the grey eyes and the split eyebrow and the swollen knuckles.

The boy's smile slid off.

"Kidding," he said. "I was kidding, man."

"Go to class."

He went.

The hallway cleared around us.

I turned on Cormac.

"I didn't need you to do that."

"I know."

"I was handling it."

"I know you were."

"Then why do you keep standing in front of me?"

"It's my job."

I laughed. It was an ugly sound.

"Come with me."

I walked down the back stairs, through the gym, across the frozen lawn toward the river.

He followed me the whole way without a word.

The boathouse smelled the same as it had on Sunday, of varnish and cold water.

The shells hung overhead like sleeping birds.

I turned around and shut the door behind us.

"Say it," I said.

"Say what?"

"You know what."

"I don't."

"You drove me across the city with a broken rib. You slept against a door for me. You cried at a dog movie."

"That was a long time ago."

"Last year, Maeve says."

"Maeve exaggerates."

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