They shove me to the ground, one kicking me in the back, the other in the stomach. They back away, wait for me, and shift on their toes, ready. My arms shake under me as I try to stand up, but I cough, feeling the vomit rise.

  I blow out three hard breaths, steel my muscles, and force myself up.

  I stare at them through the hair that’s fallen in my eyes, and I feel the fire spreading across my stomach and over my face.

  “Fight back,” Cate demands.

  I sniffle. “Nah, I’m good.”

  A hand flies across my face. Emaline, I think. “Fight back!”

  I groan, a few tears streaming that I can’t stop. The corner of my mouth stings. My knees shake.

  Cate pushes me to the ground, both of them coming in, and I hold my stomach to protect myself, but then…nothing comes.

  Cate whips backward, grabbed by the hair, and Aracely is there, slapping Emaline to the ground.

  I breathe a sigh of relief, dropping my head back to the ground, and for a moment, all the pain is gone. God, yes. I don’t think I’m going to be able to take more.

  Yelps and growls go off around me, and I don’t even look to know Aracely doesn’t need any help. None what…so…ever.

  Using every muscle I can muster, I roll onto my stomach and start to pry myself off the ground.

  “We could have you arrested!” Cate screams, blood dripping from her nose.

  But Aracely just flashes her white teeth, gesturing to the live cam on top of the visitor’s center. “And you’d even be able to prove it.”

  They see the camera, which would’ve caught Aracely beating them up, but it also would’ve caught them jumping me. Milo jumping me.

  Emaline stares at the cam, frozen. “Shit.”

  I chuckle, wiping the blood under my nose. They’ll get the town’s recording deleted, for sure. They’re connected like that. But it’s live. Not that many people will be watching, but a few will be, and at least one will be recording. They leave in a hurry, turning and disappearing back to the festival.

  “Thanks,” I breathe out to Aracely.

  She studies me. “Why didn’t you fight back?”

  I pull down my sleeve, using it to dab at my cheekbone and mouth. “I’m a Saint, Aracely. The only way to beat us is to keep getting up.”

  A smile peeks out, but she covers it by rolling her eyes. It was four against one. How else did she think I was going to win?

  “Why’d you help me?” I ask her.

  I would think she’d enjoy letting me get my ass kicked.

  “Well…” She shrugs. “I did watch for a little while.”

  I snort. I’m sure.

  I’m not mad, though.

  “But then you just kept rising back up like some kind of hero,” she goes on. “You cunty little bitch.”

  I laugh as she brushes the grass and dirt off my knees, and I’m about to invite her back to my house for some margaritas, but I don’t feel so good. Everything sways in my vision, and I faintly hear a shout. “What the hell?”

  I look behind Aracely, seeing Trace rushing over. Army follows.

  I meet Aracely’s eyes. “Don’t tell them. Please. You know what’ll happen.”

  This isn’t about me. Milo’s baiting them, and if they’re going to risk themselves, it won’t be for this.

  “Oh my God, are you okay?” Clay runs over.

  Everyone crowds around, but my forehead feels like it’s on fire, and I need to get my sweatshirt off. I’m burning up all of a sudden. “I’m fine, I just…I…”

  The world swirls around me, and I let my mouth fall open, feeling sick. I’m going to throw up.

  “Krisjen,” I hear Army say. I think he touches me.

  “Who the fuck did this to you?” Dallas charges.

  My knees start to give out. “I don’t feel so good.” I drop. “I need to sit—”

  Someone’s arms scoop me up before I hit the ground, and I let my head fall into him as I close my eyes.

  “Go get her brother and sister at the bounce house.” Macon’s voice vibrates against my ear.

  “What?”

  “Now!” he shouts at someone.

  Sweat covers my forehead, my stomach roiling as I let him carry me away.

  “Aracely, who did this?” Liv asks as we leave.

  “I didn’t see.”

  Thatta girl.

  No more Jaegers in jail.

  * * *

  —

  A half hour later, I’m sitting on the sink in Macon’s bathroom, sucking on a fruit punch Capri-Sun. He said I needed something cold in my stomach.

  My legs dangle over the side as he dabs a pad with some saline solution on the corner of my lip and cleans up my nose. The guys and kids are making a ruckus downstairs, and I can’t tell who’s being louder.

  “So did you have fun?” I ask, swinging my legs as I look up at him.

  He holds my face, dabbing ointment on the cut on my cheek. “You got the shit kicked out of you, and you’re smiling?”

  “I’m still breathing.”

  He meets my eyes, looking unamused before returning his attention to my face.

  I can’t explain it. I’m injured, but I’m not in pain. All I can feel right now are his hands.

  “You still feel nauseous?” he asks me.

  I shake my head, drinking the rest of the juice.

  “Who was it?” he demands.

  I drop the juice pouch in the garbage can. “Just some girls. Aracely and I took care of it.” And then I add, “Mostly Aracely.”

  “Krisjen…”

  “Did you have fun?” I press again and try to get him to look at me. “It was pretty amazing to see you stand up to Jerome. I don’t usually get to see you in action. I liked it.”

  He goes still, breathing a little harder.

  “Is he an old rival?” I say in a quiet voice.

  He throws the bloody pads away and cracks an ice pack, activating it. “Saint versus Swamp isn’t anything new.”

  He places the pack along my jaw and takes my hand, planting it there to hold it in place.

  “He’ll want you more now,” he says, almost whispering. “Because he thinks you’re mine.”

  My heart thuds hard.

  “Maybe I should’ve fought back,” I tell him. “All Bay women are fighters, right?”

  “My woman won’t need a steel jaw.” He puts away the supplies. “Just a steel stomach.”

  I watch him as he avoids my gaze, doing everything he can not to look at me. God, I want to know her. The woman who will belong to him.

  He peels off some thin strips of tape, bandaging the cut on my cheek. He’s pretty good at this. My parents would just pay someone to do it.

  “Sometimes I wonder how much of your military training you’re willing to use to keep the Bay safe,” I think out loud, listing on my fingers. “You seem to know computers, mechanics, and you’re definitely skilled at strategy…What did you do in the Marines?”

  “I was a combat medic.”

  I laugh, feeling the sting as he puts the final piece of tape over my cut. Of course. I should’ve seen that coming.

  “Did you ever see combat?”

  He nods.

  “Must’ve been hard.” I start to lean into his fingertips as they brush my skin, but I stop myself. “Especially seeing that aspect of it. But still…do you miss being out in the world?”

  He swallows, turning away to get another piece of tape and then coming back to me. “The more I got a glimpse of how big the world is, the smaller I wanted mine to be,” he says. “I saw a lot, traveled…And I learned that the only things that brought me joy were the things that were familiar.”

  I hold my breath. Keep going.

  “People I knew,” he continues, “muddy roads with memories, key lime pie, the couch I first made out with a girl on…”

  “You still have the couch?”

  “It’s in the garage.”

  That’s awesome. I want to ask him if that’s where he lost his virginity, too. Or if it was in a bed, and if the bed is still in the house.

  I can’t picture him in a bed, though. My mind wanders, and I see it in my head. In a shower. It was in a shower. He picks her up. She wraps her arms and legs around him, and he holds her close as they do it against the wall.

  “What?” I hear him ask.

  I blink, realizing the look that must be on my face. I drop my eyes.

  “Um…” I pause, trying to find my voice. “Thank you for helping me.”

  I hop off the counter and head out of his bedroom, but he catches me in the hallway, taking me by the elbow.

  I turn.

  “Liv’s room,” he instructs. “You need rest. Mars will make sure Paisleigh gets her bath, and I’ll send her up when it’s time for bed. Mars can sleep in Iron’s.”

  He heads down the stairs, and I drift toward his sister’s bedroom door, barely noticing the ache settling in my body. He thought I was heading to Army’s room. I’m not sure where I was going, but yeah, I need sleep.

  Closing myself away in Liv’s room, I pull off my jeans and take off my bra, then slip my arms back into my T-shirt, and uncover the bed. I hope Liv is sleeping at Clay’s tonight.

  My phone rings. I drop the blankets and pick up my jeans, digging out my phone. Clay’s name flashes on the caller ID.

  “Hey, I’m okay,” I assure her before she can ask.

  “Good.” It’s quiet wherever she is, so she must be home now. “If it was Milo—”

  “I can handle myself,” I tell her, but I’m smiling. She’s worried. At least one Saint still loves me. “You just worry about spending time with Ms. Jaeger.”

  “Speaking of Jaegers,” she teases. “Army?”

  Great.

  I stroll to the window, looking out onto the derelict wing, a wild garden of flowers and weeds and ivy climbing and reclaiming.

  “And who told you that, now?”

  But she just replies, “Please.”

  Just then, a figure moves into my line of sight. Macon walks into the dark, abandoned skeleton of the house that his ancestors built. He moves alone, stopping in the middle of the garden, and stands there, looking down. Looking at nothing.

  I can see the leather bracelet from here, the hourglass glimmering as it catches the moonlight.

  When he had his arms around me today…My hand was on his wrist. On the bracelet.

  It felt the same as that night.

  It takes a moment to work up the courage. “Could it have been Macon?” I ask her.

  She’s quiet.

  “That night on the couch,” I explain. “Can you see it being him?”

  She hesitates but then states, “You want it to be.”

  Is that an observation or an accusation?

  “Is there a spark?” she asks me.

  I almost laugh. A spark…

  “Bright and big and warm and lodged in my chest every time I’m alone with him,” I tell her, my voice cracking. I don’t know why I want to cry. I’m not sad.

  Jesus. I’m eighteen. He’s thirty-one. What am I thinking? I thought Jerome was too old for me, but Macon is about the same age. And I don’t think I would even care if he was older than that.

  But Clay replies, “I know that feeling.”

  Yeah. These damn Jaegers. It was over for her the moment she first kissed Liv.

  But Macon will want someone more mature. I’ll never grow up. I’ll always want balloons on my birthday.

  “You did say it was the best you ever had,” Clay points out. “It would make sense, I guess. He’s the oldest, more experienced…”

  I watch him, his beautiful body dressed in black pants and no shirt. I try to imagine him on me. Has he been on me already?

  “It couldn’t have been him.” I shake my head. “Macon keeps everything pent up.”

  “No one does all the time.”

  * * *

  —

  By Monday, I’m still thinking about Clay’s words.

  Macon is a man. Even though the bulk of my experience with him is intimidating and far from warm, he’s not the machine he presents himself to be. He’s not. He can laugh. Play. Be overtaken with desire.

  She’s right. He may resist those feelings as much as possible, but they do burst forth at some point or another. In his hand around someone’s neck. His kiss on their temple. His thumb brushing a breast.

  And around the time I get off work in the early afternoon, I let myself admit silently in my head that if it wasn’t him on the couch that night, I don’t want to know. Even if nothing ever happens between us again, I like the allure of thinking it might’ve been him. And that he wanted me.

  I climb the stairs to Liv’s room to change my clothes before running to get the kids from Bateman, but when I reach the top, I see Army and Dallas moving boxes out of the room next to Dallas and Iron’s. They pile them in the hallway, the boxes overflowing with clothes, decor, fake flowers, and old board games. Mixed into the mess are an easel, a drafting table, and a large mason jar, cloudy with paint splatter and filled with brushes.

  “You all are home early. What are you doing?” I ask, trying to see into the room. This door was always closed. I never had a reason to open it.

  Army heaves another box to the top of the pile. “Macon said to clear it out.”

  “What is this room?” I spot a window with sheer pink curtains and the foot of a twin bed. A pile of canvases lays on top of it.

  “It was Mom’s art studio,” he tells me.

  Dallas opens the window, and I spot Trace behind the door, tossing out an old vacuum.

  Their mom painted? There’s no art displayed on the walls in the house.

  Then I see the glassware on a shelf. I draw in a breath, holding it for a second. She was a glassmaker, too.

  Macon and Army’s fight on Thanksgiving…

  That’s why they looked devasted when they broke everything on the tables.

  Shit.

  Army comes up to me, gently taking my face in his hands. “You okay?”

  I hesitate, turning my attention back to him. The swelling has gone down a lot, but the cut on the corner of my mouth stings. It reopened every time I tried to eat today. But I nod. “I’m okay.”

  He smiles. “Should we send Aracely and her crew after them again?”

  “Oh, she made her point,” I say. “Don’t worry.”

  He holds my eyes. “I’ve missed you at night.”

  I place my hand on his as he holds my cheek. I don’t know what to say. He’s the one I should want. Out of all of them, he’s the one who’s ready for forever.

  I take a deep breath, looking around at all the things cluttering the hallway. “There’s some cool stuff here.” I peek into boxes. “What does he want with the room?”

  “Hopefully it’s for Dex.” Army pulls away, back to taking boxes Dallas and Trace hand him. “So I can have some privacy again.”

  And he smiles at me like we both know why he wants his room to himself.

  “Why didn’t you just tell him you needed it a year ago when he was born?”

  “I did.”

  I start to shake my head, but then I stop. It would be just like Macon to punish Army for having a kid, but if it was their mother’s studio, Macon might’ve had other reasons for keeping the room off-limits.

  I start to back away. “I need to get the kids from the nanny.”

  Bateman has been paid up, but I don’t want to be late like my mom.

  But Trace calls out, “They’re already here.”

  “What?”

  “Mars is making dinner,” Army tells me, “and Paisleigh is doing her homework in the garage.”

  “Bateman just gave the kids to you?” I blurt out.

  “We’re persuasive,” Dallas mumbles.

  Yeah, right. I should probably call the poor guy and make sure he hasn’t called the police to report the kids being kidnapped.

  I head downstairs, but then halt as Army’s words finally hit me. Mars is making dinner?

  I peek into the kitchen, seeing my twelve-year-old brother rolling balls of ground beef between his hands as a pot steams on the stove. I get weepy. Aw. Spaghetti and meatballs. I taught him to make that.

  All I say is “Hey” as I walk to the door to the garage. Twelve-year-olds are tricky. If I hover, try to help, or gush about how much I love him, he’ll stop and never cook again.

  “Hey,” he says back.

  I walk into the garage, seeing Paisleigh sitting on a stool at the worktable. Her legs dangle as she swings her feet in her pink Chucks. “Hey.” I smooth her ponytail as I look to see what she’s working on. “Good day?”

  She nods. “Trace got us from home. Mars went in the truck with the others, but I got to go on Trace’s motorcycle!”

  I freeze, thankful she’s busy coloring instead of seeing my snarl. “I’ll be talking to him about that.”

  I look around. The garage door is up, the hood of a car that looks like it’s from the eighties is propped open with tools discarded nearby. “Why are you in here by yourself?” I ask her.

  She changes out her crayon for an orange one. “The mean one was here, but he left.”

  The mean one. Macon?

  “He was mean to you?”

  “No. He gave me ice cream.” She starts coloring the title of her Rosa Parks Day worksheet. “But he was mean to the people who came over.”

  I peer outside, but I don’t see any unfamiliar cars or trucks. “What did they say to him?” I ask her.

  “I dunno. He left with them.”

  “In a car?”

  “No.” She points diagonally, in the direction of the firehouse. “Over there.”

  I walk around her. “Stay here.”

  I should stay out of it. If Macon wanted help, he would’ve asked for it. His brothers are home.