Defiance Falls Boxed Set: The Complete Defiance Falls Trilogy

by Dean, Ali

  I spun then, sick of this guy assuming I had no say in the matter. “Oh, really? You think I want to go with you now?”

  We’d gone unnoticed but with my little outburst, a few people turned our way. Awesome. Okay, I guess I didn’t need to defend myself if it meant making a scene. I was supposed to be making a good impression, not providing entertainment for a frat party. I started to turn back around and let Blake guide me out of there, but Easton was apparently just drunk enough to take my question as flirting.

  “I like a little challenge. For a minute there I thought you were going to make it easy for me.”

  I tried to ignore him, I really did. But Blake was blocked and not moving, and Easton wouldn’t take his hand off my arm.

  I glared at the drunk asshole. “And I thought you were trying to help me, not trap me.”

  “I’m not trapping you. I’m the top scorer on the hockey team, baby. Usually I don’t touch recruits or even freshman chicks. Too clingy. I’m willing to make an exception for you.”

  Was this guy for real? He was giving me a lopsided grin filled with confidence. I shot him a disgusted look and pushed at Blake’s back, only to realize we were caged in. Three guys were blocking his exit, and a group of onlookers were standing behind Easton to the other side.

  “I never gave you permission to touch me,” I gritted out while shaking his hand off my arm.

  Blake was now trying to push us past the wall of muscle in the other direction. I shoved Easton and tried to slide by but he stepped forward, pushing Blake aside. He had me against the wall. I was outright scared now. All these people were watching. Surely he wouldn’t try anything.

  His breath reeked of alcohol and when he licked his lips my stomach roiled. “Just one kiss, one little taste.” He started to lean forward and black spots appeared, from shock, I guess, at his boldness. No way. I noticed from the edge of my vision that Blake was being held back by the guys who’d blocked our path. One was Keegan Malone.

  No one was saving me now. I clenched my jaw and instinct took over. My knee went up and slammed into Easton’s crotch. When he doubled over I shoved the idiots standing by out of my way. I was making progress, and even spotted a door, when I felt someone at my back. I didn’t look behind me as I continued pushing to get out of there. When I got through the door, I tripped on a stairway and fell forward. Arms reached to lift me up and I started to pull away.

  “It’s me. It’s Blake. Come on, we gotta get out of here.”

  “What the hell was that?” I asked as I let him get me to my feet.

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me, not letting me stop. “There’s a bet going on the hockey team for who can kiss you first tonight.”

  Was it messed up that I felt mild relief it was only a kiss that was on the line? Yeah, it really was. That said a lot right there about the direction my life was going. Besides, he was probably lying. I bet they had bonus points for doing more. My stomach roiled again, even as Blake was getting us farther from the party and the crowd.

  “I told the team you had a boyfriend and you wouldn’t willingly kiss anyone. Some assholes saw that as an extra challenge. I think they do this a lot with recruits. Pick a hot one and make bets. It’s disgusting.”

  Blake sounded as sick as I felt.

  “These are your teammates for the next four years, Blake.”

  We were away from the party now, and I saw no one was following. Blake stopped and turned to me. “I know. Not all of them are like Easton. Neil is on a power trip. I don’t know what’s going on with him and Donovan but he’s decided to mess with you to get to Donovan and your cousins or something.”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that, and I didn’t have to. A fist came out of nowhere and slammed right into Blake’s jaw.

  Chapter 21

  Cruz

  Ruby never texted or called us from her own phone. So when I got a message from her, I knew it was bad.

  Ruby: Two hockey guys with Hazel in great room. She looks trapped.

  We’d been hanging on the outside of the main party. By the time we got to the great room, Hazel was gone and everyone was talking about a bet. I heard someone say, “Looks like that freshman is playing the good-cop card. I heard they went to the same high school.”

  “Who? Blake Carmen?” another guy asked.

  “That’s the one.”

  I refrained from punching the idiots for talking about my girlfriend with another guy. I needed them to tell me where they’d gone.

  They pointed to the back door. By the time I saw Blake and Hazel walking hand in hand away from the party, I was already seeing red.

  I started to charge forward, but Spike grabbed me around the waist. “Dude, this is what the Malones want. They’re trying to get you to start a fight. You know that’s Neil’s favorite game to play. And now we’re on his turf.”

  It said a lot that it was Spike, the one most likely of the five of us to throw the first punch, who was trying to talk reason.

  He got me to slow it down but it was too late for Bodhi. Blake was stumbling back and Bodhi was in his face. Hazel reached for Bodhi and yelled at him to stop.

  Blake looked like he was about to punch Bodhi right back before he noticed me and Spike behind him.

  He threw his hands up. “Guys, I was getting Hazel out of there. I was helping.”

  “He was,” Hazel said, and when she took a step closer to him, I saw red again. Spike slammed a hand on my shoulder in warning.

  “You sure you weren’t trying to win a bet?” Bodhi bit out.

  Blake’s eyes widened. “No way, man. You’re kidding, right? Hazel was my girlfriend for five months. Why would I –”

  He shut up when I stepped forward. It was more like four months. He was rounding up.

  Hazel didn’t let me correct him. She moved between us and put her hands on my chest. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  I stared at Blake over her head. I saw a glimmer of fear there, and it surprised me.

  He took a step back. “I don’t need to end up like Kai Tillson, all right? He pushed his luck. I’m just looking out for Hazel.”

  I was caught off guard by that.

  “How’d you hear about Kai?” Spike asked.

  Blake shook his head. “Shit.”

  Hazel’s hands on my chest dropped and she turned around. “Did Kai tell you?” she asked him.

  I started to slide my hand around Hazel and draw her to me but she stiffened.

  Blake rubbed a hand over his face. “Look, you guys need to get out of here.”

  “First you need to tell us how you know about Kai,” I told him. He was right though. If we wanted to avoid fighting the entire Harvard men’s hockey team, we had to get moving. That was a big if though. I was itching for a fight. The only thing stopping me was that was exactly what Neil had intended. We’d be playing into his hand.

  “Fine. Kai called me, all right? Said he was worried about Hazel, thought you might have been hitting her.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “When was that?”

  “A few days ago. Said Hazel had a bruise the other night, then she wouldn’t answer his texts and when he went to check up on her you beat the shit out of him. He wanted to know about our break-up, if you had anything to do with it. If I’d seen Hazel recently. He wasn’t sure if he should report his concerns.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “To shut up and let it go,” Blake said, looking right at me. “I knew the bruise he saw was from the fight at Patriot Taphouse. And I knew he was still hung up on Hazel and probably deserved some of what you gave him. He was looking for a reason to get back in Hazel’s life.”

  I nodded. “Good. You’re smarter than he is.”

  Hazel stepped forward and my hand slid from her waist. She put a hand on Blake’s arm and my chest squeezed. “Thanks, Blake. For everything.”

  His eyes flicked from me to her and when they softened I clenched my fists. “Anytime, Hazel.”

  Hazel glance
d behind us. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

  My girl was pissed, and I got the sense it was partly directed at me. I was pissed too, and some of it might have been at her, I didn’t know. Why the hell had she been holding Blake’s hand? And it looked like she’d been ready to defend him from us. What was that all about?

  Hazel led the way and the three of us trailed behind her. No one said a word.

  We walked all the way through campus, and my head barely processed where we were going until we were in the admissions office parking lot.

  Hazel stood by the Hummer. “Spike, can you drive me home? I don’t want to be on this campus a second longer.”

  The red from earlier flickered in my vision. She was asking Spike for a ride? I didn’t think so.

  “I have my bike, come on, I’ll take you.” I reached out my hand but she shook her head. She bit her bottom lip and underneath the attitude she was throwing at us, I saw she was hurting. Hazel looked like she was on the verge of crying. My girl always masked her pain with anger when she could.

  “What happened in there?” I’d been so focused on Blake I hadn’t thought about where she’d been minutes earlier when Ruby texted me.

  She didn’t answer right away and I was torn between holding her and charging back to that party. We’d been right there. How had we missed her going in?

  “Hazel, talk to me,” I begged before stepping closer, into her space.

  She didn’t want it though. She turned around and pulled on the passenger door handle. It was locked. She hit the window with her hand before resting her forehead on it. Spike beeped the door open but she didn’t move. Her chest was rising and falling. Anger wasn’t holding her together anymore.

  I forgot about the guys nearby and hugged her from behind.

  “Tell me what happened,” I coaxed.

  “Take me home,” she said again. She spun around then, and her eyes were burning with unshed tears. “The Malones don’t deserve a truce. They think they can toy with women as a power play? I don’t care what it costs us. This ends now. I will not endure another one of their little games.”

  Bodhi and Spike were on either side of me, and I felt their anger radiating. “What the hell happened in there, Hazel?” Bodhi growled.

  Her eyes shot to him. “Nothing. I kneed the idiot in the balls when he tried to kiss me.”

  “That’s my girl,” I muttered, even though I knew he’d still hurt her.

  She was right. It was time to end this. It took everything in me not to turn around right then and there. We were armed. We could handle them. But drawing weapons in that mosh pit was a recipe for disaster. For everyone.

  “They’ve done this before,” Spike said. “Bets on the recruits or hot freshmen. Neil and Keegan will say it wasn’t personal, that it was only a kiss.”

  Hazel shook her head. “We know it was personal. We know why they did it. They thought it might be their last chance to go after us before the truce.”

  That didn’t sit right though. “It’s reckless. It’s as if they wanted us to do something. React. They were toying with emotions. Especially right after what Branden and Sean did. I don’t get it.”

  “Neil knew you guys were there, right?” Hazel asked.

  “Yeah, Ruby told us he got a call that Bodhi and Spike were on campus. She didn’t know about the bet then, so he must have decided to put that into action to start a fight.”

  “You didn’t get that out of your systems at Patriot Taphouse?” Hazel asked. She looked at all three of us and then sighed. “Never mind. I would knee that asshole in his junk a dozen more times and still want to do it again.”

  “Who was it?”

  Hazel crossed her arms. “Some guy named Easton. I don’t know if that was his first or last name. Blake really was trying to get me out of there, by the way. He’d heard about the bet, saw me with Easton and told the guy to back off. We started to leave and we were blocked by more guys. I think one was Keegan Malone. Then all these people stood there watching as Easton tried to kiss me. What kind of people stand there watching while a guy forces himself on someone?”

  I’d never heard of Easton but I was grateful to have someone to let out some of this rage on.

  “Crowds are scary. They don’t even realize what’s happening until it’s too late,” Spike said.

  “Are you defending them?” Hazel asked.

  “Hell no. I’m just saying you can never count on strangers to help you out.”

  Bodhi leaned against the passenger side door beside his cousin and looked at me. “There’s no way we can all come to Harvard with the Malones here. Any truce is bullshit. They’re born and bred to be the way they are, and they’re not going to back down. I’m not going to let them use Hazel again to get to us. Uncle Jeremy will change his mind when he hears about this.”

  “I don’t even want to wait for that meeting to happen. The decision deadline is Sunday. Less than two days away. I say we make a move now.” I couldn’t let the Malones get away with hurting Hazel not once, but twice. I wouldn’t walk into whatever trap they had set up for tonight, but there was no way we would let this slide, whether they agreed to the truce or not.

  “Let’s just get off this campus. Get to the Spot.” Hazel suddenly looked exhausted. Not drained like she did after a hard workout, but emotionally beat. My body and mind warred between scooping her up and comforting her or blowing up a Malone Lincoln Navigator. Last time she was attacked, we’d taken the conservative approach, and I’d gone to her. I still didn’t know if that had been the right move.

  But Hazel looked at me now with tired eyes. She was asking me to take it away. I wanted to do it by slamming this Easton kid against a wall. But I could see that wasn’t what Hazel needed right now. Not to mention, it was exactly what the Malones wanted.

  I scooped her up and slid her into the backseat. “We’ll get my bike tomorrow,” I told the guys before sliding in after her.

  I wanted revenge. I needed it. I could taste the burn of unquenched vengeance on my tongue. Hazel was tucked under my arm and against my side, but it didn’t soothe the violence brewing in my chest.

  With the exception of a few fist fights over the years, I had yet to really hurt a Malone. The guys had taken the lead with Flynn because we knew my dad and I would be the first ones they’d target as suspects if it came to that. I’d been deliberate and patient when it came to avenging my mom’s murder. With not one but two assaults on Hazel, I didn’t know if I had any patience left in me. I’d snapped with Kai on the dock, and it was a poor substitute for who I really wanted to go after. I had to unleash some of this fury soon.

  Chapter 22

  Hazel

  I was deep in my own head, wondering how someone like Easton got to be such an asshole in the first place. How did he grow such a massive ego that he was able to convince himself I wanted to kiss him, despite me telling him otherwise? I was distracting myself with it because if I didn’t, I would think about what it meant that Easton’s actions were the final straw. The Malones had to be taught a lesson. And that meant we weren’t going to give a real shot at the truce. My anger wasn’t fading, not really, but it cooled enough for me to recognize my declaration of giving up on the truce was more emotional than rational. We had to rely on the latter in this situation. If we didn’t, we’d never get the upper hand.

  “Wait, I thought we were going to the Spot.” I looked up from Cruz’s shoulder and found we were outside my house.

  Bodhi turned from the passenger seat. “We called your dad. Mitch is here too. This is happening now.”

  I could hear the rage in his voice. As my head cleared and I came back to the moment, I realized the entire car was sizzling with that same energy. I’d sensed it before with these guys. The need for action, and not just any kind of action. Before, it had been something I rolled my eyes about, these boyish tendencies for violence to cope with emotions. It was different now though, because I understood it. I felt it too, settling inside of me and growin
g with the passing seconds. Dad could press a few buttons and turn the Malones’ organization upside down. But that wasn’t all I craved. I wanted to see them sweat and panic, just as I had. At the hands of Branden and Sean when I was duct-taped to a chair in their basement. At the hands of Easton, one of their puppets who tried to corner me at a crowded party.

  “Come on,” I said, sitting all the way up and turning toward the door. Cruz opened it and when I slid out behind him he tugged me to him.

  He didn’t say anything, just held me against his chest with his chin resting on top of my head. “What are you doing?” I asked, after a minute passed.

  “Trying to channel some calm,” he said.

  “You’re not going to get it from me,” I told him. “Standing here hugging you is nice and all, but I’m only thinking about all the ways I want to hurt the Malones. How bad is it to get kneed in the balls? That was really satisfying.”

  “I don’t want you close enough to those guys to knee them. You could hit them with a baseball. I’ll lob you some balls and you can take some swings with the bat. You have great hand-eye coordination. I’m sure you’d hit the target.”

  “I played baseball one season. I was great at hitting the ball but I got bored in the field. But hitting a ball at Easton’s junk sounds really fun. I like that idea.”

  “I can arrange that,” Cruz murmured.

  “Do you feel calmer now?” I asked.

  He shrugged and took my hand as we walked to the house. “Calm? No. But thinking about you swinging a bat in revenge did do something to take the rage level down a couple notches.”

  I was smiling when we walked inside, wondering when we’d get to be alone again. Bodhi and Spike were standing by Dad and Mitch, and by the looks of it, they’d told them what happened at Harvard. Emmett and Moody were there too, and they all turned to me.

  Dad’s eyes were glistening and he went for me, pulling me to his chest and wrapping me in a hug. He rocked me back and forth as he apologized over and over again. I was smushed to his chest and couldn’t talk, even though I wanted to reassure him.