I'm about to grab her, about to plant my feet and make a scene and drag her out of here, because every instinct I have is screaming that this is the worst place I could possibly be, watched, cornered, exactly where the man in the trees and the man at the harbor came from.
And then the crowd shifts, and the fight in the ring ends, and a new one starts, and I see him.
Evan.
He steps up into the ring under the lights, stripped down, and the whole room seems to tilt around him. My breath stops. I've seen him fight once before, at the party, but that was chaos and a crowd and a boy I barely knew. This is different. This is him at the center of the only light in a dark room, and I can't look away, and I hate that I can't look away, and the pull in my chest goes so tight it aches.
He moves li
