Parking Lot

SLOANE

**CHASE: Parking lot. Now.**

For a split second, the words blurred on the screen while the Winter Formal unraveled behind me.

Ava sat slumped by the refreshment table, napkins pressed to her bleeding hand, her face ghostly under the gym lights. Ethan hovered over her, suit jacket shoved to his elbows, guilt and panic etched across his features as a chaperone tried to coax her into a chair. Nora was sobbing. Priya spoke in low, steady tones to a teacher. Leah stood frozen with her phone out. Jake looked ready to physically block the rest of the school from getting closer.

Then Riley was beside me, fingers brushing my elbow. “Sloane?”

I locked my phone so fast my thumb slipped. “Yeah?”

Her eyes narrowed. Riley had always been terrifyingly good at seeing through me. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“That was not a *nothing* face.”

“I need air,” I blurted. It was the first excuse my brain could grab. “I’m fine. Just… stay with Ava. I’ll be right back.”

“Sloane—”

“I’m not leaving.” The lie came easier this time. “I just need a minute.”

I didn’t wait for her to argue.

I slipped away while the gym was still hypnotized by the blood and broken glass. While Ethan was distracted. While Ava stared at the floor like eye contact might bring the ceiling down. While Riley turned for half a second to answer Priya.

Half a second was all I needed.

I moved down the side hallway, phone gripped like a weapon, Ethan’s corsage still biting into my wrist. The bass from the dance faded into a muffled pulse behind the heavy doors. My heels clicked too loudly on the linoleum. Paper snowflakes taped above the lockers shivered in the heating vents.

At the side exit, I paused, palm flat against the cold metal bar.

No one had followed. No one knew where I was.

It should have felt safe.

It didn’t.

I shoved the door open and stepped into the freezing dark.

December slammed into me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. The parking lot stretched out in wet black patches under buzzing yellow security lights, the asphalt slick from earlier rain. Cars sat in crooked rows. A few parents idled at the curb, faces glowing blue from their phones. The air smelled of exhaust, rotting leaves, and sharp winter frost.

Chase stood at the far edge of the walkway.

Black suit. No tie. Shoulders rigid. One hand buried in his pocket, the other hanging heavy at his side—the posture of someone who had barely talked himself out of violence and was furious about his own restraint.

He looked completely out of place. Too sharp. Too expensive. Too violently angry for a suburban high school parking lot. It was as if he had dragged Dalton, the rink, his legacy, and every toxic decision we’d ever made here with him, planting it all under a flickering security light just to watch me walk into it.

I stopped five feet away. “You text like an asshole.”

His eyes dropped straight to my wrist.

To the white flowers. The silver ribbon. Ethan’s corsage.

When his gaze snapped back to my face, his expression had gone frighteningly blank. “You came anyway.”

“Because I wanted to tell you exactly where to shove the attitude.”

A muscle feathered in his jaw. “Is that why you kissed him, too?”

There it was. No warm-up. No warning. Just the knife.

I lifted my chin, refusing to flinch. “Careful, Hartley. You’re starting in the middle like you forgot you weren’t invited to the beginning.”

“You kissed him.”

“I know. I was there.”

“You didn’t *just* kiss him.” His voice stayed dangerously low and controlled, which somehow made the words cut deeper. “You grabbed him. You kissed him like you wanted me to watch.”

A sick pulse of guilt flared in my chest. I crushed it. Anger was safer. “Maybe I did.”

Chase went completely still. Not calm stillness. Predatory stillness.

“Say that again,” he warned softly.

“No.”

“Say it.”

“I’m not performing for you.”

“No?” A short, ugly laugh tore from his throat. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Heat rushed up my neck. “You don’t get to be jealous.”

His eyes flashed. “Is that so?”

“Yes. You don’t get to crash my school dance, lurk in the shadows like some designer-suited cautionary tale, and act betrayed because I kissed someone who isn’t you.”

“You kissed Ethan Reeves.”

“Oh, so you know his full name now. Fantastic. Should I be worried for his permanent record?”

His jaw flexed so hard I thought his teeth might crack. “You think this is funny?”

“I think you’re ridiculous.”

“I think you wanted to hurt me.”

The words landed perfectly. I hated how easily he could do that.

“I think you showed up here looking for a reason to be angry,” I shot back.

“I didn’t have to look very hard.”

I stepped closer. The space between us vanished. “No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to demand my loyalty when you made it crystal clear you had zero problem finding *multiple* other girls the second we had distance.”

His face changed.

The word *multiple* hung between us like something alive and ugly.

“It wasn’t a second and you fucking know that,” he snarled. “And you *asked* me.”

Then he laughed.

It wasn’t a real laugh. It was jagged and broken, scraped from the bottom of his lungs.

“That’s what this is,” he murmured, nodding to himself. “You kissed him because you wanted to get back at me.”

“Chase—”

“No. That’s fair. Totally fair, Sloane.” He tapped his temple. “Message received.”

“That’s not—”

“Then you’ll love this.”

He moved before I could react.

He didn’t lunge at me. He lunged at the closest car—a faded Honda Civic. He seized the side mirror and wrenched it backward until it snapped with a sickening crack. He hurled it into the dark. It bounced violently across the asphalt.

Before it stopped spinning, he was on the next car. A silver sedan. He slammed his fist down onto the hood. *Bang. Bang.* Deep dents caved inward. The car alarm shrieked to life, headlights flashing wildly.

He kicked the passenger door. The whole car rocked.

“You want to see what mad looks like?” he roared over the wailing siren. “You keep asking! You keep pushing! You wanted to see it? *Here!*”

He ripped a heavy landscaping brick out of the frozen flower bed and launched it at the Civic’s rear window. Glass exploded inward, showering the backseat in glittering shards.

“HEY!”

A flashlight beam cut through the dark. Mr. Davies, the night security guard, came sprinting toward us, neon yellow jacket glowing, radio to his mouth.

“Son, you need to stop right there!”

Chase pivoted.

It happened in sickening slow motion.

He closed the distance in two strides and drove his fist squarely into the man’s face.

The impact was a wet, heavy thud. Mr. Davies crumpled instantly, blood pouring between his fingers before he hit the ground. His radio skittered across the pavement.

I stood frozen for two seconds.

Then I started clapping.

The sound was sharp, thin, and completely unhinged against the screaming alarm.

Chase slowly turned around. His chest heaved. Blood coated his knuckles. “Why are you clapping?”

I stretched my mouth into a vicious, shaking smile. “You wanted me to enjoy the show. I did.”

“Did you? Did you *really*?”

“Every single second,” I lied, my voice eerily steady. “You’re really selling it tonight, Chase. The whole unhinged, tragic-rich-boy aesthetic. Standing ovation. Bravo.”

He stared at me.

The car alarm screamed. Red lights pulsed against his black suit. Behind him, Mr. Davies groaned into the asphalt, blindly reaching for his radio.

“You think this is a joke,” he whispered.

“I think you just assaulted a sixty-year-old man who coaches JV volleyball! So no, Chase, I don’t think it’s a joke!” My voice cracked, adrenaline finally spilling over. “I think you’re performing. And I’m giving you the exact audience you drove here for.”

Something shifted behind his eyes. The rage didn’t vanish, but something colder, more calculated, slid in beside it.

“Performing,” he repeated, tasting the word.

“That’s exactly what this is! The cars. The glass. The grand entrance.” I gestured wildly at the wreckage, fingers trembling. “You drove all the way here to throw a violent tantrum because I kissed someone who isn’t you! Congratulations. Point made. Now get in your absurd car and go home before the cops show up and Mommy has to write another massive check to keep you out of jail.”

His eyes dropped back to the corsage. This time he stared at it until the white petals looked like garbage strapped to my arm.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “So you can go right back inside to your own fucking performance. A little piece of theater starring the nice boy with the camera, blocked and lit perfectly for an audience of one.”

“It wasn’t a performance,” I shot back, but my voice wavered.

Just enough.

“No?” He stalked forward, invading my space, his shadow swallowing mine. “Then why did you look up at the bleachers right before you did it? Why did you make sure you were dead-center in my line of sight, Sloane? You didn’t just want a kiss tonight. You wanted to draw blood.”

“Maybe I learned from the best.” I chuckled. "You've been drawing blood since the day you walked into the dining room! You think you can just drop a box in my room and then vanish back into your life of ‘multiple’ girls and your pristine Golden Boy status? You think I’m just going to sit around like a dog waiting for you to decide I’m worth your time?!”

“I was protecting you!” he roared.

The raw volume echoed off the brick walls, drowning out the alarms.

“Protecting me? By stalking me?” A hysterical laugh tore out of me. “You’re losing your mind, Chase. You show up here looking like the Grim Reaper, shatter half the parking lot, and expect me to… what? Fall into your arms? Thank you?”

“Brittany was in your room,” he hissed.

The words landed like a confession and a death threat at once.

My heart stalled. “What?”

“She found the toy. She took the video of me making Captain today and showed it to my mother. She called you a slut, Sloane. She was preparing to burn your entire world to the ground just for the fun of it.” He stepped so close I could smell his cologne and the metallic tang of blood. “And I stopped her. I told her if she breathed a single word about you, I’d leak the tape I have of her. I’d ruin her life. I became the fucking monster so you wouldn’t have to.”

The world tilted. My stomach dropped. “You… you have a tape of her?”

“That’s what you’re focused on?”

“You’re a madman,” I whispered, stumbling back. “You’re blackmailing people? Threatening revenge p**n? Chase, that’s not protection. That’s insanity. You are actually insane.”

“I protected you.”

“You’re not my boyfriend!” I cried, voice trembling wildly. I kept backing up. “We’re not even friends, Chase! We’re not *anything*!”

In the distance, police sirens pierced the night. Blue and red lights painted the tops of the trees.

Chase didn’t flinch. He didn’t look toward the road.

“Bullshit,” he growled. He reached out, bloody knuckles hovering inches from my cheek, before forcing his hand back into a fist. “You’re everything. You’re the only thing in this godforsaken city that doesn’t make me feel like I’m suffocating. And I will burn down every bridge, every reputation, and every nice boy with a camera until you realize that.”

“I never asked you to be a monster for me!” I yelled over the sirens. “I never asked for *any* of this!”

“You didn’t have to ask,” he said. His voice dropped, losing its rage, settling into a haunting, hollow quiet. “Next time you want to draw blood, Sloane… use a knife. Not a puppet.”

He turned on his heel, suit jacket snapping in the wind. He walked with terrifying calm toward his car. He didn’t check on the guard. He didn’t look back. He slid into the driver’s seat and the engine roared to life—a deep, predatory growl that swallowed the dying alarms.

He threw it into reverse. Tires shrieked against the wet asphalt as he tore out of the lot, taillights bleeding into the December mist just as the first police cruiser swerved in, flooding the space where he had stood in blinding blue light.

I stood there for three seconds.

Then I sprinted to my own car and drove into the dark.