57

JUSTIN

I couldn’t do this!

I couldn’t pretend to be friendly with Hunter, not when every nerve in me was screaming at me to put him in his place. But I had no choice. If I wanted to protect Astrid, I needed to keep Hunter close.

I don’t have a choice but to play this game.

“For Astrid,” I muttered under my breath, my voice raw. “I have to do this for myself.”

I gripped my hands tightly together, trying to steady my breathing. Hunter couldn’t win. Not now, not ever. And now with this Raina girl showing up, things were only going to get more complicated. There was something off about her, something dangerous. She wasn’t just some random new student. There was an unsettling familiarity between her and Hunter, like they shared a secret and they made them both even more of a threat. I had no idea who she was or what she wanted, but whatever it was, I knew one thing- Astrid had to be shielded from it all.

I saw them moving closer to where I was staying so I moved away to hide myself from t