Brandon's POV
I should have known the moment the hallway went quiet.
There's a kind of silence that comes before storms — the heavy, sinking kind that presses into the walls, warning you before you even see the lightning. That was the silence that met me the moment Casey's heels clicked into our circle.
Ashley's laughter cut off mid-sentence. Guz stopped waving his talking hands. Even Jade trailed two steps behind Casey like her personal shadow, eyes sweeping the space as if she were guarding a celebrity — or a ticking bomb.
I felt the air shift, sharp and cold.
Casey came for me.
Of course she did.
I sat on the pavement, legs stretched out, pretending to scroll on my phone, pretending not to feel her stare drilling through the crown of my head.
Ashley reacted first.
"What do you want?" she snapped, stepping directly in front of me like a wolf cub squaring up against a lioness.
