Dares with the Boy Who Doesn't Care

Chapter Fifteen(Jamie POV )

I stop once I hear a cracking sound.

Cameron, Leo and Noah stop once they hear a muffled yet loud scream.

Mark doesn't stop.

At least not until we all have to physically drag him away from the body. His knuckles drip with blood and I wonder how much of it is his.

"Touch one of mine again and I swear to god I'll fucking kill you." Mark says, breathlessly.

There's something I don't like about the way he refers to Rosalina as "his". Oh well, all is forgotten once I realize the damage we've done to...umm..Stanley? Whatever his name was, he looks unrecognizable.

His eyes are swollen shut and his face is covered in bruises. The blood leaking from his mouth and nose covers a large portion of his face and even stains the top of his ripped shirt. This also exposes more bruises.

Mark might've spoken too soon.

●●●

Everyone in the truck is completely silent. At least I think they are because I can't hear anything over my own thoughts. They're loud and wild.

I don't know how Mark is able to drive after everything that just happened but he manages. I can guess what's on his mind right now, or better yet who. It's not Rosalina, the girl we just got revenge for, but Ella. The girl who had some kind of complicated relationship with all of us.

The thought of Ella roaming through his mind makes her roam through mine and I can't help daydreaming about the time we all once spent together.

**3 months ago**

"Can you guys do me a favor." She says sitting up in her hospital bed.

I nod my head and the other guys agree verbally.

"I have this friend. Her name is...Rose, Rose Sullivan."

The scholarship girl. This is her first year here and her knowing Ella has made the entire school know her. She's an outsider, a reject. She's not rich. The fact that she hung around someone as popular as Ella for so long, people actually started to call her "Ella's Shadow", made her super relevant. She was still an outcast people just knew her name.

Why Ella bothered to carry around a lower class fifteen year old, she skipped a grade I heard, as an accessory is beyond me. I know she has a reason for everything but she also has a reputation. Not that any of that matters now. Wait-it was charity, a last act of kindness before she leaves. But why is she bringing her up now?

"She's...she's so weak." She lets out a shallow laugh. "She's so weak she constantly needs someone to stay by her side, to protect her and make sure she's okay." Ella's eyes meet briefly with mine before continuing. "When I'm-" She stops, unable to say it.

We all know what she would've said. 'When I'm gone' 'When I'm dead' It doesn't matter. She really didn't have to say it, not saying it works just the same. A tense air of silence now hangs over the room threatening to shatter and stab each of us with the sad, sharp truth.

Ella is the one to break it. She doesn't continue where she left off, and instead surprises us."Stay by her side, please." Once again I don't know the reason.