The force knocked me off balance, sending me sprawling onto the concrete. The vial shattered with a hollow crack, scattering the ashes I’d fought to save.
A gust of wind swept them up—gone, just like that.
"Dad… Dad…" My voice broke as I scrambled to catch them, heedless of the glass shards biting into my skin. My blood smeared the ground, but my fingers closed on nothing.
Maxwell’s voice was a whip.
"You’re breaking up with me over garbage like this? You need to be taught a lesson."
Something inside me snapped. My vision went red.
"You bastard!" I lunged, my hands clamping around his throat. We crashed to the ground. His face turned blotchy, his coughs choked and harsh.
"What are you standing there for? Get this crazy woman off me!" he rasped.
Colette’s shrill voice cut through the air.
"Pull her off him!"
Two male students wrenched my arms back.
Mr. Brown stepped forward and slapped me hard across the face.
"Student Clara Vale! Look at you—do you have any shame left?"
"If anything happens to Sir Maxwell, you’ll be expelled," Mr. Brown barked, backing away as if my fury might splash onto him. "And don’t think for a second you can drag your homeroom teacher into this mess!"
Freed from my grip, Maxwell closed in with slow, deliberate steps, his shadow stretching over me like a threat.
"Clara," he said coldly, "you’ve completely lost your mind."
His finger stabbed the air in my direction. "Tell me—which man gave you that necklace? You’d fight me for that?"
Colette glided up to him, her voice syrupy sweet. "Maxwell, let me show you something."
She unlocked her phone, swiped a few times, then held the screen out to him like she was handing him a loaded weapon. His eyes flicked down—and his face drained of color before hardening into rage.
He thrust the phone toward me so close I could see my own reflection in the glass.
"Dorian? He gave it to you?"
Dorian Keats—my neighbor’s older brother, my father’s colleague, five years my senior. The photo showed him passing me a small urn—the last of my father’s ashes—and resting a steadying hand on my head.
I opened my mouth, but Maxwell didn’t give me the chance.
"No wonder you ignored me all summer—you were with him."
He scoffed. "So you traded yourself for a necklace worth a few hundred? Tell me—how many times did you sleep with him for it?"