"What's that supposed to mean?" Ava snapped, her glare sharp enough to cut steel. If she didn't already know Ace was out of her league in a fight, she might've gone for his collar right then and there.
"Using people and tossing them aside like trash," Ace replied coolly, his eyes fixed on her like a predator sizing up prey. He leaned slightly forward, as if to emphasize his point, and smirked faintly at her growing irritation. To him, she was nothing more than a scrappy, feral kitten hissing for attention.
The thing about kids like her, Ace thought, was that they treated friendships like tools—shamelessly cozying up to others when they needed something, only to vanish without a second thought once they got it. They left behind kids who'd believed in them, kids who'd start to think that every friendship worked that way. And when those kids lost their faith in real, genuine connections, it was people like Ava who were to blame.
