Love and Lead

by June, CoraLee

“Bullets forever, Babe.”

  I looked around the car at each of them. “Yeah. Bullets forever.”

  I laughed once more to hide the emotion bubbling up in my throat, then looked back at my front door, frowning when I noticed Officer Mercer—Callum—was standing there and staring at our car. “Oh, I gotta go.”

  I stole one last look at my Bullets, committing everything about this moment to memory. The way we were in our little world. The way they looked at me like I could do no wrong. The way they were good for me. Only me. We parted ways in the front lawn, with all the things we didn’t know about the future soothed by the idea that at least we wanted to be together.

  When I got to my porch, I heard the Jamesons’ garage door open and close, letting me know that they were gone.

  “Hey, Summer,” Callum said with a grin. He was sitting on the swing my dad installed on the front porch. When he stood up, I noticed that he was still in his patrol uniform. “Sorry I missed graduation, I couldn’t get off work,” he said with a frown before stepping closer, standing beneath the glow of the porch light. He dragged his eyes up and down my body before coughing and adjusting his collar.

  He had one hand behind his back, and I arched my brow, curious what it was. “Oh,” he added, noticing my perplexed stare. “I got you...flowers.” He pulled the bouquet out from behind his back and stretched his arm out, handing me a dozen beautiful roses.

  “They’re gorgeous,” I whispered before grabbing them. Our fingers brushed against one another, causing a thrill to shoot up my arm. “You didn’t have to do this!” I exclaimed before playfully patting his bicep then snaking my fingers back when I shivered at the feel of his strong muscles.

  “You don’t graduate every day, Summer. It’s a big deal,” Callum said with a small smile before taking a step closer. I turned to look at the door, sighing and wishing my parents could feel the same way. “Hey, look at me,” Callum added, and I turned my attention to him. “You’ve got the entire world at your fingertips, Summer. You’ve got a future, and this is going to be the beginning of something great.” I bit my lip to hold back the smile, and the questions I asked the Bullets earlier came to mind.

  “Callum?” I asked, feeling silly but asking anyway. “What do you want to be doing ten years from now?”

  His eyes softened as he looked me over. He then grabbed my chin and cupped my cheek with his hand while staring into my eyes. “I want to do something that means something. I want to be with someone I love. Everything else is semantics,” he murmured.

  There was a moment, a lingering look that kept me guessing if there was more bubbling between us. Tonight had me feeling like I was on the edge of forever, and I just wanted to plunge. I wanted to get to the happily ever after.

  “Why am I not happy?” I asked. “Graduation is supposed to feel good, new beginnings and all that,” I said with a shrug. I was going off to college, and I survived my parents’ toxic views on existing in the public eye.

  “I never liked the notion of happy endings,” Callum replied with a shrug. He was still holding me, pulling me in with his blue eyes. “Happy is an everyday battle. It’s something you fight for till the day you die. Nothing ever really ends.”

  I smiled, and Callum leaned forward to kiss my forehead. It was friendly but teased me with more, warming me from the inside. Then he excused himself, strolling over to his cruiser to finish his patrols for the night. I stood there at my doorstep on Woodbury Lane, looking out at the Jamesons’ house, thinking how forever felt like now.

  Epilogue

  Callum

  The bar was the same as I remembered. We were given the usual treatment, immediate seats, and a drink in our hand the moment our ass hit the booth. This time, there were no guards patting me down, not that I had a badge anymore. I long ago gave up my father’s legacy in law enforcement. I traded a gun for Sunshine, and even though some days I felt a little lost, I still had everything I’d ever wanted.

  Her.

  “Should I pat you down for old time’s sake?” Gavriel asked, looking at the Sunshine Whiskey in front of him but not taking a drink. He might still run the world, but he’d grown soft the last few years, letting others do his dirty work and just enjoying the peace of our life.

  “Very funny,” I replied before clutching my glass and taking a gulp, wincing as the burn traveled down my throat. The room smelled like cigars and perfume, and I stared at the stage, a heavy sense of nostalgia filling me.

  “As much as you’d love that, we have to hurry. Blaise is back from his trip to New Mexico, and you know how picky Sunshine is about family dinner nights. Joe is in town, too,” I replied.

  We made it work. We traveled. We shared. Sometimes I’d go a couple weeks without seeing her because Blaise was driving across the coast with her. Or Ryker’s students had a fight in LA. Or Gavriel was just being his normal bossy, possessive self, keeping her in his house—naked and sated.

  But family dinner nights were important to her. She said she had an announcement tonight, and being the nosy bastard that I was, I checked her email and found out that she got accepted into the online psychology program at Penn State. She told me a few months ago she was curious what made her father the way he was. Looks like she was going to explore that further.

  My chest swelled with pride.

  “So what’s with all the secrecy, Mercer?” Gavriel asked. It was odd that we kept this up, meeting just us once a year, planning it ahead of time. I couldn’t speak for him, but it was a good reminder. When shit got hard, when I craved normalcy, we’d meet here and remind ourselves that there was a time where we were forced with the alternative—not having her.

  And I got right back to feeling thankful.

  “I didn’t want to get her hopes up or piss her off,” I replied in a small voice, looking off to the left, as if she was going to emerge from around the corner. Gavriel’s face dropped, knowing what I was referencing. Last time we had a lead, it never panned out, and she cried for weeks. “I think I found him,” I whispered.

  “Where?”

  “Mexico.”

  “Figures,” Gavriel scoffed before leaning back in his seat. He’d been doing really well, working out again with Ryker. His suit looked a little tight.

  “Should we send Blaise after him?” I asked.

  Gavriel seemed to think about it for a moment, running a hand through his hair, highlighting the ring on his left hand. I laughed the day Sunshine bought them for us. No ceremony, no asking. Just four Bullet rings to match hers. Was as good of a commitment as anything.

  “No. I’m going to call Alessandro and Grace. Last time, we spooked him. If anyone can bring Nix back, it’ll be them.”

  I swallowed, wondering if this was a good idea. I wasn’t sure if I could find him again, this might be our last chance. Although Sunshine was devastated when Nix disappeared, she respected his needs. She even said some shit about trusting that Nix wouldn’t make the decision lightly. She could relate to the need to flee, I guess.

  But whatever his reasons, it didn’t change the fact that she missed him. I just wanted her to be happy. Maybe it was in my blood not to give up. As cheesy as it sounded, the bastard completed her.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “What’d I tell you about doubting me, Mercer?”

  I sighed before dropping a twenty on the table. “Okay, but let’s not tell her just yet.”

  “Deal. Funny how we’re right back where we started, huh? Chasing people that run away,” Gavriel mused with a half-smile while looking around the bar.

  I nodded, but didn’t feel the same nostalgia as him. This didn’t feel the same as with Sunshine. My gut was telling me that Phoenix Bailey didn’t willingly run away.

  He was taken.

  Bitter Pills

  Phoenix’s Book, Bitter Pills, Coming Summer 2019.

  Coming Soon…

  This is an excerpt from Cruel, written by Raven Kennedy and CoraLee June. Cruel will release February 2019. Fol
low CoraLee on Amazon for release date announcements.

  Chapter One

  Blood dripped from the corner of my lip. I wiped it away with the back of my hand before asking for more. “You hit like a bitch,” I said with a cruel smile before bracing myself for the next backhanded slap. She wound back, but luckily, there was no power behind her movements. When she connected with my cheek, the light sting wasn’t worth crying over. I’d had worse.

  Stephanie Palmisano wasn’t creative enough to come up with an insult that actually hurt me. It was always the same. Slut. Trash Whore. Bitch. She recycled the phrases that were shoved down her throat by everyone else at this fucking school, and then regurgitated them at my feet whenever she had an audience. She got off on showing off. Because what was the point of being vicious if you didn’t have anyone to witness it? She must’ve gotten that trait from her Daddy, Judge Palmisano. He liked to put people in their places, too.

  She was a pretty little thing, though. Most girls at Smith Academy counted their calories, but she liked to throw them back up. I knew my easygoing smile was pissing her off. It was a little victory but I clung to it. “You never fucking learn,” she said, before winding back and slapping me again. I just had to hold on for a moment longer. Any second now, the coaches would storm the bathroom and break up the fight. Being the principal's daughter meant that the faculty here had to at least pretend to care.

  “You’re weak. You should eat something, Steph,” I said with a snarl.

  I refused to hit her back. Not only because I feared the repercussions, but because I knew the force of my punch would hospitalize her. Unlike her, I was taught how to throw my body into the hit. I knew the spots to target. I could kill her if I had a mind to. But there was that phrase, nagging me in the back of my mind. You know the one, that bullshit about great power and great responsibility. Just because I could break her body, didn’t mean I should.

  “Fuck you, Scarlett,” she spat, before hitting me one last time. My head knocked back against the tile of the locker room showers. I was still wearing my gray gym uniform, my sweat making the cotton shirt they required us to wear stick to my body. She leaned over me as the crowd of girls watched, and then turned on the faucet above me, forcing icy water from it’s spout. The freezing temperature jolted all my senses. I shivered, which made them laugh harder.

  But they couldn’t see me cry.

  My fists clenched. Just one hit. I wanted to knock her on her ass and make her bleed just a little bit. But I knew the consequences of rage. It could become an addiction if you weren’t careful enough. Or at least, that’s what my Mama told me the last time I got into a fight. She threw brochures for an all-girls school on her desk and told me that if she got one more complaint from a member of the school board, I was out.

  She didn’t care that I was being bullied. She cared that people were talking at the cheer fundraiser. How could the preppy parents of Smith Academy trust their asshole teens with Principle Livingston, if she couldn’t handle her own daughter?

  My blood washed down the drain as Stephanie and her group of dimwitted followers left the locker room, each of them dressed in their formal Smith Academy uniforms as they sauntered away. Such a fucking cliche. The mean girls targeted me out of boredom. I didn’t even bother checking my locker. I knew my navy uniform would either be missing or destroyed.

  I dried off as best I could after sitting in the freezing water for a moment. I let my body grow cold and numb as I walked down the hall towards the nurse’s office. Nurse Mary was a kind woman, too scared to go against the hierarchy of this pretentious school, but nice enough to hide spare uniforms in her desk for occasions like this. I didn’t blame her. Even the teachers feared looking at me for too long. No one wanted to rock the boat with my Mama, or associate with the Heir’s enemy number one.

  The Heirs ran this school. Rogue, Bonham, Godfrey, and Luis. They used to be my best friends, but they threw me away six months ago. They were the reason for my daily torment.

  “Rough time in gym?” a familiar voice asked to my right.

  I cringed, each hair on my neck standing straight at attention as I tried to steady my breathing.

  Bonham Brodie could practically smell fear. I felt his eyes on my back as I walked faster. I wasn’t in the mood for his games today. I wasn’t in the mood to face any of the Heirs. Bonham came from old money. The kind of money that didn’t require him to work. His perpetual trust fund family traded stocks worth millions just for fun, and spent their free time building social ladders just to burn them down whenever they felt like it.

  “You not hear me? I’m talking to you. I thought all those etiquette classes your Mama made you take were supposed to teach you manners, Scarlett,” he mocked.

  The sounds of his sneakers hitting the tile behind me made my own steps increase in pace. Shit. If Nurse Mary saw us together, she might not want to give me spare clothes. No one wanted to go up against Bonham. He was known for tearing down reputations. He could start any rumor about you and it would spread through Savannah like the wild fire that took down Mr. Green’s horse stables last summer. Though I couldn’t confirm it, he was the reason I’d earned my notorious nickname: Trash Whore. I was named after the way my friends threw me away.

  “I’m in a hurry,” I said, while glancing back at him over my shoulder.

  Bonham was classically handsome. His strong jawline and dimpled chin could make anyone purr. He had vibrant green eyes and dirty blond hair, cut short but parted to the side. His formal jacket with Smith Academy’s crest was on his blazer pocket, and his tie was undone, hanging off him in a disheveled, sexy way.

  I felt his fingers wrap around my bicep and I turned around, gasping when my eyes met his furious gaze. He clicked his tongue in disapproval when he saw the dried blood on my lip, and yanked me closer to inspect it. “Another fight, I see,” he said.

  “Just another day,” I growled back before trying to pull myself from his grip. I couldn’t. He held me too tightly.

  Bonham placed his thumb at my cut, pressing until he made it bleed again. He smeared the blood along my jawline, all while staring at me. “I think blood-red looks good on you, Scar,” he said, letting that cruel edge seep into his expression.

  “It is my favorite color,” I replied sarcastically.

  Bonham looked me up and down again. I recognized that critical eye. It was the same appraising look he’d given me two years ago, when he helped me pick a dress for Luis’ birthday party. It was the same look he’d given me when he taught me to ride a bike as a kid, or when he tutored me in math. Assessing. Determined. Focused. It was a look that made me hate myself a little bit. Because, despite them making me a target at this fucked up school, it also gave me hope that my old best friend was still hiding in there somewhere, willing to take on the world alongside me.

  As if he’d suddenly remembered that he didn’t want to touch me, Bonham quickly dropped his hands and looked around the empty halls, like he wanted to make sure no one had seen us together. Fucking prick.

  “I still don’t understand why you don’t hit back,” Bonham said with a shrug before walking past me. I spun to watch his back. “We both know you could kick her ass.”

  I bit my cracked lip, making more blood flow, the crimson drops landing on the tile floor at my feet. Yeah, I could kick her ass. Bonham would know, since he was the one who’d taught me how to fight in the first place. He once told me that all pretty girls should know how to defend themselves and throw a punch. I just never thought that I’d ever have to defend myself from them.

  “Tell Nurse Mary I said hello,” Bonham called over his shoulder before disappearing down the corner.

  Fuck.

  The Heirs were determined to punish me, and that meant that they reveled in our peers doing most of the work for them. If they knew that I’d been getting help from Nurse Mary, they might want to make life difficult for her, which was the very last thing that I wanted.

  Aside from hating me, they didn’
t like it when I had anyone on my side. It was why no one asked me to homecoming. It was why I couldn’t go to any school games, and why I couldn’t even walk to my locker without having curses and names thrown at me. It was also why every girl in the school looked at me like I’d caught leprosy. They didn't want to catch the guys’ wrath like I had. It was understandable.

  Bonham, Luis, Godfrey, and Rogue didn’t just run the school. They were practically going to inherit all of Savannah. Their parents had the three C’s: cash, connections, and capability. This city was in the palm of their hands.

  By the time I made it to the nurse’s office, the bell had long since rung for next period. My Mama would probably lecture me about my tardiness later. These teachers were the worst narks ever. Any little thing that happened, and they ran off to Principal Livingston. Just another reason for Mama to be disappointed in me.

  I threw open the door and looked around, relieved when I found that it was empty of other students, but the nurse was behind her desk. Nurse Mary was a thirty-something ex-debutante. She came from a long line of good Savannah blood, but my Mama said she ruined her life when she married beneath her. Her filthy-rich parents cut her off and disowned her for it.

  Now, she was stuck giving out ice packs for fistfights and Tylenol for period cramps to a horde of entitled teenagers. If I were her, I’d be bitter as hell. Nurse Mary looked up from her phone where she sat at her desk, and her eyes immediately widened at my partially soaked, bloody, and bruised self.

  “What happened this time?” she asked, getting up from her seat to come assess me.

  I shrugged. “Same bitch, different day.”

  Nurse Mary’s lips thinned. “I wish you’d let me report Stephanie.”

  I shook my head and followed Nurse Mary to the chair while she pulled out some antiseptic and cotton balls. “No, it would only make it worse,” I said.