The Prom Queen's Sinner: Thornwood Small Town Forbidden Romance Book One

by J. E. Bradley

  “No,” I fling out, standing from my seat. “No...I can’t go home. Please.”

  They seem shocked by my outburst, but just the thought of seeing my dad again makes my emotion curl up and hide. Survival takes over.

  “You don’t have any other option. Wyatt Draper will be behind bars before nightfall,” Sheriff Kendall says, a bit of arrogance lifting his voice. “And if we can’t pin him for anything, the town will certainly make him an outcast.”

  “I-” My lungs constrict. I clench my hands and drag in quivering breaths. “You don’t understand...my dad…”

  “Sav, we just want you to be okay. We are not going to let Wyatt screw up your entire life,” Krista says, standing and drawing me into a hug. I am numb, allowing her to wrap me in her skinny arms as my mind shutters through fear after fear. Not him. Not there. I can’t.

  “He didn’t!” I shriek and shove her away. “Your son is the monster. My dad is the monster. All of you are the monsters here.”

  “Easy, Savannah,” Sheriff Kendall barks. Krista stares, dumbfounded, at the floor.

  “No. Listen to me. My dad beat me because he found out I’d taken a few hours to take my car to the auto shop for repair. I am lucky he didn’t break my ribs. I had bruises all over my body for weeks. And Derrick? Derrick fucking raped me the first time we had sex! Yeah, I bet you didn’t know that about your little boy, did you? He also assaulted me on Halloween. So if anyone should be thrown in jail it is them,” I say, my voice raised and frantic. I look around at everyone and realize that they think I’m lying. They think I’m making it all up to take the focus off of Wyatt.

  “We’ve already spoken to your father. He said that he was hard on you the last night you were home, but that he’d never expected you to run away and live with Mr. Draper,” Mr. Pratt says, his voice disgustingly quiet compared to the high-pitched ringing of my hysteria.

  “We have no reason to believe that you’d tell the truth, given that you insist upon covering for Wyatt Draper,” Sheriff Kendall says. “It’s really disappointing, Savannah. I hope being back in your normal environment brings you back to your senses.”

  “No…” I groan furiously.

  Mr. Pratt hands me my phone and takes a deep breath before ushering Derrick and Krista out of the office. As if the matter is settled. As if we’re all done there and they can go on their merry way while I’m about to be handed off to Satan himself.

  “I’m eighteen. You can’t do this,” I say, but the more I think about this, the more I realize that to them? To Thornwood? It doesn’t matter. It never mattered. And the reality is what the players make it. Krista holds sway over the town, and what she believes about Wyatt people take as law. Now, they have all the information they need to pin him with some sort of erroneous charge.

  I’m nauseous and cling to my phone as if it’s the very last part of me that will remain sane. It’s evidence of the truth of what Wyatt and I are, regardless of my age, regardless of everything else. I can’t take back my love for him, whatever his reason for wanting me was. And now, I’d rather dive head first into a pool of his darkness than shatter myself trying to exist in the skins of these people who’ve painted themselves into effigies of perfection. Of goodness. Of lawfulness. When behind closed doors every one of them curates their own brand of secrecy, ignoring the truth because trying to fit their darkness into black or white boxes doesn’t work when the color of the secret is gray.

  ***

  Everyone knows about us. The Sheriff said you’d be arrested by tonight if they could find something to charge you with. They’re forcing me to go back and live with my dad.

  I texted Wyatt swiftly before my dad arrived at the school.

  How? What happened? Can I call?

  No. I’m so sorry. They don’t believe anything I’m saying.

  You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who is sorry. He texts and then adds: Don’t give up. Fight back if you have to. You are strong Savannah, you’ll get through this. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

  But sitting in the passenger seat of my dad’s car, leeching against the door so that I’m as far away from him as possible, does not feel strong. I feel weak. Defeated. Frozen in what is soon to be death. His silence speaks mountains. Every few moments I’ll flinch, thinking he’s going to hit me, but he doesn’t. He ignores me and drives, a serene expression marking his dark-skinned face. His black hair looks sparser than before, and his brown eyes hollow. He wears a crisp white shirt and tie, something that he wears for occasions out of the house. Because he does not leave often, the shirt has wrinkles from disuse.

  I think about making the first move. Jumping out of the moving car, or running when we park. But there’s no way I won’t be found, and where could I go? I’m certain now that Elaina’s dad won’t ever let me within ten feet of her again, and Wyatt’s house and the cabin will be swarming with eyes. Unless...maybe they don’t know where the cabin is? I try to stay as silent as possible as I think about every possible escape.

  But when we arrive at the house, dad pulls into the garage and closes it behind us. I’m trapped in and a ringing silence distends over us as he turns off the engine.

  My dad unbuckles himself and gets out of the car. I follow him. Maybe I can race up to my room and lock the door, closing myself inside until something happens with the investigation. At least until I have clarity on the situation. They can’t keep me here for long, especially if I call a lawyer. I know that there isn’t anything they can legally pin him with, and this will soon come into the light, no matter how they spin it. I carefully hide my phone under my shirt in the back of my jeans, calculating the amount of time it might take me to run for the door.

  Wyatt told me to be strong. To fight back. My heart pounds dangerously fast, and I want so badly to fly out the door and let my legs carry me across miles of road until I finally reach him and the safety of his arms. My mind is a mess of confusing thoughts, of webs that weave through me, contorting even the most incorruptible thoughts.

  A key to my survival has been my own innate strength, called up from the incessant drive inside me, forcing me to fit into the constructs that everyone would admire me for. It’s extremely easy to do it, but a part of me died long ago, foregoing the me that lives behind the walls of those constructs. Easy, but exponentially damaging. I suppose strength comes in many forms. I think Wyatt has always known this. That man I was so curious about, who wandered the comfortingly messy halls of his home, brooding his heart out, just knew me. Accepted me.

  Just as I do him.

  My dad lets us get to the foyer before he stops, and I know that he means to speak.

  “I’m going to my room,” I say, turning on my heel and starting the stairs, but I feel the fingers clamp around my ponytail in horrifyingly slow movements.

  My scalp splits with pain as I feel clumps of hair breaking from my skin. He drags me by my ponytail into the living room and throws me against the wall. The painting above crashes to the floor, and glass splashes out across the hardwood, splattering so that there’s hardly any space without a tiny jagged piece. Luckily, I was able to dodge the painting, and now I am on all fours, trying to crawl. Forcing myself to have the fight—the will to push through my shaking.

  Everything in me wants to cave and just hold myself, to close in and try to attract the least amount of attention possible. To shut it all out.

  “I should have known you’d choose someone like him,” he grinds the words out. “I always knew you’d be a whore. I thought Derrick might help tame you, but here we are. Why? I’ve given you everything you could have ever wanted, and still, you had to throw it all away?” He kneels down in front of me, and I look up into his soulless dark eyes.

  “There are repercussions for every single action we take,” he says, reaching out and grabbing my face. “And fucking a thirty-four-year-old man? When the town knows about that, you’ll be worth nothing. It doesn’t matter how it’s exposed. They can make you sound like an innocen
t little peach. It doesn’t make you innocent. It doesn’t take away from the fact that you’ve been tainted. No one will want you working for them. They won’t want some fat slut who opens her legs for the first man who gives her attention.”

  “I was never anything to you. It doesn’t matter what I did,” I reply hatefully, pain pulsing through my face.

  “That’s a lie, Savannah. Why do you think I tried so hard to get you to do well in school? To stay in shape? To surround yourself with advantageous people? Derrick Draper would have given you two legs to stand on in this town,” he hisses, fingers digging into my cheeks. “But, as always, you had to ruin it for yourself. Now, you are nothing. Now, you’re just another cheap whore. Do you know what I should do? I should sell you to the black market. Get some use out of you.”

  “Fuck you!” My words slice through the air and his face shows no change in feeling. It’s emotionless and indifferent.

  “You’re a disgrace to this family. Your mother should have aborted you when she had the chance.”

  My throat closes and I fight tears. I don’t want to allow him to see me cry. I don’t want him to know that his words are like knives to my gut.

  “Maybe if you’d have let me be who I wanted then it wouldn’t be this way,” I tell him, aggressively fighting against the creeping tears. But my voice wobbles.

  “Why would I have done that, when who you wanted to be is this?”

  I swallow a sob and my dad continues his hard hold on my face, pulling me to a stand. He lets me go, and then punches me in my stomach. The breath is knocked from my lungs, and I buckle against the wall, jerking aside when he tries to land another hit. Before he can try for a third, we clash. My fingers search for his eyes and then I push, shoving my thumbs down into his sockets, his eyes squelch from the pressure. He roars with pain and shoves me away before I can do any true damage, and I go rolling across the floors, the glass scoring me along the way.

  I take this moment to scramble to my feet and vault myself toward the door. Blood rushes in my ears, everything too slow, too raw, too real. My body moves too sluggishly, and I muster up every ounce of energy I have to run. I make it to the doorway, throw open the door, but his hands clap around me and pull me backward. Like demonic tendrils dragging me back to hell. Into the depths of the abyss I belong to.

  “No, no, no,” he speaks directly into my ear. “We’re still waiting for the others.”

  I thrash against his hold, but he pulls me back into the foyer. Just then, through the open door, my brain fizzles with confusion. Standing there in her officer garb, is Wyatt’s old girlfriend. She gives my dad a half-smile and comes to kneel before me, looking me over, making note of any injuries.

  “Thank you. I appreciate you working with me,” Jade says. I’m awash in confusion as I take in her hair that’s been pulled back into a braid and now swings at her shoulder, making the skin of her face taut and severe as she observes me. Her eyes are bleak and small, absent of much other than a mild curiosity. There’s a gun at her hip, and for a moment I think that maybe she’ll help me.

  How very wrong I am.

  “Well, here we are Savannah. Now we just have to wait for him.”

  It takes me a second to realize she’s talking about Wyatt.

  “What is going on?” I send looks between them both, but Jade ignores me, stands, and then slaps me. The point of her hand sends a shock of pain through me, and I blink, lost in the miasma of horror and disbelief.

  “Dad?” I plea.

  “Oh doll, he doesn’t give one fuck about you. I wouldn’t bother,” Jade giggles hatefully.

  “This is because of Wyatt? Isn’t it?” I press. Realization drowning me. Jade must have hated him for rejecting her and gone off the deep end. The flare in her eyes suggests as much.

  “Maybe,” she shrugs. “It’s also about you.”

  “Did you say everything that needed to be said?” Jade asks my dad, and he grows stormier, thoughts actively passing over his face, most including hatred.

  “I just want my revenge,” he mutters. “I’m sick of looking at her slut face, knowing that she’s had a man’s penis inside every orifice.”

  “Yeah, that can be quite disturbing to think about,” Jade agrees, playing at compassion. “I guess she’s not your little girl anymore. Once you’re rid of her, then the burden will lift. I know you’ve suffered for many years trying to be so much. It’s time for that to end.”

  He agrees, but instead of turning away, he vaults himself forward and his hand cracks my jaw. I see stars and fall forward as my world starts to blacken.

  “You said you knew how to make all of this go away for good,” he pants, stepping back and fixing Jade in an iron stare. “Now what?”

  “He has to be here for the plan to work,” Jade smiles ruefully, and crosses her arms. “Which should be soon considering she texted him over thirty minutes ago.”

  Comprehending what they’re saying is difficult. My head sinks into throbbing pain, galvanized by the multiple hits I’ve taken. My stomach quivers with nausea and all I can focus on is the fact, the realization, that Wyatt’s ex-girlfriend is here and planning some sort of sick revenge fantasy with my dad. Her words echo in my head, and my dad’s maniacal features twist into near disfigurement as I try to hold onto my vision and consciousness.

  “Why? Why do this? Just let me go and I’ll take Wyatt with me. We won’t bother either of you. It will be like I was never born,” I say these words hoping they might settle in my dad and elicit some sort of response other than hate.

  “Let me give you some advice honey,” she says, Wyatt’s pet name for me like lava on her tongue. “Sometimes, people do things because they want to. Letting you both ride off into the sunset? Where would be the fairness in that?”

  “How is any of this fair?” I glare up at her.

  “You’re right. I guess my advice is flawed. Fair is an illusion. The truth is that things only come to those with power. I took the power from you when I decided that you wouldn’t get away with taking Wyatt from me, and your dad stole his power back when he decided that you should be punished for your unforgivable sins.”

  My heart is a jagged piece in my chest, every beat scoring me with pain.

  “Wyatt’s payment is due. For defiling his virgin flower and rejecting the wrong woman.”

  Wyatt

  Steady.

  I remind myself to be silent as I assess the situation. From the living room window in the backyard, at the right angle, I can see them in the foyer. Savannah is slumped against the wall near the door with two figures standing over her. The first is easily identifiable as her dad, the other? I try to put together the picture, but the sight is too confusing.

  Jade is a detective now. A thousand different scenarios of this dynamic being brought together passes through my head, but I can only settle on one. If she were on Savannah's side and were here to protect her from her father, she wouldn’t be standing over her the way she is now. I wonder if the news has already come to her, and this is how she’s decided to get payback. Hurting the one I care about the most.

  The only woman I can care about.

  Because in all of my fucked up years, Savannah is the first person that makes me feel like it’s okay to be who I am. To be dark. To be broken. To be sad. To feel things and then not talk about them. To accept me as I am no matter the weight of it. And this is something that I cannot and will not lose.

  Half a year's worth of pent-up aggression is readily accessible, and I can only think of doing one thing. Prowling behind the house, I decide it’s best if I get into the house and wait till one of them leaves the room. To get them moving, I decide to throw a rock through the upstairs window. I hurl the stone upward and then hide behind the bushes near the window, watching. Waiting for one of them to fucking move.

  It’s only luck that her dad goes upstairs, although I have a feeling Jade isn’t going to be any easier to take down than a man. I creep inside the back door, thinking of a
ll the things I should have grabbed before coming here. But the second I got her text, it was a lost cause. I flew from my work in the shop all the way here. Desperate for her to be okay.

  I notice that there is broken glass all over the living room floor and that everything in this home seems exponentially sterile. Like no true humans live here, but rather robots or cyborg’s that hiss and steam throughout their work day, never off schedule. It makes me wonder even more about the life that Savannah has always lived.

  Back to the wall, I inch closer to the doorway. Jade is yelling profanities at Savannah, giving me the sound cover I need before launching myself through the door and crashing my body into hers. I throw her to the ground and she scuttles beneath me like a shrieking bug as I reach for her gun. Her dark eyes are alive with cold, ruinous blood-lust. It’s too late for me to subdue her before Savannah’s dad is there, his arms around my waist, dragging me off of her.

  “You fucking bitch, Jade!” I yell, bucking away from the man who is only a little older than me. He loses his grip, and I swivel and punch him in the face. Jade has risen, her body rigid as she sucks in ragged breaths.

  “Listen to me,” I order. “You’re going to turn around and walk out that door. Right now. Both of you. I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, but it’s over.”

  Laughter fills my ears. Jade’s hand is on her holster, and she slips the gun into her hand and waves it toward me.

  “You’re brave. I’ll give you that. Too bad you’re stupid. Bravery and lack of intelligence don’t go well together,” she muses, stepping past me so that she can stand over Savannah. Savannah stares up at her with a defeated gaze, then glances at me. When our eyes meet, we share something that is only ours. Our understanding of one another. Something that surpasses everything else, and will never be attainable with anyone else.

  “Come on,” I grunt. “You’re really that hurt that I dumped you?”