Kings of Lockdown: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep Book 2)

by Caroline Peckham

  Freeloader passed it back to me when the job was done, bowing her head before scampering away. Pearl planted a hand on her hip, glaring at me as I felt the Night Keepers drawing closer behind me like a shadow.

  “Punish her, Plague,” Saint breathed in my ear.

  “Show her what she’s worth, baby,” Kyan whispered in my other, the two of them sending a violent shiver through me.

  “It’s fine. She’s sorry, aren’t you Pearl?” I asked, recalling the time they’d made me punch her. I wasn’t going to be forced into anything like that again. Even if Pearl deserved it slightly more this time.

  She surveyed me coldly, tucking a long strand of black hair behind her ear. Her eyes shifted to the Night Keepers behind me and her resting bitch face vanished. “Yeah, I’m sorry.”

  “Not good enough,” Blake growled, stepping around me and beckoning me forward. “Make her pay.”

  “No.” I planted my feet. “She said sorry and picked up my shit. That’s good enough.”

  “It’s not,” Kyan said dangerously, prodding me in the back. “I order you to punish her, baby. She needs to remember her place.”

  “I said no.” I whipped around to face him and Mila stepped back in the corner of my eye as Blake waved her away. Toby hurried to join the rest of the crowd with a fearful glance at the Night Keepers as they let him pass.

  Kyan’s upper lip peeled back and fear gripped my heart. He looked more animal than man right now.

  “You have to follow the rules,” Saint hissed, but he didn’t interfere, allowing Kyan to face off with me for refusing.

  Kyan stepped past me, his shoulders rigid as he approached Pearl, cracking his neck like he was readying for a fight. She cowered before him, her knees visibly shaking like a cartoon character.

  “I said sorry, Kyan, what else do you want me to do?” she asked, her voice quavering.

  He surveyed the area as if hunting for a weapon then pointed at a piece of gum sticking to the floor by her feet. “You dropped your gum, Devickers. Better pick it up.”

  Her face paled as she looked down to the gloopy pink blob by her shoe which was blackened in places by grime. It clearly wasn’t hers and it made my stomach churn just to look at it, let alone touch it.

  “Kyan,” I snapped and he shot a glare back over his shoulder at me that made my heart lurch.

  He turned back to Pearl, lazily circling a finger in the air to hurry her up. “You’re wasting precious seconds of my life right now. Pick. It. Up.”

  Pearl dropped down with a whimper, scraping it off the floor between her finger and thumb with her nose wrinkling. She stood back up, looking to Kyan with an expression that begged for mercy.

  “In your mouth,” he encouraged and a ripple of laughter carried from the onlooking students.

  Pearl’s lower lip trembled as she lifted the gum to her lips, her eyes watering as she pushed it onto her mouth with a grimace.

  “Now chew,” Kyan growled and Saint released a dark chuckle beside me. I shot a glance at him, finding his eyes alight with cruelty as he watched them. On my other side, Blake was cracking his knuckles and watching Pearl with a smirk.

  Pearl started chewing, her whole face screwing up in disgust and my throat constricted at the thought.

  “What flavour is it?” Kyan asked casually.

  “Strawberry,” she said through a mouth of saliva, clearly trying not to swallow.

  “They say gum stays in your stomach for seven years after you swallow it. I wonder if that’s true…” Kyan mused and Pearl’s eyes widened in horror. “Do it,” he commanded.

  She winced and I strode forward. This had gone far enough. But as I approached to try and intervene, Kyan threw out an arm to stop me. “I’ll deal with you when I’m finished dealing with Devickers.”

  “Kyan,” I snarled. “Stop it.” He ignored me, surveying Pearl and her whole face screwed up as she forced the gum down, her throat bobbing as she swallowed.

  “Open your mouth,” Kyan instructed and Pearl did so as he peered inside to check she’d really done it, nodding his approval before grabbing my arm and stalking past her.

  I stumbled as he pulled me along at a ferocious pace, my heart pounding madly at his hardened features. There was none of the light I usually saw in him. He was sticking to his vow, becoming the monster I’d accused him of being. And now I was going to pay the price of those words. But I wasn’t going to beg. If he was going to prove how black his heart really was then he was only confirming my accusation. Beneath all the bullshit pretence that he liked me, he really just wanted to own and hurt me like the others.

  He kicked the doors open and half carried me down the steps into the courtyard beyond Aspen Halls, hauling me along onto the path in the direction of The Temple.

  I glanced over my shoulder, finding Saint and Blake following. Blake was laughing at something on his phone like he didn’t have a care in the world and Saint was floating along the pavement like a malevolent spirit with unfinished business.

  We soon arrived at The Temple and Kyan directed me inside just as rain started to fall from the sky and pepper my cheeks. “Get a bucket of soapy water and a cloth.”

  I pressed my lips tightly together, heading inside with a huff as Saint and Blake followed and Kyan walked away. I glanced curiously over my shoulder, spotting him heading into the trees and wondering what the hell he had planned for me. Was he gonna go roll in the mud and make me wash him down with a rag? Wouldn’t put it past him.

  I tossed my bag onto the couch and was about to walk away when I noticed a piece of paper sticking out the top of it. I took it out, frowning at the typed words in the centre of the page. It definitely wasn’t mine.

  Sinful lips I want to taste,

  In the night, you’re mine to chase.

  Ever lonely, ever breaking,

  You’ll soon be mine for the taking.

  I frowned, glancing over at Blake as he looked through the fridge for a snack and Saint headed upstairs to shower and change in his usual routine. I folded up the note and stuffed it back in my bag. It must have gotten amongst my things by mistake when I’d dropped everything. Though I wouldn’t have put it past Saint to write a creepy ass poem like that. Maybe he’d risen to strange new heights of fucking with me.

  I headed into the kitchenette and took out a bucket and cloth from under the sink as Blake gave up on his fridge hunt, his gaze slipping to me instead like I might just be what he needed to sate his appetite.

  “Someone’s in trouble,” Blake sang, grinning at me as he opened a cupboard and took out a bag of peanut M&Ms. He tossed one in the air and caught it in his mouth, crunching it between his teeth. I snorted a laugh as I placed the bucket in the sink, squirted some soap into it and started filling it with warm water.

  “Kyan’s just trying to prove a point that he’s a big scary asshole,” I said lightly, ignoring the tug in my chest that said he was a big scary asshole and he was about to do something terrifying.

  “That’s the thing about us, Cinders…” Blake threw another M&M and caught it in his mouth again with a smirk. “Underestimate us and we’ll prove you wrong. Really fucking wrong.”

  I turned off the water and hefted the bucket out of the sink. “So why didn’t you pull the trigger on me Blake?” I arched an eyebrow and his jaw tightened, his eyes darkening by ten shades.

  “Maybe because you knew I could. I didn’t need to prove it,” he said in a strained voice and I walked closer to him, my heart thrashing wildly.

  “Or maybe because you knew I wasn’t to blame,” I said, fixing him in my gaze, a shattered part of me begging for that to be the case.

  He released a heavy breath then reached up and pushed an M&M between my lips. “Don’t flatter yourself, Cinderella.” He smiled, light dancing in his eyes again as he put his mask back in place. “But maybe I do like having you around. Sometimes.”

  “To torture?” I guessed, biting down on the M&M and savouring the nutty sweetness.

 
He shrugged then reached out, taking the bucket from me without a word and marching outside. I jogged after him in confusion as he placed it down on the porch, the rain crashing down beyond it and flooding the path.

  “I didn’t need your help,” I said and he gave me a slanted smile, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he walked back towards me, looking annoyingly cute. It was kind of disarming.

  “I know, sweetheart. You’re trained to survive, to thrive on your own. But that doesn’t mean you should, right?”

  He walked back inside without another word and I stood there waiting for Kyan to return, wondering why Blake was being nice and mentally adding it to the list of headfucks these guys gave me on a regular basis.

  A droning noise carried from somewhere out in the woods and I frowned as I strained my ears to listen over the downpour.

  A dirt bike tore out of the trees covered in mud and my brows arched at the sight. Kyan wore a helmet that was designed to look like a skull, the visor shaped like the open, fanged mouth of it. Mud was splattered up his uniform and my heart lurched as he veered down onto the grass to the right of the path ahead of me, kicked the stand down and dismounted. He strode toward me at a fierce pace, his helmet making him look like a hellish, muscular version of Jack Skellington. Holy shit.

  He pulled the helmet off as he made it beneath the porch, tucking it under one arm, his dark hair loose and wild around his shoulders.

  Damn, he looked hot. I didn’t know how they even made uniforms to fit his powerful frame but if I had to take a guess, that shit was tailored. All of theirs were.

  “What are you staring at, baby?” He smirked a deadly smirk. “Start cleaning.” He jerked his chin towards the filthy dirt bike out in the rain and I scowled.

  I shed my blazer, shoving it into Kyan’s chest then rolled up my shirt sleeves, grabbed the bucket and strolled over to it. There was no point in arguing against this. Cleaning his shit-stained bike was a punishment I could stomach. There were far worse things he could think up I was sure.

  I dropped the bucket with a growl of annoyance, taking out the wet cloth and starting to scrub at the mud coating it. Beneath the dirt, the bike was jet black with an electric blue lightning bolt down either side of it.

  I was soon soaked through, my white shirt plastered to my skin and totally transparent, revealing my pink bra beneath. I threw a glance at Kyan and realised he’d carried a whole fucking armchair out onto the porch to sit on and watch me. His foot rested on his knee and his elbow perched on the arm of the seat so his hand could prop up his head. There was a dangerous kind of energy rolling from him today that had my heart going haywire. Every look I threw in his direction made my stomach knot and fray. He was out for blood. My blood. And I was sure he was far from done with this game yet. He wanted revenge for me belittling him during my punishment. But how the hell did he think all of this made me feel? Every day was a damn punishment for me. But I’d clearly touched a nerve with him and he was lashing out. So I was going to have to ride out the storm and ensure he didn’t see the way he was getting to me.

  When the bike was gleaming and my uniform was flecked with mud, I grabbed the bucket, walking towards Kyan and dropping it at his feet. It sploshed over the biker boots he was wearing and he stood up with a growl, stepping towards me with intention.

  I tried to dart past him, but he caught my arm, making me kick over the bucket and sending the dirty water spilling everywhere over the porch. Saint’s gonna have a fit when he sees this mess.

  He snatched his helmet, pushing my hair back and dropping it straight over my head. “We’re going for a ride,” he purred and I didn’t think it was going to be like the last time I’d ridden on a motorcycle with him.

  “No thanks, asshat.” I moved to take the helmet off, but he caught my hands, twirling me around and dragging me towards the bike.

  “It wasn’t a request, it was an order,” he snarled.

  “Now you’re starting to sound like Saint.”

  He turned, snapping the visor down to shut me up and swung his leg over the bike. He patted his knee and I pursed my lips in refusal even though he couldn’t see it.

  “On,” he commanded and the fire in his eyes told me he wasn’t going to let me out of this.

  I sighed, moving forward to sit in front of him but he spun me around so I was facing him instead.

  I clenched my teeth as I swung my leg over him, sitting right across his lap so my legs were spread and my skirt was riding up.

  He took a moment to admire the view with a deadly craving in his eyes before kicking up the stand and starting the bike in the next motion. It roared beneath me as he took off, spinning us around so fast that I wrapped my whole body around him to hold on, leaning against his right shoulder so he could see past my head.

  He took off up a path into the trees at high speed, climbing the hill and veering off of the track onto the muddy ground as the rain washed over us. My heart beat like crazy and my stomach swirled with butterflies as we crested the hill then raced down the other side of it full throttle.

  “Kyan!” I yelled in fear, surprise, excitement. I was still angry at him, but hell this was exhilarating.

  He tore along the bumpy ground, weaving through the trees down a narrow track which looked regularly used and I wondered how I hadn’t known he owned this bike. But then again, there were a thousand things I didn’t know about Kyan Roscoe when I really thought about it. Outside of this school, I had no idea who he was. Who his family were. He’d never shared anything with me apart from his desire to fight and fuck. That was all he wanted me to see. I wasn’t special enough to him to be shown anything deeper.

  We climbed another hill, reaching the top with a bump and Kyan slowed to a halt. I was shaking with the thrill of the ride and I was aware of every place our bodies connected, the heat of him blazing through his sodden blazer. I didn’t even feel the cold. Every part of me was alive with raging, spiralling heat.

  He kicked the stand down and pulled the helmet off of my head, hanging it on the handlebars behind me. The rain rushed down on my face once more and Kyan’s eyes followed the movements of the droplets rolling along my cheeks. I could taste him on the air, his lips so close, so inviting. But at the same time, his eyes warned me off like I was getting too close to a wild animal.

  “Get off the bike,” he growled and I frowned, starting to hate this monster act he’d committed himself to since I’d punished him.

  “You don’t have to be a dick, you know? You’ve made your point,” I said, raising my voice over the howling wind.

  “Get off!” he barked, making my heart leap and I slammed up my walls against him.

  “Asshole.” I dismounted and turned around, my breath catching in my throat as I gazed down the hill to a large clearing in the woods below. The earth had been carved into a track with man-made mounds rising up around it, spiralling towards a large wooden jump at the heart of it.

  “You see that plank of wood?” He pointed to where it was laying on the ground ten feet in front of the jump.

  “Yeah?” I asked, sensing I didn’t wanna know why he was pointing it out.

  “Go lie down on it and don’t move an inch,” he growled, giving me a push toward the edge of the hill.

  I balled my hands into fists, hesitating for a second as he started revving the engine behind me.

  “Scared yet, baby?” he called and my jaw locked tight. He wanted me to flinch, but it wasn’t going to happen.

  He continued to rev the engine and I looked back at him, my hair plastered to my cheeks, victory seeping into his expression.

  I had a feeling he was going to let me refuse this if I really wanted to, but that look on his face said he was hoping for me to chicken out. And I wasn’t going to do it.

  I flipped him the finger then jogged down the hill like an eager beaver and laid down on the plank at the bottom of it which was half sinking into the mud. My throat was tight and my pulse was elevating with true fear. What the fuck am
I doing?

  Kyan gazed down at me from the top of the hill, smoke pluming from the exhaust of his bike as he stared, his brow pinched in confusion. He suddenly grabbed the helmet, shoving it on so he looked like a true demon, spinning the bike around and racing down the hill onto the track. He veered away from me and I choked against the fumes that billowed my way as he tore up and down the huge humps, jumping and doing tricks like it was second nature to him.

  My heart thundered in my ears as he made his way around the track, spiralling ever closer to the central jump that would lead him right over me. Or onto me. Shit, why am I doing this? And why don’t I want to stop?

  The buzz of adrenaline in my veins made my head spin and a quietly wild part of me was enjoying this. The anticipation was making my veins hum and my heart thump against the base of my throat. I was terrified and ecstatic, bordering on diving into insanity as Kyan turned towards the jump, speeding up it with the growl of the engine burrowing into my skull.

  Oh my god, this is insane!

  He raced over the edge, soaring towards me through the air, the front wheel higher than the back, his head cocked down to look at me. My breathing halted all together as he sailed over me, my eyes wide and my pulse slamming against my ear drums.

  He missed me by several feet, the bike thudding onto the ground and skidding in the mud as he came to a halt.

  He turned his head, flipping up the visor as he gazed at me with lust and hate and awe written into what little I could see of his features. The engine idled as we locked eyes, the rain rushing down to soak me, feeling like kisses against my flesh. I was heady, high on the thrill and aching for him because of it. It was fucked up, but Kyan didn’t treat me like I was some fragile thing, he saw the strength in me and built more around me like armour. Together, we could take on the world. Be utterly unstoppable.

  “Do you know what the difference between us is, Tatum Rivers?” he shouted to me over the wind and the rain and I pushed myself up to sit.

  I shook my head, my body too numb for me to stand yet as I drank in the ferocity in his eyes.