by J Bree
“Ash, shut your mouth.” Avery turns in her seat to glare at him.
I ignore Ash’s shitty mood completely and lean forward in my seat until I can get half a look at her jammed into the seat with Floss. There’s more important shit to know than the fucking money.
I can figure that shit out later and when it comes to the Bay, there’s more than a dozen reasons she could be getting paid and each one more dubious than the last.
“Who was the guy with your bags?”
“Luca. He's… he works for the same guy your uncle does. We’ve known each other forever.”
Like I give a fuck about who he works for. “Have you fucked him?”
Her eyes narrow at me. “How is that any of your business?”
Blaise tips his head back and laughs, a total fucking cover-up because I know he’s just as fucked for her as I am. “How many of those Mounty guys have you fucked?”
“Why do either of you care?” Avery says in her most dangerously sweet tone and there’s absolutely fucking nothing I can say back to that.
Not in this car with the rest of them, and certainly not while Lips still looks at me like I’m the biggest fucking asshole she’s ever seen.
This year is going to be a fucking nightmare.
Chapter Two
Blaise
I know before I open my eyes that sophomore year at Hannaford Prep is going to be a fucking nightmare.
The beds are the same, the layout is the same, fuck, even the sounds in the halls outside our room are the same; the problem is that the three guys in this room are completely fucking different than last year.
Ash might kill Harley before we graduate.
He might even kill me and that’s not something I ever thought I’d say.
“I don’t fucking care what it takes, we need her out and away from Avery.”
I would roll my eyes but I’m too busy pretending to be asleep so I don’t get dragged into this argument again. I’m so fucking sick of it.
Arbour isn’t sick of it though, nope, he’s fired up and ready to throw down with his cousin over his girl. “For fuck’s sake, Ash, use your brain! Do you really think Aves would betray you? Because we both know she’s too fucking smart to be lured into a friendship by some Mounty trash. You need to get over yourself and make peace with her.”
Ah fuck, now I’m definitely not getting involved.
The room goes quiet, the deadly kind where Ash is working out a full and detailed body disposal plan, and when he finally answers his cousin, his tone is dripping in acid. “You are blinded by your own fucking obsession with her, you know as well as I do what happens at the docks in Mounts Bay. Avery isn’t going to get caught up in that shit, not when we’ve spent this long keeping her out of Joey and Senior’s way.”
There’s a pause and then the door slams and Harley sighs. “You can quit pretending to be asleep now, asshole.”
I scoff at him, struggling to sit up and stretch out. “Why the hell would I get involved in your bullshit? I don’t give a fuck about the Mounty.”
Harley’s eyes narrow at me, still a little bloodshot from his morning training down at the pool. I swear I’m the only one with a reasonable respect for sleep around here. He stares at me for a second longer, fuck knows what he’s looking for, and then he starts packing his bag full of all of his genius-level textbooks.
Fuck that.
I grab a shower and get ready, hating every second of putting the uniform on. It’s like a fucking mask, any little piece of myself that could possibly show through is hidden away behind the rich asshole blazer. I fucking hate it, but that only makes it worse.
Poor little rich kid.
Sad and privileged with Daddy’s money but not his love.
I could fucking choke.
When I get out of the bathroom, Harley is waiting and he scoffs at the state of me, mumbling under his breath at the rumpled look I’ve got. Like I give a fuck about dress codes or what the faculty thinks of me.
We head down to the dining hall together and when I text Ash to meet us there for food, he blows me off, too busy following Avery around and arguing with her. He’s going to end up with a fucking stomach ulcer or an embolism at this rate.
I grab a tray, distracted by the sub-par menu for breakfast so I almost miss Harley’s obsessive stalker-like action on the Mounty. Fuck, it’s full-blown stalker really. He’s fucking panting after her and I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before I’m coming back to our room to find him fucking her on Ash’s bed as a giant ‘fuck you’ to his cousin.
Fuck.
I don’t wanna think about that.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“I’m getting to the bottom of some shit, if you’re worried about what Ash thinks then now is the time to leave,” Harley says, filling his plate up with protein in every form.
I do the same, running on autopilot while I call him out on his shit. “So you’re still trying to pretend you’re only interested in what’s going on with Avery? Right. Totally logical, Arbour, I definitely believe you.”
His jaw clenches so hard I think he’s going to break his teeth, but at least he doesn’t hit me for once.
He’s getting fucking jacked.
“In or out, decide now because I’m going,” he says, and I shrug at him as I follow him over to where the Mounty is sitting.
No other students are sitting anywhere close to her, wary of both her reputation and her poverty because half of these airheaded rich kids think it’s contagious. She looks so different in her uniform, still thinner than last year but she already looks less… wary. Like Avery’s friendship has eased something in her and softened her up a bit from the sharp and jumpy Mounty she was last year.
The second she looks up at us both that calmness disappears and she’s back to being the same old sharp-tongued Mounty, constantly tearing us down without any fear of what we’ll do about it.
No wonder Harley is obsessed.
I ignore the part of me that is also, maybe, just a little bit interested in watching her.
This shit is too messy for me to get involved.
“Seriously. I’m not dealing with either of you this fucking early in the morning unless it’s a life or death situation. Is someone bleeding?”
Harley snorts at her and offers her a glass of juice, which she stares at like it’s poison and shakes her head. “I’d rather not start my week off with the runs, thanks, asshole.”
I glance between them both while Harley roars with laughter, the type he doesn’t do around anyone but his family, and if I wasn’t so caught up on her words I’d be fucking worried about it, but there’s something going on between the two of them. There has to be, what the fuck else would her words mean?
Dammit. Am I jealous of Arbour right now because that’s just fucking stupid, getting involved with the Mounty is the worst possible option.
Doesn’t stop me from wanting to kill him for the smug grin on his face when he drawls at me, “Don’t ask, man. We had a great winter break last year. I like to think that was when we became friends.”
She doesn’t take that well, pointing a knife at him and snapping, “We are not friends. I’m Avery’s friend and you two are firmly Team Ash.”
Team Ash?
Since when were there teams? This shit is getting out of hand. The moment I start looking at her, curiously trying to figure out what her deal is, she blushes and starts mumbling at her plate. I shove some food into my mouth but barely taste a thing.
I’m sure Harley sees the blush just as well as I do, the only hint that she was once a fan of my music and can’t quite let that shit go, and I refuse to look at the seething jealousy I know is happening in Harley’s direction.
He might see just how fucking smug I am about it.
I think Harley is about to start a fucking war with me, here and now, over that blush when the doors to the dining hall open and Joey saunters in with his little crowd of simpering assholes to distract us
all.
Thank fuck.
“Look, it’s only a matter of time before Aves wears Ash down and then we’ll all be one big happy fucking family. So stop fighting it. We’re friends by association,” says Harley.
“Fuck off,” the Mounty mumbles with a mouthful of food and though that should be disgusting, it’s kind of cute how much she stuffs in. She’s not looking at either of us while she does it though, her focus entirely on her plate and it makes me want to poke at her, piss her off a little and see how far I can push her.
“God, are you going to be a grumpy ass like Harley all the time? There’s only so much of that shit I can take.”
She stiffens at the sound of my voice, like she’s startled I’m talking to her, and Harley elbows me with a chuckle, as if he’s not pissed at me for daring to speak to her. I laugh back, only because it’s that or call him out on it and there’s enough drama in our lives with Ash being pissed off.
Harley clears his throat and the moment the Mounty looks up at him he catches her eye, pinning her to her seat with the focused intensity that only he can pull off with her.
She squirms under his gaze and fuck if that isn’t distracting, so much that I barely register Harley’s words until I realize he really is here to talk business. “Listen, I’m not Ash. Avery can’t throw pretty words around and fool me. I know exactly what scratches down a cheek fucking mean. I need you to tell me exactly what happened between her and Rory. I’ve spent the whole break fucking stewing on it and I need an answer.”
Her spine snaps straight like she’s been zapped by a couple of thousand volts and she says, her words slow and careful, “If Avery has chosen not to tell you herself then you will never get it out of me. End of story.”
Harley’s eyes narrow at her, filtering all of her words through his bullshit-meter and deciding if she’s legit or just trying to play him.
After a minute he shrugs and says, “Good. I’m glad you’re a decent friend to her. She’s never had one of those. But I need to know if I need to kill Rory. No, not beat him bloody or start a social campaign against him. I need to know if I need to end his life and fucking bury him somewhere. Because if that piece of shit raped my cousin, if he did that to her, I will end his life. I’m not asking for details, just tell me if he has to die.”
Huh.
It’s like I can watch the respect she has for him doubling by the second; the more he talks about protecting his cousin in the most violent ways, the more he reels her in.
Maybe it is a Mounty love story for the ages.
I’m absolutely fine with it.
Ecstatic, and I refuse to admit that I’m mostly cool with it because Ash will tear them apart before they even manage to get anywhere and so that makes it safe to be cool with it.
Safe.
Fuck.
“Fine, no details. If I were ten seconds later than what I was, you would be burying that dickhead. But I got there in time.”
Right.
Rory has to die.
No way that we can let him walk around here with Avery like he didn’t try to fucking rape her. Avery is the closest thing to a sister I’ll ever have and the thought of that shit happening to her has me ready to take a baseball bat to Rory’s head.
Ash is going to lose his goddamn mind.
Harley side-eyes me but I don’t need that to know he’s already plotting it all out in his head as well. Fuck, maybe I’ll leave it to him just to keep him busy and away… from Ash. Because that’s the only thing I need to keep him away from.
I break the awkward silence, the one where we’re all vividly imagining the murder of a peer. “Color me impressed. Rory’s a linebacker, you’re what, five-two? How the hell did you stop him?”
The Mounty snorts at me and drops her silverware onto her plate with the kind of exhaustion that shouldn’t be possible for a high school girl. “I’m a Mounty. I’m a foster kid. I was a child of neglect before that. Last year I was the target of a game that had most of the male population of this school following me around bugging me for sex every day. I’ve had to threaten Harley’s psycho cousin with a knife to the dick. You think I don’t have experience fighting off rapists? Please. Go back to your privileged, gilded fucking towers and leave me the hell alone.”
Well, fuck.
Fuck me.
A baseball bat isn’t going to be enough for Joseph Beaumont Jr. but, fuck, I wish I could beat the life out of the psychotic asshole and one glance at Harley is all I need to know he’s on board with the killing.
Problem is, the twins aren’t on board with it at all. I don’t know why, because Joey clearly doesn’t feel that same protective energy about his siblings, but it’s the way it is.
Doesn’t mean we have to like it.
The Mounty glances over at the door before standing abruptly, a grin on her face as she stalks off to Avery who’s just arrived, the two of them whispering and looking over at us both.
I’ve never seen Avery look so happy, relaxed, and young as when she and Lips are whispering together.
“Joey has to fucking die. You need to get Ash’s head wrapped around that fact because anyone who touches either of them is fucking dead,” Harley snarls at me, and for once I completely agree with him.
Whether Ash likes it or not, the Mounty is family now.
Chapter Three
Ash
I've been thinking about how I'm going to kill her.
Every morning starts the same.
My phone buzzes under my pillow where I'm sure Harley and Blaise won't see the message, and it wakes me up with the same amount of dread every time. It's a ticking time-bomb, a guillotine blade teetering over my sister that I'm doing fucking everything in my power to keep from hurting her.
Father just sent me a new set of boning knives, maybe I'll try them out on her.
I don't trust the Mounty.
Even with Avery vouching for her, I can't let go of the conviction I have that she's lying to us. Fuck, we all know she's lying, but Avery is so sure that the lies are only about her childhood and the way she grew up in Mounts Bay and not about where her loyalties lie.
The problem is that if my sister is wrong, she could die, and that is completely unacceptable to me. I'm not risking that, not for anyone, and certainly not for a piece of Mounty trash that just keeps luring my family in. Harley is infatuated with her, Avery is sleeping soundly in the same fucking room as her, and even Blaise is watching her more now, especially when he thinks no one is paying attention.
Trusting people is what gets you killed.
Every girl my father and brother have raped and murdered, all of them trusted the wrong person at some point. A family member, a boyfriend, a pimp who promised them a warm meal; every last one of them trusted someone and ended up strapped to a table in Senior's playroom.
I can't trust anyone else, and I'm definitely not trusting some girl from the Bay who's full of secrets and lies. There's no other options here except to keep an eye on her and try to get my family to see some sense.
No matter how much they might fight me on it.
When Blaise announces that he's going to go back to the Mounty for tutoring, he makes the decision for me because there's no way I'm leaving the two of them alone for that long. He's too... curious about her. There's something about her that keeps surprising him and drawing him in, and if he fucking falls for her as well, I'm fucked.
Arguing with Harley is bad enough.
When we both arrive at the library, there's a freshman already sitting with her, making eyes at her like she hung the fucking moon, and I immediately decide he has to die.
Blaise eyes him up as well, but goes for casual as he takes a seat and says, “Mounty! Lovely to see you again, though I’m a little disappointed you’re not in your party clothes. Such a shame.”
I barely manage to speak through my clenched teeth at the interloper. “Move. You’re in my seat.”
The freshman smiles at me like some dopey fucking idiot as he
switches seats obediently and Blaise chuckles under his breath at the level of malevolence coming off of me. It's going to be a blood-soaked night in the boys’ dorm's fight club.
“Is there a reason you’ve signed up for another year of pointless tutoring?” the Mounty says with a raised eyebrow at me, but I stare at her until she finally huffs and looks away.
It annoys me that she does. She doesn't back down for anyone else, not the dickhead boys chasing her for the bet or my sociopath brother, but if Harley, Blaise, or I stare her down, she always breaks our eye contact.
It's suspicious as fuck.
The freshman's eyes dart between us both and then he breaks the heated silence.
“I’m Lance. Nice to meet you both.”
I immediately forget his name because that is useless information and the only thing I want from the idiot is his blood on my knuckles and his ass never to perch on this seat with the Mounty again.
Problem is, she just keeps on being nice to the little fuck. “This is Blaise Morrison. Don’t insult his music or beat him in choir or he’ll get pissy and you’ll be miserable for the rest of the year. And this is Ash Beaumont.”
He simpers back with a flirty grin, “Ah. A member of the family I should stay away from?”
Blaise smirks between them both, amused at the Mounty's assessment of him.
I don't want to admit that I'm also interested in her take on me.
She sighs and, shuffling Blaise’s papers, replies, “Yes. His older brother is insane and his sister would destroy your will to live without breaking a sweat. Ash, here, could beat the life out of you and then run a marathon for shits and giggles. Or just pay someone else to bury you, he’s richer than god.”
No other student at Hannaford could have come up with a list that good, and I've attended school with most of them since kindergarten.
Suspicious.
We work on all of our homework together, mostly Blaise getting help from the Mounty and the freshman flirting away at her and ignoring her shooting him down politely every time.
