Hateful Bully (Bad Bullies Book Two): A Dark Step Brother Bully Romance

by Logan Fox

  Fuck, this could have been you. She wouldn’t have been surprised. That’s how much you care.

  But I do care.

  I’m an idiot, but I do care.

  “I’m so sorry,” I murmur, moving aside a section of her silky hair. Her eyelids flutter a little at my touch, and then slowly open. She watches me for the longest time, but her gaze seems unfocused as if she’s looking through me.

  “I’m so fucking sorry, darling.”

  I start rocking her. Her hands slither out from the sheet and grab hold of my hoody in two pale fists. Pale, but for a few streaks of blood.

  My skin goes cold, then hot. Pressure builds in my head, as if my skull’s about to explode.

  “I love you so much,” she says.

  But I heard her wrong. She hates me, just like I hate her.

  Right?

  Pain slices through my head. “You don’t love me,” I say.

  “I do. I love you so much.” She presses her face into my chest. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Don’t leave me, Mr. Bale. I promise I’ll be good this time.”

  My rocking slows…stops.

  She’s delusional. In shock.

  Alex comes through the door with a bundle in his arms, and gently closes it behind him. When I look up at him, he surges away so fast that his back hits the door. He lifts both hands, the clothes he’d bundled up falling to the floor.

  “I tried to stop them,” he chokes out.

  I tamper down the urge to tear him limb from limb and instead slowly get to my feet. Candy makes a soft sound that turns my heart to stone.

  “Get out.”

  Alex nods, and disappears out the door.

  I dress Candy, watching her face and her eyes as I maneuver her limbs into the clothing Alex found. But I still manage to see the damage they did.

  There are marks on her body—scratches and bruises and streaks of blood.

  I’ll have to clean her up before I sneak her home.

  If that’s even possible. I’m sure I woke the whole house when I left.

  I sit there for a moment, Candy silent and unmoving beside me. Sleeping.

  A corpse.

  Can’t go home. Can’t take her home.

  My phone vibrates. “Hello?”

  “Looks like the cops are coming after all,” Alex says, sounding wary, as if he’s worried I’ll be pissed at him for interrupting.

  “Can you help me?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Bring my car around the back, close to the garage as you can.”

  I’ve been in Sean’s house before. Came here to drop off notes for him when he was off sick for like three weeks. His mother invited me into the kitchen for milk and cookies like I was five years old, but I felt too bad to say no.

  I was a fucking pushover back then. That was before Mom died. Before Candy arrived. When everything was still hunky-dory.

  With luck on my side, I can get Candy out through the kitchen without anyone seeing, if the kids are already scattering like I’m sure they are.

  Guess it was a quiet night at the police station for the cops to have decided coming out here was worth their time, especially knowing that everyone would probably be gone by the time they got here.

  Including Candy and I.

  Chapter Eleven

  Candy

  Something’s tickling my face, but my arms are too heavy for me to bat it away. That sensation is so irritating, it forces me awake when all I want to do is sleep.

  A splash of water rouses me even more. It’s all around me, and that sends a vague wave of panic through me.

  When I finally lever open my eyes, I stare for a bit at my naked body spread out in front of me.

  Did I fall asleep in the bath? How come I didn’t slip down into the water?

  There’s something under my head, propping me up. Something warm and firm that bunches and moves.

  A hand appears holding a bar of soap. It descends to my thighs and begins scrubbing the skin.

  This can’t be right.

  I lift my hand, but all it does is splash weakly back into the water.

  “Morning, sleepyhead,” Josiah says in a deadpan voice. “Thought you’d never wake up.”

  “What are you…?”

  Stupid question. I know exactly what he’s doing. The question is—

  “Why?”

  “You’re dirty.”

  Well, he’s got me there. The water’s murky, but not enough to obscure the marks on my legs. The water level’s only halfway up my thighs. Guess Josiah didn’t want to take any chances.

  Something’s not right.

  It takes me a few seconds to figure out what it is.

  “It hurts,” I murmur.

  “Sorry, darling.”

  “Inside.”

  Josiah briefly pauses, and then renews his scrubbing with vigor. “Almost done.”

  “What happened?”

  The bar of soap plops into the water. Josiah’s face appears, his hair in disarray and his eyes vacant. “You don’t remember?”

  I look down at my bruised body. Most of those marks are familiar, but some of them are new.

  I shake my head.

  He splashes water over me, rinsing my skin. “Almost done,” he says again. Reaching over my legs, he pulls out the plug. I catch a glimpse of bright tiles, a pink loofah, and a razor.

  I don’t recognize any of them.

  “Where are we?”

  “A friend’s house,” he says.

  He leans away as the water gurgles down the drain. The scent of the soap he washed me with hangs in the air—sickly and too sweet, like decaying flesh.

  My stomach twists. I lurch forward into a sit, and barely manage to turn my head before I puke up violently. The hand behind my neck tightens, then Josiah draws away a clump of my wet hair.

  “I really wish you’d stop doing that,” he says.

  With a sigh, he turns on the faucet and adjusts the hot and cold lever. Warm water rushes over my legs, washing my puke down the drain. “At this rate, we’ll be here all night.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Josiah

  I’ll never condone what happened to Candy at Sean’s house, but I do feel she had a hand in her own self-destruction.

  I’d warned her, but she’d snuck out anyway.

  Everyone knows not to accept drinks from strangers, but she did.

  Honestly, I thought she’d have learned her lesson. Who would touch alcohol again after being spiked?

  But the longer I know Candy, the more I start to understand things about her.

  She’s stubborn as fuck and resilient too.

  I almost want to admire her. She’s like one of those inflatable kid’s toys with weights in the bottom—doesn’t matter how hard you punch them; they just keep bouncing back.

  The week after Sean’s party, Candy skipped dinner. I’d have been pissed at that—Dad never lets us skip supper unless we’re running a brain-melting fever or something—but I was too busy reveling in the fact that my life was back to normal as easily and quickly as if someone had flipped a fucking switch.

  Dad and I talked sports. Emma got through her whole plate of food without anyone trying to interfere. And it was easy to forget Diana was even at the table.

  That was when I realized how much Candy had affected my life. I never thought it had been entirely my imagination, but I’d considered that I’d possibly been overreacting.

  But now?

  It’s so obvious, it pains me to think that I’d been trying to convince myself otherwise.

  Candy is the thorn to my lion’s paw. Events at Sean’s party had dislodged her, and now she’s no longer festering inside me.

  It won’t last.

  She’d have to eat with us again.

  Naive as I was, I’d thought it would be different when that happened.

  It wasn’t.

  “More wine?”

  I look up at the sound
of Dad’s voice, and send him a scowl he pretends not to see. “I think she’s had enough,” I mutter.

  But for her puppy-love smile crystallizing, Candy otherwise ignores me. “Oh please,” she says through her teeth. “That would be wonderful.”

  I gag theatrically, and Emma laughs.

  Dad’s eyes flicker to me. “Lay off on your sister,” he says.

  I nearly choke on my chicken pie. “She’s had like three—”

  “Josiah.”

  My mouth snaps shut when I recognize the warning in my father’s voice. Strike two—one more, and I’m grounded.

  The urge to tell my dad about the party, about what Candy let happen to her like the dimwit she is—

  I shove it away like I always do.

  This is war. I won’t sacrifice ammunition just to win this battle—not unless I’m guaranteed a victory.

  I didn’t know what to expect when Candy came downstairs tonight and took her usual seat at the dinner table, a seat that had been unoccupied for so long that Diana hadn’t even bothered setting her place.

  But five minutes in, everything was back to the same fucked up normal. Dad and Candy laughing at their own private jokes. Emma and I rolling our eyes at each other. Diana getting more and more drunk as supper progressed.

  I seem to be the only person who notices that Candy’s barely touching her food, or the dark shadows under her eyes. I still take her to and from school every morning, but it’s as if I’m chaperoning a corpse. She stares out the window and doesn’t say a word, regardless of how I goad her.

  “I’ve lost my appetite,” I announce to the table at large. “May I leave?”

  Dad waves a hand, eyes still fixed on Candy as she takes a sip from her glass. Diana looks up at me, and seems to surface from whatever well of introspection she’d fallen into. “Have you done your homework, dear?”

  “Course,” I tell her through a grimace, hoping she’ll take the gesture as a smile. “Would you like to see it?”

  “Go to your room,” Dad says.

  “That’s the plan.” Blood rushes in my ears as I storm up the stairs. I barely stop myself from slamming a door—an act of defiance that I know would have landed me in deep shit.

  I throw myself on my bed and stare at the molded ceiling, hands under my neck and my knees up and knocking together.

  If she’d been even a little more complacent. Just a little demure…then I might have let this all slide. But that fucking thorn is back and an inch deeper than before.

  Fuck all I can do about it.

  See, this is why people have friends.

  Anything I do to give Candy grief can be traced back to me. I’d always be the first name on the suspect list, regardless of the crime. I couldn’t even—

  No.

  Wait.

  I sit up in a rush, staring sightlessly at the curtain opposite me billowing in a breeze.

  Candy and I aren’t friends…but I’m also not her worst enemy.

  If I made it look like she was going to cause trouble for Sean and his buddies for what happened at the party…I mean, how far would Sean go to protect his reputation as Maple Ridge’s heartthrob quarterback?

  He’d make her life a living hell.

  And all I’d have to do was pitch up and watch those flames consume her.

  I strip and change into a pair of clean boxers. After a quick wank, I’m pretty ready for dreamland. Even when I hear the unmistakable sound of my dad’s heavy footfalls, followed by Candy’s lighter steps, as they head upstairs, sleep snatches me moments later.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Candy

  I stare after Josiah with a lump in my throat that even a sip of wine is unable to dislodge. I knew this was a mistake, but I came down here anyway. Why hadn’t I stayed in my room?

  Because you were lonely, and sad, and you couldn’t stop thinking about how good a glass of wine would taste.

  “—everything okay?”

  My gaze snaps back to Wayne, and I duck my head a little, giving him a sheepish smile. No need to make him or Mom worry. I glance up at her from under my lashes. Her head’s down, eyes on her plate, but all she’s doing is pushing her food around.

  You’d swear she was unhappy I was here.

  She happens to look up. I glance away, but not fast enough.

  Her chair scrapes back with a shudder over the wooden floorboards.

  “Honey?” Wayne asks, setting down his glass of wine as she heads out of the room. “Everything all right?”

  “Going to watch some TV,” she says, somewhat indistinctly.

  “Sheesh,” he says, inhaling deeply as he drains the rest of his wine glass. “What is it with you ladies lately?”

  My cheeks warm-up at the comment. Mom must have told him why I’d been absent from the dinner table, but maybe that’s a good thing. I’d been lonely enough to venture down here and attempt a meal with my family, but now I’m feeling weird and awkward sitting here with Wayne and Emma.

  Why had Josiah left? I’d been waiting for the first glass of wine to kick in—still waiting, by the way—so I could try and engage him in conversation. So he could see I was trying to be nice. Maybe then I’d actually be able to apologize.

  I should have thanked him last week already, but I’d been mortified after I woke up with him bathing me like an invalid. For days, I couldn’t even summon up enough courage to look in his direction. I’d hoped to clear things up in the car on the way to school, but all he seemed interested in doing was crapping me out.

  As if any of that shit was my fault. They fucking drugged me.

  You shouldn’t have been there in the first—

  I empty my glass and hurriedly hold it out toward Wayne. “One more before bed?”

  Something flickers over his face, and for a moment, I think I’ve gone too far.

  The moment stretches into infinity.

  Emma lets out a blustery sigh, mutters something about ‘ride my unicorn’, and slips off her chair. Wayne drops his gaze the moment she speaks, and starts placing his knife and fork just-so on his plate as she trundles out of the room.

  “Is there something you want to talk about?” Wayne asks, his voice a low rumble.

  Oh, my God.

  He knows.

  Josiah must have told him!

  “I, uh, no. I mean—”

  “I know you’ve been avoiding me, Candy Cane.”

  Now there’s a playfulness to his voice, and for some reason, that makes my heart skip a beat.

  And my stomach turns to lead.

  My skin prickles. “Mr.—”

  Wayne chuckles and grabs my hand, giving it a hard squeeze. “Gees, baby girl, I was joking.”

  I force out a laugh that should have sounded fake, but Mr. Bale seems to buy it. I point at him, and then hurriedly fist my hand when I see how much it’s trembling. “You got me there,” I say. “Guess I’m just tired of getting my butt kicked in chess.”

  “Tell you what.” Wayne leans closer, eying the empty dining room through slitted eyes. “One last game. Winner takes all.”

  “Oh, I…”

  What’s wrong with me? There’s booze up there, and that’s why I came down here in the first place, right? Booze makes my brain stop asking all these annoying questions. It blurs out the memories that stream non-stop through my head. It—

  It makes you forget important things.

  “Sure.” I nod with conviction, and Wayne sends a thousand-megawatt grin my way. Now my stomach is full of fireflies. I barely touch the ground as I follow him up the stairs.

  We pass Josiah’s door, and for a moment, I feel this inexplicable tug.

  I should have thanked him.

  “Chickening out?”

  I flinch and hurry after Wayne, forcing myself not to look back.

  I don’t want to live in fear. So things don’t always go how they should…that’s life. I know that better than most, but I guess I’d been lulled into a false sense of security ever since Mom and I
arrived at Bale Manor.

  I should have realized that I’d have to pay for this luxury, for this happiness, for this…family.

  Guess I never figured the price would be this high.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Josiah

  The doorbell rings, again. It goes unanswered…again. I toss my battered copy of The Scarlet Letter to the bed and push to my feet. Blood sings in my veins as I wait…

  Ding dong.

  Jesus. Am I the only one in this fucking house with acceptable hearing?

  I’m muttering to myself as I stomp downstairs. It’s bad enough I’m forced to endure the ramblings of an 1850’s puritan on a soapbox, but I’d have been done already if I didn’t keep getting interrupted.

  First, it was Emma. Granted, I’m the furthest thing from pissed off about her asking me to sit with her while she swims. She loves the water, and there’s honestly nothing that makes me happier than watching her splash around. She’s not allowed to go anywhere near the pool without adult supervision, and even then, she’s not allowed out of the shallow end, but damn that little girl loves to splash around in her neon-green water wings. Sometimes, when I know Dad won’t catch us, I jump in with her and take her to the deep end, keeping a hand on her round belly so she can swim like a grown-up.

  Emma’s swimming lesson added an hour to my study time. When I got back to my room, Candy had decided to start throwing up again. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I could hear her through the fucking walls as she retched out her stomach lining.

  Thank God for earphones.

  Finally, Candy went back to sleep, and I could study in peace.

  Until about five minutes ago, when someone started ringing the doorbell like a zealot with a quota to fill.

  Ding—

  “For fuck’s sake!” I rip open the door.

  Marissa Hawthorn’s mouth goes wide, and her raised hand drops to her side. “Hi,” she breathes.

  You’d swear I was smiling at her, not scowling. “What?” I snap.