Arm Candy Warrior: A Dark High School Romance (The Heights Crew Book 2)

by E. M. Moore

  The only thing I’m allowed out of my apartment for is fights. Johnny even brings Jax and Finn to my place to train. Brawler and Oscar are allowed as well, and I’d like to think it’s because of the conversations I keep having with Johnny about needing and wanting friends. He even stays sometimes. Those moments are ten times more tense than my usual training days, but I enjoy them, hoping that the spark of the idea is in his head. The more people around you that you can count on, the better life is.

  He gets that because of the Crew, but I’m talking about the right kind of people.

  Jax and Finn talk strategy in the background. It’s T minus two hours before I have a fight at the new underground fights’ location. We’re getting in some last-minute training as tonight I’ll fight my first male in the ring. Well, official ring. They wanted the first fight card to be exciting, introducing everyone to the new digs, hoping they’ll spend money like crazy. According to Brawler, they had to hire more people. He tells me he gave Natalia a job, and I’m over the moon. Brawler will make sure nothing shady goes down there. Plus, he’ll watch over her like a hawk. She has no idea the amount of heart she has on her side now.

  Finn claps me in the upper arms. “You good?”

  “Fucking perfect,” I reply.

  He and Jax gather their stuff. They’re going to meet us at The Ring. Apt name for what it is, but like most of the Crew’s businesses, it has a front. A sports bar will be on the top story, gathering the legal crowd. However, if you gain entrance into a side door, that’s where the real Ring opens up. They’ve kept me from looking at it, and I can’t lie and say I’m not excited to see how it turned out. There’s supposed to be legit locker rooms this time around, and I have my own personal ready room.

  “See you soon,” Jax says.

  I nod at him, and the two brothers leave. Johnny and Brawler are already at the venue, which leaves me with Oscar and Magnum. Oscar played in his final game as Rawley Heights quarterback, but it wasn’t pretty. Not that I was permitted to leave the tower to see it, but Oscar told me every last detail, right to the point where he had to pull himself out of the game because of a nasty tackle that injured his ribs even more. Apparently, he has an old injury there that Johnny made worse.

  I’ll never forgive myself for taking that game away from him.

  “Ready?” Magnum asks.

  I blow out a breath, zipping up my thin sweatshirt and grabbing my bag with my fight clothes in it. Oscar takes it from me. His hands linger on mine before he finally takes the bag away. His face is mostly healed except for some prominent yellow bruising around his eye sockets. His ribs are still injured though. The game he played in didn’t help any, but the more he stays away from violence, the quicker he’ll heal.

  We take the elevator to the basement parking, and Magnum and I get in the car. Oscar takes his motorcycle because even though Johnny is getting better about having others around me, he still isn’t keen on me being alone with any of them.

  Magnum keeps the partition open. “Nervous?” he asks as soon as we roll past security.

  “Hell yes,” I groan. It’s not really about the fight, it’s about all the hype surrounding it. It’ll be my biggest fight yet with the biggest stage. All I want to do is give the crowd the fight they want. At the same time, I can’t forget that my place in the Crew hinges on the fact that I need to keep showing them I’m useful. I’m useful in this. I’m useful in bringing them intel now, too. I can’t step a toe out of line.

  Johnny wouldn’t care, but his father would.

  “I bet.” Magnum smiles at me in the mirror, but then the light dies from his eyes. “The fuck?”

  He’s glaring past me out the rearview window, so I turn, expecting to find Oscar on his bike following us. Instead, there’s a nondescript black car on our ass, much like the one we’re riding in now. The car hits us from behind, and we lurch forward.

  “Fuck,” Magnum growls. “Hold on.”

  He speeds up, and I grab the door. I hadn’t put my seatbelt on, so my knuckles turn white fighting to hold steady as Magnum accelerates.

  “Move, move!” he yells. In front of us, cars crowd an intersection, but the tires screech beneath us as he maneuvers around them. He yanks out his cell phone. “We’re being followed. Corner of—”

  We’re hit from behind again. I slide across the seat and fall into the area reserved usually for feet.

  “Corner of ninth and Hemlock!” Magnum yells. The screech of other tires underlie Magnum stringing curses together. “Brace,” he yells.

  I barely have time to move before I’m thrown into the seats ahead of me. My head whips to the side and then back until we come to a startling halt among the scream of metal against metal.

  I blink. It takes a moment for my vision to clear. My body is sore. My neck hurts like a bitch. I groan. “Fuck, fuck,” I seethe. “Magnum?”

  No answer.

  I try to pull myself onto the seat, but every time I move, my body protests with sharp, excruciating pain. My side, my neck.

  The door behind me opens.

  Despite my body resisting, I try to move, but rough hands grab my shoulders and heave me backwards. I want to fight back, but my arm might be broken because it doesn’t react the way I want it to, and the pulsing pain in my neck is no fucking joke.

  “Magnum!”

  A groan sounds from inside the car as I’m being hauled away.

  No way. No fucking way. I can’t believe this is happening. Johnny warned that people could come for me, but I thought he was being paranoid. At the same time, I’m wondering who this is. Is it Fonz’s men, finally enacting their revenge? Or is it Gregory?

  Why do I have so many enemies now? Oh right, because I came to the Heights.

  “Get her in the car,” a voice says.

  “Magnum!” I call out again. I have no idea if I’m even yelling that loud. It sounds like it to my own ears, but there’s a whooshing there, too.

  Shots ring out, and I fall to the pavement.

  “Fuck, I’ve been hit.”

  A body falls behind me. I try to get up, to move back toward the car. I end up dragging myself with my hands. Magnum comes out from around our car that’s sandwiched between two others, a gun outstretched in his hands. He looks murderous. Blood trickles into his eyes, and he pulls the trigger again. The look on his face sheer fury. Shots ring out over my head, the unmistakable almost whistling sound as they pass just over me. He pulls the trigger several more times before a car screeches away behind me.

  He spins in a circle, casing the area. When he turns back to me, he lowers the gun, running up beside me. “I’m here, I’m here,” he says. “Lay back. They’ll be here.”

  Sirens surround us, and I close my eyes as the pain surges.

  Magnum gets to his feet. His voice splits the air. “Who are you?” I don’t hear a response, but then the guy groans long and hard. “Who the fuck do you work for? If you tell me, I’ll spare your life, but talk soon because I have zero fucking patience.” The gun clicks, and I know Magnum’s ready to shoot again.

  “Gregory. Gregory!” the guy chokes out. “Fuck. You shot me.”

  “What do you want her for?”

  He breathes in through his teeth. “Payback.”

  I try to tilt my head back, but I can’t. I still get a good view of Magnum pulling his foot back to kick the guy in the ribs though.

  The sirens get louder. Magnum tucks his gun in the back of his pants. “Someone must’ve called the accident in. They’re coming, Kyla.”

  I try to stay as still as a statue as I look into Magnum’s gaze. Terror stares back at me. I make my fingers move, and he slips his hand into mine.

  “I got you.”

  Magnum looks up briefly. Tires come to a screeching stop somewhere near us. “Get down on the ground!” a voice yells.

  Magnum lets my hand go.

  “Show me your hands!”

  A spotlight washes out Magnum’s face. When I look up, a helicopter hovers ove
r us. Police continue to bark orders out at Magnum, and he follows their every command. He’s on the ground, stomach down, face turned toward me. Feet impede my view and then someone kneels beside me. “I’ve got an injury here,” a female voice shouts.

  More people crowd me. Somewhere far away, I’m pretty sure I hear Johnny yelling and then more police yelling. “What’s going on?” I ask, my body starting to shake uncontrollably.

  The woman gets in my face. “You’re my only concern. Hold still. Relax.”

  They get a board and move me onto it. It’s stiff and uncomfortable. They put a brace on my neck, and I whimper as pain slices down my spine.

  “I know it hurts. We’re going to get you in the ambulance, and I’ll be giving you something to take the edge off, okay?”

  “Kyla!” a dark voice yells. The whooshing in my ear isn’t helping my hearing, but I think it’s Johnny. Now that the brace is on my neck, there’s no way I can look though. All I can do is stare straight up at the night sky.

  “Christ,” the lady mutters as they load me into the ambulance. Lights flash off of street signs and houses. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Gang shit,” the other paramedic says.

  The girl leers down at me, and that’s the last thing I remember.

  34

  I’m in and out of consciousness. I don’t know how long I was like that, but I’ve been fully conscious for a couple of days now, being fed pain medicine to keep the surging pain at bay. My arm’s broken, so I’m in a cast, and I haven’t been able to take my neck brace off, but the other injuries are subsiding quickly.

  Detective Reynolds has been hiding out outside my room. He hasn’t come in yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I’ve asked the hospital personnel if anyone’s tried to visit me, but they won’t say. They also won’t let me use the phone or answer any of my other questions about what happened to the guy I was with. Or about the guy on the bike who’d been following us. I’m almost positive now that I heard Johnny at the scene when I was being carted away, but he hasn’t shown up yet, and that must mean one thing. He can’t. He would be here if he could. They all would.

  A nurse comes in to check my vitals. Detective Reynolds is outside again. His boisterous drivel wafts into the room, making me leery. “Are they ever going to let him in?” I ask the nurse as she puts the blood pressure cuff away.

  She smiles at me. “I think they’re talking about that now.” She leans over. “I have a message for you,” she whispers. Her body is taut, and I’m instantly on alert. “From Rocket.”

  I relax, but she doesn’t. Someone put some real fear into her to deliver this. “What is it?” I ask, looking up at her.

  “He says not to say anything, and that he’ll take care of it.”

  When she returns to a standing position, she doesn’t meet my eyes.

  Heavy footsteps enter the room at last. The anticipation of having to talk to the detective did worse things to me than just getting it done and over with. Of course, I wouldn’t say anything. I wondered why Johnny even bothered with the message.

  The detective smiles at the young nurse as she leaves and then he leans against the wall at the foot of my bed. “We keep finding each other.”

  “More like you keep finding me,” I say. “Can detectives also be stalkers?”

  “If they have to be.”

  “Creepy,” I mutter, shifting on the bed. I haven’t been able to find many comfortable positions to lay in. They say my neck will heal, but I might have to go through a bit of therapy. The brace I’m still wearing is just so I don’t do any further damage to it.

  “You ready to talk to me now?”

  “About?” I ask coyly.

  He smiles back, but he’s a lot less humorous than he has been. “Who made you and Jacob Cotton crash?”

  “Jacob Cotton?”

  Detective Reynolds folds his arms over his chest. “You know him as Magnum, I presume.”

  Huh. It’s odd to unravel another layer. “Is he okay?”

  “Who made you crash?”

  I let out a huff. “I have no idea.”

  Detective Reynolds clucks his tongue. “He’s fine. See? We can have a conversation about this.”

  I want to haul off and punch him, but my fucking hand is broken. I grit my teeth. I’m so pissed. I should’ve worn a fucking seatbelt. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. Tears sting the corner of my eyes. My hand will heal, but I won’t be able to fight for a while.

  “How did the guy on the scene get shot?”

  “Ask him.”

  Reynolds smiles, but there’s no amusement there. He runs a hand through his thick hair. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation you’re in, Ms. Samson.”

  I dart my eyes to my surroundings. “I think I do.”

  He shakes his head and an ominous feeling starts in my toes. “No, unfortunately, you don’t. Let me enlighten you. Your fingerprints showed up on a weapon used to murder a young girl. How do you suppose that happened?”

  The bed may as well have fallen out from underneath me. “What?”

  “She was just a teenager. On her way home from school.” He pulls out a picture from the file he’s holding and turns it toward me. It’s a school photo of a young black girl who couldn’t be more than fourteen. “Now I know you’ve bitten off more than you can chew with the Heights Crew. I tried to warn you,” he says. “Now you’ve gone and ruined your life.”

  I’m aching at the seams to tell him I didn’t kill this girl. It’s threatening to burst out of me, but I press my lips together and close my eyes. This must have been the reason for Johnny’s message. Don’t say anything. He’ll take care of it.

  “Not talking to me anymore?”

  I keep my eyes closed.

  He moves around the room, and when he talks again, I almost jump because he’s right beside me. “It’s sad what happens when young girls like you get involved with the type of men who are in these gangs. I tried to help you.”

  The picture of the young girl won’t leave my head, and a single tear runs down my cheek. No, of course I didn’t kill her, but I think I know what happened to the gun that was in my room now. And yes, my fingerprints were all over it.

  The detective sighs. “When you’re released from the hospital, you’ll be booked into Rawley Police station for first degree murder of a child. I hope you contemplate on that, Ms. Samson.”

  His footsteps lead him away from the room, and when the door clicks shut behind him, my heart opens up for the first time in a long time. All the grief I’ve been holding back. All the stress and pressure, all the fucking pain I’ve had to endure comes out in a flood of emotions that wrack my body with sobs. The expression of my pain hurts, but it would hurt even worse to keep it inside. To hold it back.

  I came to the Heights to make my life better, not worse, and now I may have just ruined mine. For wanting something more. Hell, even just wanting the life I should have had.

  My heart splinters open when I realize that little girl died because of me. Because someone wanted to frame me for this. To make the Heights Crew pay.

  Everywhere I look, innocent people are getting hurt, and I’m at the center.

  This wasn’t what this was supposed to be at all.

  And now if I have any chance of getting out of this, I have to rely on Big Daddy K. The one who gets around the police all the time. The person I hate most in the world.

  Isn’t life ironic?

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  A Sky So Dark: Safe Haven Academy Series, Book 1

  Safe Haven Academy Series Blurb

  Macie Davenport’s life is over.

  The girl who has everything is reduced to an empty black hole of nothing they call Safe Haven Academy. It’s where bad souls go for reform, but end up getting worse until they’re shipped out to another “sheltered place” with an equally uninspired name. It doesn’t matter what they dress it up as, Macie knows places like this are for people like her—people everyone wants to forget.

  The screwed up part? Macie’s not bad. Torn with grief and living in a fantasy world? Yes. A psychopath? Not likely.

  Worse yet, she can’t forget. Not even a little. Not even trying with all her might, she’ll never forget the consequences of the night the sky turned dark.

  Then, they force themselves into her life. A shining light in the bleakness around her, three boys irrevocably change her fate. Can she allow the sun to shine through? Or will Macie give up before giving them a chance?

  About the Author

  E. M. Moore is a USA Today Bestselling author of Contemporary and Paranormal Romance. She's drawn to write within the teen and college-aged years where her characters get knocked on their asses, torn inside out, and put back together again by their first loves. Whether it's in a fantastical setting where human guards protect the creatures of the night or a realistic high school backdrop where social cliques rule the halls, the emotions are the same. Dark. Twisty. Angsty. Raw.