Hate Struck: (Maddison High School Book 1)

by Nikki Ashton

  The cum was drying on his skin in the cool night air, and I guessed he’d want to clean up. He didn’t say anything but looked down and then over his shoulder. My gaze followed his and I saw my backpack was on the pavement, lying on its side where I must have dropped it as soon as he’d put his lips onto me.

  “Hang on.”

  Adam moved away and left me leaning back against the wall, giving me an opportunity to take in our surroundings. We were in an alleyway between two buildings, and if I was right it was the new Tesco Express and a hair salon that were part of a group of shops that had been built specifically for the estate that I lived on.

  There was one light at the far end of the alleyway which led to a service road at the back of the two businesses. It was fairly dark, and Adam had carried me far enough down that I was sure we wouldn’t have been seen from the pavement. Thankfully, his car was parked in such a way that the view into the alley was blocked from the road, so no drivers would have seen us, yet for some reason I didn’t give a shit.

  I watched as Adam snatched up my backpack and then jogged back to me. He passed it to me, and I noticed his jeans were still undone as were mine. I reached into the side pocket for the small pack of wipes and pulled one out, before handing them to Adam.

  “Thanks,” he said and took one with a small smile before pushing the packet back into my bag.

  We both cleaned ourselves as best we could and then fastened up without another word being spoken.

  “I’d better get you home.” Adam finally broke the silence and took the used wipe from me and pushed it into the pocket of his jacket with his own. “Will your mum be wondering where you are?”

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked the time and was relieved to see I had no missed calls or text messages.

  “No, she knew I was going to the cheer and team meeting. I wasn’t sure how long it would go on, so told her to eat alone if I wasn’t back by seven.”

  Adam nodded and it struck me that he hadn’t asked me about my dad.

  “How did you know it was just me and my mum?” I asked.

  “Just a guess,” he replied with a shrug. “You said you’d call your mum for help when most girls would call their dad if he was around.”

  The truth in his words made my chest crack open and allow a little grief to permeate into my system.

  “When did he leave?” he asked with the confidence of a boy who’d evidently been disappointed by his own father at some point. I knew the man who’d come to the shopping centre was his stepdad so assumed his real dad must have been the one to leave him.

  “He didn’t.” I shook my head, mainly to shake away the images that immediately played there. “He was killed just over a year ago. A jewellery shop robbery in London.”

  I gasped as I realised something; I hadn’t even told Alannah that piece of information.

  Adam pulled back and stared at me with his brow furrowed, like he didn’t know whether to believe me or not.

  “My dad was a policeman in the Met and when he was on duty one day, someone reported that they’d heard gun shots and he was first on the scene. It was a jewellery shop robbery and when Dad got there the man was about to get into a car that had been waiting for him. My dad tried to stop him but…” I paused to take a deep breath. “The man turned around, shot him at point blank range and then… and then they ran over his body.”

  “Fuck,” Adam groaned. “That’s…shit, Sarah, I’m so sorry.”

  He reached up to brush my hair over my shoulder and I shivered at the tenderness of his action. Was this the real Adam Hudson I was seeing in front of me? What happened to the angry, manipulative boy I saw wandering the halls of Maddison High School every day?

  “The owner was shot too, but he survived,” I replied.

  “And the man who committed the robbery?”

  “The police eventually tracked him down to some isolated farmhouse in Surrey. They surrounded the house and tried to get him to come out, but after three hours and him realising he had nowhere to go, like the coward that he was, he shot himself.” I swallowed back the sob pushing at my throat.

  Adam gasped. “What about the one driving the car?”

  I shrugged. “The police never found him and Carl Jenkins, the man who shot Dad, was dead, so he wasn’t going to tell them.”

  “And you get no fucking closure,” Adam said, running a hand through his hair.

  “No, we don’t. No closure and no justice.” I shuddered as I remembered clearly how it had felt seeing Dad’s Chief Inspector on our doorstep and then having to hear him say the words that would change our lives forever. While my heart felt like it had been squeezed in a vice and then ripped apart, Mum and I had both screamed and clung to one another, my whole world tilting beneath me.

  “Fuck,” Adam groaned. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have…”

  “It’s fine,” I said on a deep swallow. “You weren’t to know.”

  Sensing that I probably didn’t want to talk about it any longer, Adam turned and looked up the alleyway towards his car.

  “Come on, let’s go.”

  “I can walk.”

  “No.” He sighed and shook his head in frustration. “We’ve talked about this and look how that ended.”

  He then smirked and my stomach lurched wondering whether this was when he turned back into the cocky shit who ruled the school. I inhaled sharply and wrapped my arms around my waist only to be surprised when Adam gently unfolded them and took my hand in his.

  “Please, Sarah,” he said, voice low. “Get in the car.”

  I nodded and followed Adam back to his car. This time he opened the door for me and waited until I got in. While he walked slowly around the front to his own door, it dawned on me that my life at Maddison High School would now change one way or another. How it changed would depend on the boy who had just given me the biggest shot of bliss I’d ever had.

  17

  Adam

  The drive to Sarah’s house was done in silence, and I had a sense that neither of us knew what to say. I had no fucking words because I had no fucking clue how I felt about what we’d done; how she’d come apart under my fingers, how I’d come apart with her hand. I didn’t regret it, but I also didn’t know if I’d done the right thing. I’d finger banged her, let her wank me off, and had loved every damn minute of it. I wanted to do it again, more than I’d ever wanted a repeat performance with any girl. The real shitter though, was that I had no red mist clouding the thoughts in my head.

  “Here you go,” I said as I pulled up in front of her driveway.

  Sarah had given me address, although I’d already known it, and I was surprised to see it was pretty compact, the smallest in the street I would guess. I wondered if they’d had to downsize after her dad was killed, because he hadn’t had life assurance, or because they’d had no pay out for him dying on active duty. I had no idea if that would happen, I just thought it should; but what did I know? Yet her clothes, while too fucking big and baggy, were expensive looking and her backpack was a leather Michael Kors, which according to my mum was pretty good stuff. So, I was surprised that Sarah and her Mum lived in the small bungalow tucked beside three large detached houses.

  “Nice house,” I said as I stretched across her to look out through the window.

  She shifted back a little into the seat, edging away from my body. “Yeah, it’s nice, big enough for me and Mum.”

  I nodded and moved back, as I did, I got a whiff of her perfume and almost kissed her again. Her lips were soft and swollen and her hair was tousled like she’d just had wild sex. Swallowing back that thought I gripped the steering wheel and started up the engine.

  “So, I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” I said, flashing a quick smile.

  She nodded and picked her backpack up from the floor. “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

  With her hand on the door, she hesitated, and she took a breath like she was going to say something, but when I cleared my throat she just go
t out of the car and practically sprinted up her driveway to the navy-blue front door. Once she was inside, I blew out a sigh of relief and stared straight ahead to the line of streetlamps edging the road. A kid walked down his path bouncing a football and then crossed over the road to bang on a door of a house where the security light had sparked on. I watched while the boy, of about ten or eleven, waited and kept on bouncing until the door was open and a lady with blond hair ushered him in. It made me wonder if Mum had never met Eric, would my life have been like that kid’s; looking happy while I bounced my ball and went to visit a friend. If Eric had never beaten me until I had bruises mottling my back, just because I had knocked a glass off the table, or because I’d had the last of the milk for breakfast, would I have been different? Maybe if Mum had actually stopped it and not acted like she didn’t know what was going on, I’d have been that kid going over to Ellis’s house to shoot penalties, instead of sitting in my room plotting how to ruin the lives of anyone I ever met. No kid of nine years of age should feel that angry.

  “Fuck,” I growled to myself, looked over at Sarah’s house, and then drove away.

  When I got home my mum was surprised to see me. She knew how long the cheer and team meetings could go on, so she, Roger and Lori had eaten dinner and were watching a film together. She’d told me there was a plate of food in the microwave for me, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat. The only thing on my mind was Sarah and her damn welcoming pussy, certainly not chicken pie and chips.

  I gave some crap excuse about having a headache and escaped to my room. It wasn’t like they would miss me watching TV with them, no matter how much Lori begged me to stay. Mum had been off with me for a couple of days since I’d lost my sister, but was acting now like it had never happened, like she’d never asked me if I could do anything right. Well, she might have been ready to forget but I wasn’t.

  As soon as I had changed into sweatpants and a clean t-shirt, I opened up my drawer and pulled out Sarah’s notebook and flopped onto my bed with it. It was full of words; poems, one liner’s, single words that were underlined or circled and I didn’t think I’d ever read anything so raw or real.

  I flicked to a poem that I’d read hundreds of times in the few days since I’d had the notebook, and despite the fact that I could recite it word for word, my eyes flashed over the page.

  Fear is just an emotion that I know I cannot shake

  And with the fear comes pain, pain that will not break

  The black echoes of memories torture me and twist my soul

  I cry and scream in the darkness of night and know I’m all alone

  Every time I’d read it, a chill shivered through me as I thought about what pain Sarah must have suffered to write such words, but now I knew. It was about the death of her dad who had been killed in the most fucking horrible of ways. No wonder she had moved halfway across the country part way through a term; everywhere they went must have reminded her and her Mum of what they’d lost.

  I flipped to another page that had the words ‘I will survive him’ etched across the whole width of the page and underlined three times. Maybe it was about the man who had killed her dad, but when on the next page I read, ‘He has taken what was mine to give but I will not give him anything more’, I wasn’t totally sure. As I pushed it to the back of my desk drawer, I realised she was hurting from her past just as much as I was.

  The next morning when I arrived at school, Ellis and Kirk were waiting in the car park for me, but there was no sign of Tyler. It wasn’t unusual, he was often late and arrived just as the bell went.

  Ellis was leaning against some kid’s car with his arms folded over his chest. I smirked knowing no way would he lean up against his own car, a sweet ten-year-old, electric blue Audi TT that his dad had fixed up for him.

  “What’s up?” I asked as I fist bumped them both.

  Kirk grinned and Ellis winked. “Nothing for you to worry about. Let’s just say we took care of business and did something you’re going to be pleased about.”

  “What?” I narrowed my eyes on the both of them and felt uneasy.

  “I found something out about the new girl,” Kirk replied as he reached out to wrap an arm around my shoulder. “I did a little digging in her old town.”

  My blood went cold and my heart tried to hammer its way out of my chest as Kirk’s words filtered through to my brain. “What did you do?”

  “Let’s just say,” Ellis said with a cocky smirk. “The whole school will soon know why she’s here. Plus, we kind of twisted the truth a little.”

  Bile rose in my throat as I looked up the pathway towards the main entrance where hundreds of kids were filing into school; hundreds of kids including Sarah. Beautiful Sarah who despite everything I didn’t want had totally messed with my head and rocked my world the night before.

  Without a word, I pulled away from Kirk and sprinted up the path, pushing everyone aside without an apology. I skidded into the main reception and turned right for the sixth form corridor screaming at people to get out of my way. As I ran my eyes flickered around trying to see what the lads had done, but there was nothing, no one was interested in anything in particular, there were no groups of gossiping girls or lads laughing.

  When I finally reached the bank of lockers where Sarah’s was, I was breathing hard with the effort I’d made and the adrenalin rushing through my veins. As soon as I saw her, I slid to a stop. She was talking to Alannah who was smiling and waving her arms around. Whatever the lads had done hadn’t come into play yet, which meant I might have time to stop it. I turned to go back and find Ellis and Kirk when I smacked straight into Tyler.

  “Hey,” I gasped. “You seen the others?”

  “Not since Ellis picked me up this morning at the arse crack of dawn.” He yawned and then grinned. “Hey, we have a surprise for you.”

  My heart sank. Tyler hadn’t been late; he’d been the dick who put whatever shit they had planned in place.

  “What did you do, Tyler?”

  He smiled and nodded towards Sarah who was about to open her locker. When she did, she hesitated to put her stuff inside and turned to Alannah and said something. Alannah looked shocked and leaned over Sarah’s shoulder as they both stared at something. Sarah crumpled to the ground with a pained scream, Alannah immediately following and cradling her in her arms.

  I felt sick and I felt jealous. Sick at what they’d done to make her so anguished and jealous because it was Alannah comforting her and not me. Emotions I’d barely ever felt about anyone threatened to bring me to my own knees. Whether I liked it or not, I knew I cared about what happened to the tiny girl with golden hair.

  People started to crowd around her and Alannah while others bypassed them and went to their own lockers. One by one I saw them pull out a piece of paper, read it and then all turn to stare at Sarah.

  “What the fuck did you do?” I spat out at Tyler who was staring at the group with Sarah concealed in the middle. He had a smile of his face and his hands were stuffed into his jean pockets. “Tyler.”

  He turned to me and reached into his back pocket and then handed me a piece of paper. I unfolded it and read it, dread, pity and guilt all wrapping themselves around me.

  Did you know Sarah Danes Dad was killed in a shootout with police?

  No!

  Shit, well, you should know the police shot the daddy of our new girl when he tried to hold up a jewellery shop, all because he didn’t have enough money to buy our fellow pupil the diamond earrings that she demanded he get for her.

  Underneath was a news picture of, who I guessed was, her dad being wheeled out of a jewellery shop on a gurney in a body bag, with the words; ‘Michael Danes, 46, dies in jewellery shop robbery wanting earrings for his 17-year-old daughter’.

  I could tell straight away it had been doctored, probably by Kirk and his fucking freaky IT skills and I wanted to puke. There was no mention of her dad being a copper or that he’d tried to arrest the bastard; it was all twisted and t
he only truth was that he’d died at the scene.

  “This isn’t fucking true,” I said. The piece of paper shook in my hands.

  “Yeah we know,” Tyler laughed. “But who the fuck is going to make the effort to check. Did we do good Cap or what?”

  I turned to face him. In that moment, I wanted to punch the fucking life out of his eyes and wipe the stupid grin from his face. In that moment I hated myself for giving him, Kirk and Ellis the ammunition to fire at people without caring.

  I looked back in the direction of Sarah. The group around her had dispersed and she was getting to her feet with the help of Alannah. As she straightened up, she lifted her head and found me watching, the stupid bit of paper in my hand. Her hand flew to her mouth and her legs almost gave way again. Even from the distance of the corridor I knew that there was hatred in her eyes.

  18

  Sarah

  “How the hell have you allowed this to happen?” Mum paced up and down Miss Daniels’ office, dragging a hand through her hair. “My daughter has been through enough. To have lies like this, especially about my husband, spread around the school is unacceptable.”

  Mum’s voice cracked at the mention of Dad and she slapped the paper down on Miss Daniels’ desk. Sinking down into the chair next to mine, she grabbed my hand.

  “You okay, sweetheart?” she asked with tears welling at her lashes.

  I nodded and gave her a smile. I couldn’t fault her for how she’d been over the filthy shitty lies that had been spread about Dad. As soon as I’d called her, she’d dropped everything and rushed back from her job at the printing company she worked for. Even though Mr Henry her new boss seemed nice, she hadn’t even hesitated. Her words had been ‘I’m on my way’.

  “I can only apologise, Mrs Danes.” Miss Daniels sighed. “We are doing whatever we can to find the culprit.”

  I moved my hands to underneath my thighs so neither women would see them shaking. I knew who’d been responsible because he was the only person I’d told about my dad and what had happened. I could see it on his face when he was watching me in the corridor earlier. He was like his beloved Bonaparte overseeing his victory.