HATE: MADISON KATE #1

by James Tate

  "You didn't ask for our help?" Blue-eyes growled, getting all up in my personal space and towering over me like a limp-dicked prick. If that was the best he had... "You shouldn't fucking be here, Madison Kate. What in the hell were you thinking? Do you have any idea who was just chasing you down? Huh? Do you have any concept of what would happen if the Reapers got their hands on the Princess of Shadow Grove? And there wouldn't be a fucking thing your daddy could do about it because you made the dumb-fuck move of coming here." His perfect lips twisted in a disgusted scowl, and he ran a hand over his close-cropped black hair in obvious frustration. His left cheekbone was red and puffy with a shadow of purple welling up underneath. He'd taken a solid punch recently. From Zane?

  Green-eyes cleared his throat. "What he means is you didn't ask for our help, but you’re damn well getting it. You picked a really crappy night to rebel against your perfect life, princess." He arched a brow at me, and there was just enough teasing in his voice to stop me from punching him in the teeth.

  I shook my head, mentally chastising myself for appreciating how hot these dudes were when I should have been more worried about getting out of the fucking amusement park. And what about Bree? Was she still waiting for me? What if one of Zane's guys had grabbed her?

  "I'm going that way," I told the two guys, jerking my thumb in the direction of the south gate. "My friend is waiting."

  "No, she's not," a third guy replied, jogging up to us from the way I'd been pointing. He was the same height, maybe an inch shorter than Green-eyes, but still made me feel like a hobbit in comparison. He was also male-model handsome, and I almost swallowed my tongue when he turned his steel-gray eyes on me. "Pretty little brunette chick in a white Merc convertible?" He cocked his head to the side in question, and I nodded. "She's gone."

  I frowned. "What? No, Bree wouldn't leave me here without a ride home."

  The third guy—I’d call him Gray-eyes just to keep things simple—shrugged and grinned. His long, graceful fingers ruffled his brunet hair, and the moonlight reflected off a piercing in his brow. "I told her you had a ride." His suggestive wink implied a whole different type of ride, and my cheeks flushed. "Besides, cops will be here in about three minutes. Your Bree was smart enough to get the fuck away from the crime scene."

  "Huh?" I blinked at him in confusion, but apparently that news was all the other two needed to hear.

  Green-eyes dropped a shoulder to my stomach, and before I could utter another protest, my butt was in the air with my head hanging down near his ass. "Sorry, princess," he said, starting to run with me over his shoulder. "You'll thank us tomorrow when you're back at your preppy rich-kid school."

  "Fuck!" I cursed, resigning myself to what was happening and just wrapping my arms around his bare waist in an attempt to stop my face from bouncing against his butt. His back also had some impressive ink, but I was in altogether the wrong position to appreciate any kind of artistry.

  He ran with me through the mess of overgrown paths, stepping effortlessly over debris from fallen-down sideshow booths, and a quick glance showed the other two guys keeping pace on either side of us. Until they weren’t.

  The distinctive sound of a fight breaking out made me struggle in Green-eyes’s grip, but he just smacked my ass and picked up his pace. "Quit it!" he shouted at me. "Don't be a fucking airhead."

  His sharp words stilled my struggles, and I raised my head to look back the direction we'd come. Blue-eyes and the new guy—pretty Gray-eyes—were neck deep in a brutal fistfight with three leather jacket–wearing thugs. Fists flew, blood sprayed, and one of the leather-jacketed assholes pulled a knife from somewhere before Green-eyes abruptly changed directions, cutting them off from view.

  "Get on," he ordered, dropping me back to my feet beside a motorcycle. It was a sleek beast, and my stomach flipped with excitement. He swung his leg over, then gave me a look that clearly said to hurry the hell up.

  I hesitated a second, but when the other two guys came sprinting toward us, I made a snap decision. They'd kept me safe so far, so... fuck it.

  My ass hit the seat behind Green-eyes a split second before he revved the engine, and I instinctively wrapped my arms around his waist. Moments later we peeled out of the amusement park and onto the road with the other guys on their own darkly gleaming motorcycles beside us.

  I only had a few moments to enjoy the ride, though, before Blue-eyes pulled off the road, indicating we all do the same. He stopped his bike with just his feet on the ground, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and read a message.

  Neither of the other guys spoke, just waited patiently while he read the message, then scowled at me.

  "What?" I demanded, feeling edgy at being stared at.

  His eyes narrowed, and he looked up the road in the direction we'd been heading, clearly thinking.

  After a moment, Green-eyes must have felt the awkwardness, too. "What do you want to do?" he asked his friend, who swung his attention back to me again.

  "Get off," he ordered me. "Wait here; someone will be along to drive you home in a minute."

  Anger and indignation flared up in me. "Fuck you," I spat at him. "I'm not a two-year-old. I can sort myself out if you've got better shit to do."

  He glared back at me like I was indeed a petulant child. "We do. Now get off the bike; your ride will be here in"—he checked his phone again—"one minute. Let's go."

  Furious, I slid off the back of the bike and tugged my minidress back down to cover at least some of my vagina. "I don't need your ride, I can sort one out myself. Thanks for fucking nothing."

  Blue-eyes rolled his... uh... blue eyes and revved his bike. "Make smart choices, Madison Kate Danvers." With that, he took off. Back in the direction we'd come. Back toward West Shadow Grove.

  "I don't like this," Green-eyes said to Gray-eyes.

  The handsome brunet just shrugged, but his frown said he agreed. "He said someone's picking her up; I believe him. Come on, bro; shit must be going down."

  Green-eyes just grunted, then gave me a regretful look. "Sorry princess. Get home safe, okay?"

  I scowled and said nothing, folding my arms over my chest as the two of them followed their dickish friend.

  "Fuck their ride," I muttered to myself once they were gone. "I'm perfectly capable of Ubering home."

  Ugh. Except Bree had my phone in her bag.

  My panic over how to get home was short-lived, though, as right on cue my "ride" turned up. With lights and sirens and everything.

  "Hey, I guess you're my ride home?" I asked the police officer who stepped out of the cruiser. I hadn’t known what to expect when Blue-eyes said he had it taken care of, but this wasn't it.

  The officer's partner exited the vehicle, too, and both approached me with a confusing degree of caution.

  "Miss, did you just come from the Laughing Clown Amusement Park?" the first officer asked, and I frowned.

  "Uh, yeah? I thought..." I trailed off. Saying that I thought they'd been sent to get me by a nameless, beautiful man who'd saved me from a ruthless gang member sounded... stupid.

  "Miss, we're going to need you to come with us," the officer stated, and I nodded. "But first, we just need to check your pockets, okay?"

  Confused, I nodded. I'd never dealt with police before, not like this, so I had no idea if this was standard procedure. I was at least eighty percent sure they weren’t allowed to search me without probable cause, but I was in too much shock to protest.

  I raised my arms, allowing the second officer to check my pockets. Or… the pockets of Green-eye's hoodie, seeing as my mini-dress couldn’t hide a tic-tac it was so tight. His hands lingered longer than they should have, and the wolfish gleam in the first officer's eyes made me all kinds of uneasy.

  "Miss, what is this?" the second officer, the handsy one, asked. He held up a single key on a labeled keyring.

  I shook my head. "I have no idea. Sorry, it's not my hoodie."

  Both officers eyed me with suspicion, and the one h
olding the key shined his torch on the keyring, then grunted a cold laugh.

  "Well, would you look at that," he murmured, handing it to his colleague with a smile. "Seems we’ve found how they all accessed the park tonight. A Laughing Clown Amusement Park master key."

  Blood drained from my face, and dread pooled in my belly. "That's not mine," I quickly told them. "Like I said, this isn't my hoodie."

  The first officer smiled a smug grin. "Sure it's not. Don't suppose you have a name before we arrest you?"

  I gaped at him. "Arrest—What? No, that's not my key; I didn't do anything!" I was panicking now, but the cops looked unimpressed.

  "Miss, just tell us your name," the second one suggested, sounding bored even while he unhooked handcuffs from his belt and clipped them over my wrists.

  Shock turned me numb. "M-Madison Kate," I said in a hoarse voice. "Madison Kate Danvers."

  One cop froze while the other smiled a weird, creepy kind of smile. I had to assume it was because of the power my surname held. Little did I expect the next thing they told me.

  "That would be hard," the first cop said, "seeing as Madison Kate Danvers was just murdered inside The Laughing Clown tonight."

  3

  Eleven months later…

  The luggage carousel chugged and creaked as it rotated in front of me, and I rubbed my tired eyes with a weary hand. I'd been standing there for ages, so my suitcase was probably going to be the last one off. Fantastic.

  I reached my arms over my head and stretched, the kinks in my spine protesting. It had been a long flight back to Shadow Grove, and in economy class no less. I shouldn't have been surprised at the low cost ticket—considering my father had all but disowned me a year earlier—but when I'd found my assigned seat crammed between two large, sweaty, old women, I'd had to swallow a lump of bitterness.

  It'd been eight months since I'd left the only home I'd ever known. Eleven months since I'd been charged with a slew of offenses and sentenced for crimes I'd never committed.

  Anger curled in my belly, and my lips tightened. Fury had been my constant companion over the time I'd spent living with a distant aunt in a converted Cambodian monastery.

  Not that I regretted the time I'd had with her or the work we'd done together for the orphanages there. My father had decided it was better for his public image if I suffered the consequences of my accused actions and had refused to pay my bail. The one grace he’d granted me was that he’d paid off enough officials that my trial was held swiftly and I didn’t have to rot in prison for years on end. So, after three months in holding at the Shadow Grove county jail while my trial was conducted, it had actually been a welcome relief to be sent halfway across the world and away from the train wreck that was my life.

  "Hey," someone said, breaking through my dark thoughts, "you're her, aren't you? You're Madison Kate Danvers?" It was a middle-aged woman, her hand resting on a suitcase she'd probably just pulled from the belt. She didn't look angry or accusing, just curious.

  I nodded slightly. "That's me." My voice was scratchy and dry from lack of use. I had barely spoken to anyone in weeks. Not since my caregiver, Aunt Marie, had died.

  The woman nodded back, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "You got a rough break, kid. Your daddy should be ashamed of how he handled things after Riot Night."

  I sucked in a breath, counting to five silently as I controlled the anger that always resided inside me. "Yep, he really should."

  It wasn't for me to defend my father's actions. He had handled things badly. Making an example of his daughter to support his own public relations and business aspirations was the least of his sins. He just hadn’t wanted the spotlight on him—again.

  The night I'd been arrested—the night of the fight inside the Laughing Clown—the entire town of Shadow Grove had suffered. East and West. In the days following, the media had dubbed it Riot Night, thanks to multiple riots which resulted in millions of dollars of property damage and several deaths. I’d missed most of it, sitting handcuffed in the back of a squad car for the first part of the evening, then locked up in a holding cell for the rest.

  That hadn’t prevented them labeling me as the “mastermind” behind Shadow Grove’s most violent event. It didn’t matter how preposterous the charges were, they had intended to make a scapegoat of me.

  Apparently the fights between the Reapers and Wraiths at the Laughing Clown had just been the straw that broke the camel's back. They'd been on the brink of war for a long time, and that night, Riot Night, was the detonation point.

  "Well, welcome home, girl," the woman said, giving me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "You'll barely recognize the shiny new Shadow Grove."

  I gave her a tight smile and shifted my attention back to the luggage-claim belt as she walked away. I knew what she meant, of course. In the wake of Riot Night, my father—ever the opportunist—had seen potential to boost his own star even higher by developing the damaged real estate and uniting both sides of the city. Supposedly bridging the class divide that defined Shadow Grove for so long. The new university built on what used to be the border between East and West Shadow Grove was his latest PR stunt. But it was my only option if I wanted a higher education, now.

  Finally my faded suitcase came into view, and I let out a small sigh of relief. It held everything I owned. Everything. All the clothes, shoes, cars here in Shadow Grove were his. My father’s. Everything from before Riot Night had burned when our home was set on fire in the various arson attacks of that evening.

  Dragging my suitcase behind me, I headed out of the small airport and stopped short when I saw the empty taxi rank. Of course. My luggage had taken so long to arrive, there were no taxis left.

  "Is that it?" A deep, melodic voice behind me made me startle, and I swallowed a small scream as I spun around.

  "You!" I snarled, eyeing the beautiful guy before me. His head was shaved shorter than it’d been eleven months ago, and the caramel-brown color of his brunet hair glittered lighter in the sunlight than in my shadowed memories. But those fucking eyes were the same—pretty, framed by dark-lashed, steel-gray eyes.

  His grin was wide, pleased, and a flash of metal betrayed a tongue stud.

  I wanted to punch him right in the fucking nose.

  "Oh good, Kody owes me fifty bucks. He thought you wouldn't remember me." He winked one of those steel-gray eyes like we shared some kind of secret. "Clearly he underestimates the impression I leave on a chick. No matter how briefly we interacted."

  I blinked at him, dumbfounded. The last time I’d seen this prick, he was riding away into the night with his two buddies just moments before I was arrested for their crimes.

  "You've got a lot of fucking nerve," I started to say, but caught myself when that hot, wild anger rose back up in my throat. I'd spent so much time, done so much work to master my own emotions, and here I was about to lose my shit. Not even one hour back in Shadow Grove and the eight months in Cambodia may as well never have happened.

  But I hadn't prepared for this. I hadn't prepared to face one of the three who'd set me up so soon. I hadn't expected the raw, primal hate coursing through my veins.

  The guy arched his pierced brow, waiting for me to continue. My memories had dulled his appearance—understandably, seeing as I'd only seen him for a few moments after escaping Zane—but he really was stunning. He wore a short sleeve shirt, and his left forearm showed some seriously detailed ink.

  A small shiver of dread ran through me. If he was here... did that mean I was going to run into the other two? Blue-eyes and Green-eyes, the two gorgeous boys who'd saved me from Zane D'Ath and probable, painful death on Riot Night, then hand-delivered me to the police for their crimes.

  Despite how many dirty pockets must have been greased to maintain the bullshit charges of me orchestrating Riot Night, the charges had eventually been dismissed due to lack of evidence. And rightly so. But by the time they were, the damage had already been done. My school had expelled me, my Ivy League college
had withdrawn their early acceptance, and my father had exiled me to Cambodia. I’d completed my senior year by correspondence, but it’d only afforded me very limited prospects.

  It's for your own safety, Madison Kate.

  Not that he’d cared about my safety while I was in lock up for three months.

  Still, he'd stuck to that one excuse over and over and over until I was packed up and shipped off to the other side of the world without a second glance. The girl who'd died inside the Laughing Clown, the blonde one whose body Bree and I had tripped over, had been using my ID. She'd stolen my wallet from Bree's car earlier in the night, and when paramedics arrived at the scene they'd assumed she was me.

  Why shouldn't they? After her lifeless form had been trampled by hundreds of panicked, drunk spectators it would have been impossible to make a clear facial identification. She still hadn’t been identified and had been buried a Jane Doe.

  Of course, this had led my father to think I was the target. Someone had deliberately tried to murder his daughter... so I'd been sent away. For my own safety.

  "What do you want?" I snapped, folding my arms under my breasts. I was dressed in loose linen pants, a baby blue tank top, and a sloppy, hand-knitted cardigan. I looked nothing like the Madison Kate of a year earlier... except for my hair. When Aunt Marie had died and my father had summoned me home, I'd been furious. Determined to remind him of the last time he'd laid eyes on me, I'd dyed my hair back to the dusky rose color it'd been when I left Shadow Grove. After the hot pink dye had faded a bit from shitty, holding-cell shampoos, it’d actually turned a really pretty shade.

  More fool me, my father hadn't even bothered to pick me up.

  The pretty, tattooed and pierced boy with steel-gray eyes just grinned again. What was his fucking problem, anyway? No one smiled that much.