Vicious Hate (Westbrook Blues Book 2)

by Thandiwe Mpofu

  Almost the same reaction he would give me when he saw me. . .

  Oh God.

  What the ever loving fuck is in the air tonight? It’s too much.

  I watch as he looks down at her as if he knows who she is and knows her well. There is a familiarity between them that I don’t know and honestly, I don’t know how I feel about that. I step closer and I swear, I can feel the crackling chemistry between the two.

  My jaw drops to the ground, my heart pounding endlessly. I can feel my fists clenching, ready to march over there and demand that she leave my Emmett alone but I stay rooted there, grounded probably by the curious need to observe them.

  I watch as they exchange words, but I’m not really sure what they are saying. Hell, I can’t even move with the shock weighing me down. Then they start walking again, going towards Emmett’s mansion. I don’t know how to feel about this but one thing is fucking sure, I have never seen Emmett like that before.

  But what really hits me out of nowhere is when the girl turns around to look over her shoulder, her bouncy, beautiful curls swishing around like she choreographed the move. . . and she looks directly at me.

  The girl is beautiful, that much I can tell through my drunk, kind of hazy eyes. Her caramel, chocolaty skin glows, making her look like a fucking goddess. A sensual, soft but sophisticated goddess, who in all intents and purposes, doesn’t belong in a place like this, with all this. . .chaos.

  Her tight jeans and tight fitting top looks like they were poured over her curvy body, making her look stunning without looking like a slut like the rest of the girls here.

  Even the way she moves, it’s like she can stop the entire world if she so desired it. I can see guys slowing down in their haste to leave, just so they can take a look at her, but her eyes are on me.

  As she looks at me, I notice that she doesn’t wink, she doesn’t gloat as if she just won the lottery like I was expecting. She doesn’t even look gleeful like girls would when they think they have scored one of the Blue Boys for the night. No, this girl does none of that, but there is a look of accusation and frustrated anger in her eyes as she looks at me that steals my breath away with its potency.

  I stagger back as the full force of her gaze hits me square in the chest.

  Why is she looking at me like that? And why the fuck does she look so damn familiar? How drunk am I?

  She turns away and soon, they are both out of sight. Swallowed by the distorted darkness around me. A darkness that seems to be closing in on me right now.

  I stand there in shock, the buzz from the alcohol long gone. That girl just looked at me like I’m the reason for all this pain, the reason why the night ended in chaos. But most of all, the reason why Emmett is so damn broken.

  Because truth is, Emmett is broken.

  But so is Ace. . .

  I turn around looking for Ace but he isn’t there anymore. I knew that before I even started searching for him among the dispersing party goers who look like fish in a barrel at this very moment.

  Some of them are looking at me funny but I ignore them, thinking that their gossip knows no bounds. Even when drunk, they still talk and speculate about me.

  “Astraea! Come on.” Kim shouts, running in my direction. “Don’t just stand there like a damn deer in headlights, you reek of a really shitty night, bad decisions, underage drinking and something else that you don’t want on your record.” She shouts as she grabs my hand and we start moving quickly through the crowd.

  “We have to go now!”

  “But. . .” I stutter, feeling confused still. How do I even begin processing this day, this night?

  “They are big boys, they are going to be fine.” She shouts back at me, knowing who I’m looking for. As we move, I scan the crowd again, looking for a glimpse of him, listening as well to my Ace senses but even those are off tonight.

  I have no idea where he is but I think I made the wrong decision by going to check on Emmett first. I saw that the moment Ace’s eyes began twitching.

  Hate.

  I saw hate in his eyes. A kind of hate that I knew will destroy everything. Me included.

  But in my defense, I was expecting to spend the night with him, even if I’m still mad as fuck at him so I made the impulse decision to check on Emmett first. So much for whishing you’re both on the same page.

  But I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look in Ace’s eyes or the way Emmett shook me off.

  No, Kim. They are not fine now. And something tells me they are not going to be fine for a long time.

  Heartbeat.

  Heartbeat.

  Heartbeat.

  ♥

  The rest of the weekend goes by in a strange mix between a blur of time and the painful realization of the absence of human life and interaction around me.

  Normally, I wouldn’t mind being so alone, but something about this nasty weekend makes me realize that silence can be loud at times. Especially when you are trying to mute everything around you, refusing to face it all.

  On Saturday, the sun rose with me wide awake, not having slept a wink, groaning in pain and regretting my less than stellar decisions of Friday night. Why I drank as much as I did on Friday night, I have no idea? Well, I do know why I drank in the first place but the results—a pounding headache that makes me feel like my skull is going to crack at any point, yeah, I don’t see myself repeating that in the near future.

  Kim left that Saturday afternoon, telling me that she had to check in with her sisters because they were back home from a trip that they had gone to with their friends. Something tells me that Kim is the one who takes care of her siblings instead of their mother.

  There is more to Kim than anyone realizes. More than I thought. Her silence, as I’m beginning to understand now, and especially after last night’s revelations, is her tell that things, are not going so well.

  She talked about needing to pass by the store and buy food for her sisters for the week and making sure that they are ready for school this coming week.

  The way she put on her responsible hat, her stern, badass ‘don’t mess with me’ face came back on and I realized something. Kim might let loose at parties, maybe she might even go over board when she does, but she has a reason. She has to be composed when she gets home. She has to be the grown up, the bigger person in the circumstances her mother forced upon her.

  So then, who am I to complain? Who am I to think that I have it hard when I’ve been living in this luxurious dream that Amanda spread her legs for?

  Something about Kim’s explanation forced me to look at my life differently. After the events of Friday night, from the moment I saw Denise King, all the secrets that were revealed about me, my mother, Richard, a sister that I never knew I was born with, finding out that Amanda never wanted George and I. . . I came to a painful realization that I had to be responsible for me from now on.

  Simply put, I had to fucking grow up.

  I had to look after myself and be mature for once! I can’t expect anyone to baby me or be there for me. That ship set sail a long time ago, I have to fucking catch up with reality, just as Denise wanted.

  According to Denise though, my mother never cared right from the start. Why then did she fucking keep this pregnancy?

  I can’t help the dark thoughts that are rattling in my mind, my body shaking, moving back and forth as I sit on the floor, hugging my knees, pressing them into my empty stomach.

  I have never had my mother’s love. I was just a tool, a means to this. . .opulent life that has brought nothing but sick, twisted pain to me.

  The shaking intensifies.

  Fuck, I need my fucking pills!

  My brow is sweaty, a cold shiver moves down my spine and I feel like my nerve endings are being dipped in ice cold water with electric eels at the edges. As if at any moment now, I’m going to snap out of control.

  I know it’s not because of the hangover alone. I’m starting to suffer from drug withdrawals and if I don’t do something abo
ut it soon, I’m going to lose this battle.

  I need to find a dealer.

  But I refuse to think of myself as an addict.

  But the thing about the truth is that, when it comes out after years of lies, it will be so damn gruesome and painful to face, let alone deal with. And I don’t want to do that right now. I don’t want to face the truth.

  Another truth is, I have to distance myself from all of this.

  I need to find a way to do that and as I think of Kim, the way she has to boss up for her little sisters each day, braving the harsh realities of life, I realize that I have to step out of this bubble and be real with myself. I mean, I fucking live in a huge mansion that could house all of Westbrook and still have extra space, I realize how it might look.

  It looks like I’m totally fine with Amanda’s creative, nasty and disgusting antics to get a golden ticket to life.

  Which leaves one thing. I need to get my own money.

  One of the things I learnt in all those counselling sessions was independence. One of those? Financial Independence.

  According to Dr. Gabs—I have to give her a ring—people, especially young girls and women, stay in tough, abusive, inconducive situations or relationships due to a lot of factors. One of them being, money.

  An abuser can dangle money in front of you while he rips your life into shreds with malice and you’ll still stay. And I think Kim knows that better than I do.

  I have to be better than that. I have to get myself out of this. I can still hear the last words Kim said to me before she left.

  “Raea, life is not fair.”

  I snort. “Tell me something new, babes.”

  “Yeah but I think it’s balanced.”

  I turn on my side to look at her so she can explain and she goes on.

  “No one person has everything in their lives. No one has happiness, love, peace and security all at once, at the same time in their lives. Hell, rich people, poor people, there is a degree of suffering and lack in everyone, but no one person has everything together at the same fucking time.”

  Silence filled the space between us as I processed her words. In more ways than one, Kim and I were closer after sharing the deepest most sacred parts of our lives with each other.

  “But, we can still be selfish.”

  I looked at her funny, wondering what the hell she was talking about as we lay on the floor of my room, nursing hangovers, staring up at my bedroom ceiling.

  “How can we be selfish? Is that even a nice thing to do? You know, being selfish?” I question her.

  She sat up straight then, preparing to leave then looked at me with a speculative and serious gaze. She opened her mouth as if to say something then she closed it. In that moment she looked like someone holding a painful secret. Maybe it’s just the headache she had.

  “If we had a normal life, being selfish would be bitchy of us. But some of us have been dealt a shitty hand right from the start of our lives.” She said, with a sad, melancholy vibe that scared me.

  I didn’t know just how true that was for me until Denise laid it out for me last night.

  “So, what do we do?” I question her, seriously.

  “We tip the scales in our favor and do what we have to do to survive, and come out alive.”

  And with that, she gathered her stuff, pressed a kiss to the crown of my head and left with the taxi that we had called earlier.

  Her parting words felt a lot like they were hanging in the air after she left. Waiting for me to do something about them. Waiting for me to step up, and deal with the cruel, brutally violent and shitty hand that I had been dealt with, like she had said. Only, I never anticipated that I would do it without my brother by my side. And now, the large gaping hole in my chest is bigger because I also had a sister that I never got a chance to even know.

  How fucked up is that?

  That evening, I managed to get my ass off of the floor and I printed out a list of potential places that Kim and I could go job hunting in town, something we talked about a few weeks ago, but even that feels like forever ago.

  I needed that job now more than ever and I had to also start doing much better at school, improving my merit if I wanted to get a fucking scholarship to a college somewhere far away from here.

  But the thought of leaving hurt again. Leaving my boys just didn’t feel right anymore, especially when I still don’t know a thing about who murdered my brother.

  Would they leave?

  Why should I care though, I’m still mad at them and shaken over Friday night’s mayhem.

  I didn’t check my phone that entire day. I have no idea where the boys were or what they were doing but when I briefly checked my phone to shoot Noah a text, he sent a cryptic message back, something about Helen of Troy and that he was not in Westbrook at the moment.

  That is not something I expect from Noah. Don’t get me wrong, Noah is smart, hell all three of the boys are on the honors’ roll. They’ve been on it since first grade because they were genuinely smart.

  But Helen of Troy?

  Who was that? Was he talking about me?

  Then I remember that girl, the one who Emmett looked at like she had the world at her feet. Was she the face that launched a thousand ships?

  Is she the reason why Ace and Emmett fought?

  Because as far as I remember, she was just absolutely stunning and the way Emmett looked at her. . .

  The rattling in my mind came after me again that night, chasing me into Sunday. The darkness closed in on me so fast that I left my room in the wee hours of the morning, stumbling along the large, long hallways in search of something that would numb the voices in my head.

  Fuck you Alexander King for thinking that you know what’s best for me! Fuck you to hell and back!

  I felt so damn weak and angry at the same time I couldn’t control my tears. Going downstairs, I start opening and closing cabinets, looking for something. I know it’s here somewhere.

  Amanda would never be able to survive in this town without a single drop in her system.

  Speaking of Amanda, Trumbull told me that she wasn’t home and God only knew where my father. . .I mean, Richard, was.

  Just thinking of either one of them makes my blood boil and I start searching in earnest, wiping my tears away harshly with the back of my hand but they keep pouring down my cheeks. I quickly walk towards the dining room, the large table in the middle looking like it could be in a livelier home, begging to be used. Sad how I don’t ever remember having dinner with my family since we moved here.

  Hell, those years might just be another lie all together.

  Bypassing the table, I walk towards the cabinets at the back, opening one of them and voila!

  Whiskey. Brandy. Scotch. I don’t know what the fuck it is but it looks dark enough to quieten the voices in my head. I grab one of the crystal decanters, uncap the damn thing, then I take a big swig of the bitter, burning liquor, gritting my teeth when it reaches my throat with a burning intensity that has me shutting my eyes tightly.

  The tears pour out even more.

  My heart pounds painfully.

  My body is trembling.

  Everything hurts.

  I fucking knew that life was going to get worse once I came back to Westbrook. I should have left after the funeral. I should have done so many things differently. But I didn’t.

  Now this?

  “Miss.” A clearing of a throat echoes in the large dining room and I still.

  Lowering the bottle of alcohol, I turn around and notice one of the maids, Emma, I think. Her presence is not what makes everything in me still, it’s the way she is looking at me right now in the dimly lit room.

  She is looking at me like she feels sorry for me.

  She is looking at me, I realize, like she looks at my mother.

  Like they all look at my mother.

  As if she is a pathetic, over-eager creature who is losing her mind.

  Do I look like that too? I think I do an
d I think that might just be the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

  “Are you alright? Can I get you anything?” She questions but I just look down at the bottle, shaking my head, unable to stop my thoughts from swirling.

  Am I turning into my mother?

  I’m not my mother!

  God, I don’t want to be my mother.

  “I’m alright Emma, thank you.” I whisper, quickly putting back the bottle in the cabinet, like it has just burned my hand. I can’t do this.

  I run past her and keep on running even as she calls after me, panting until I’m in my room.

  I don’t want to be my mother.

  But as I look at myself in the mirror, I can see her. I look like Amanda. I even move like her too. Everything, like my mother.

  I scream in frustration, as if that can ease the pain that moves through my body like a poison. My DNA is poison. I am of Amanda Fields, of course I have her poison in me and I look like her.

  I don’t think I have ever hated myself the way I do right now. But I don’t think I have also hated my mother the way I do in this moment as I stare at my eyes that look like hers. The same nose, like hers.

  Same cheekbones, like hers.

  Same everything. . .like her.

  “I guess we all know whose genes you have.” Denise’s malicious mocking still echoes between my ears, cementing the urgency in me.

  My chest heaves fast and hard and I stare at my reflection. My palms fisted in anger. I ignore the sweat forming at my brow.

  The sudden violent, intense need to prove to Denise, the rest of the world but most of all, myself, that I wasn’t my mother pounded in my chest, sending me into a frenzy that almost justified my mother’s decision to sign me away to a mental institution.

  Adrenaline rushed through me as I make a mad grab for the shears in my room, with a violent rush that I grab ahold of and don’t let go. It feels like the anger is my life line right now and if I let go, I’ll drown.