Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
PART II - SOMETHING WICKED
VILE INTENTIONS TEASER
More Bully Romances
STAY CONNECTED
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
The thing about bullshit is, no matter which way you cut it, it’s still bullshit. Unless you’re in the thick of it, of course. Then it’s all you see. The very thing you reek of. And in a sense, you become the bullshit.
My back stiffened as the door creaked open. The fact that we were here, waiting for exactly this moment meant that I shouldn’t have been as tense as I was. Plus, I didn’t really peg myself as the suspicious type. I guess you learn something new every day.
This party, if you could call it that, wouldn’t start until we’d gathered the entire tribe. Everyone seemed to be dragging their feet though, slowly making their way in.
“What did you do, stop at the mall on the way here?” Macy smirked, her blue eyes flashing darkly in the dim light as she shifted her to gaze to Julianne. She smirked back and shrugged, looking a lot less nervous than I felt in this dingy cabin.
Okay, so maybe that was the privilege in me talking.
Camp Wytipo turned enough of a profit every summer to put decent lighting in the cabins. I’m pretty sure the fading yellow bulbs were only there to create a rustic ambiance—an ambiance which didn’t extend to the glistening porcelain bathrooms, but this camp didn’t cater to kids who were used to digging a hole to bury their own shit in.
“Of course not,” Julianne sniffed, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder. I swear she could have been a shampoo model if she didn’t think it was beneath her. Even in the dim light her hair shimmered and shone like magic. “You can’t do a real séance with an off the shelf Ouija board,” she said. “I—borrowed it from my grandma.”
Joan clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at Julianne with a combination of awe and horror.
“Grandmother Bird?” she whispered hoarsely.
I tried not to flinch or give off any sign of just how downright uncomfortable I was with this whole mess.
It wasn’t that I believed in ghosts and such. But it wasn’t like I didn’t believe in them.
“Of course, Grandmother Bird,” Julianne tsked with a wicked twinkle in her eye. “Only the most famous Medium to ever bless Texas with her presence would have a real Ouija board.”
“One of the most famous,” I said blandly.
Julianne shot me an irritated glance. “You better not let her hear you say that. She’ll hex you faster than you can say, ‘sorry, granny.’”
“Sorry, granny,” I said sarcastically. “What? It’s not like she’s listening. Besides, it’s a fact. Lady Olaise is just as famous, maybe more.”
Joan shook her head furiously, her copper hair whipping the air behind her. “Lady Olaise isn’t half the medium Grandmother Bird is. Grandmother Bird told my mom that her baby would die, you know, and every baby she had after it. Told her she should get an abortion and spare everybody the pain. My mom would have sued her if her husband hadn’t talked her out of it.”
Joan scowled at the floor, an expression which had become almost permanent on her pretty face over the last few months. “Then the baby died. Mom hasn’t tried since. Grandmother Bird is the real deal—if that’s her board—”
“It is,” Julianne interrupted.
“—then it’ll tell us for sure whether the Seymore brothers had anything to do with Kitty May’s disappearance.” Joan didn’t take any notice of Julianne’s interruption, which vexed Julianne.
“Explain to me again why you think the Seymore kids did it?” Adam’s voice rang through the girls’ cabin like an invading force, prompting all eyes to shoot in his direction.
“Lower your voice,” Julianne hissed as she grabbed his arm and yanked him to the floor. “If they know we have boys in here, they’ll never let us finish this.”
Adam smiled slowly, his eyes half-hooded. It’s a look we’d all seen on TV more times than we could count—his dad’s a TV host, one who likes to make celebrities squirm. That smile usually followed a particularly uncomfortable or pointed question. I never watched the show much. It made me feel gross.
“Then pretend I’m a girl and tell me why you think the Seymore brothers disappeared Kitty May,” he whispered.
Julianne sniffed. “Because whenever anything goes wrong in this town, you can bet they had something to do with it. They’re all deviants, you know. Mr. Seymore only adopts kids who are too bad to stay with other foster families. He always did. The state just sends him troubled kids nowadays, because they know they’ll end up there eventually. So, yeah. Car stolen? Look at Seymore. House broken into? Look at Seymore. The townhall burns to the ground? You guessed it, Seymore. Kid goes missing without a trace? Seymore.”
“Are you talking about Kitty May or Sabrina Fisher?” I asked quietly.
Julianne gave me a sharp look. “Both,” she snapped. “You know they had a Seymore pinned for Sabrina. Had it in the bag. His pseudo-daddy bought off the judge, though.”
It rankled me when she talked about Jason Seymore being a pseudo-daddy, but I hadn’t been in town long enough to argue the point.
Maybe the guy really did just phone it in—but that wasn’t the impression I got.
For as much havoc as the Seymore boys wreaked, they always did it together. They didn’t share blood, but whatever bond they did have was as strong as any sibling relationship I’d seen. I couldn’t really imagine that being the case if Jason Seymore was just playing daddy and not actually putting in some real work.
Adam raised his eyebrows. “You don’t blame them for Sabrina Fisher’s death, do you? The oldest ones are our age. That would have made them, what, nine when she died?”
“You’re forgetting the older Seymore boys,” Julianne sniffed. “Eric Seymore was dating Sabrina. He skipped town after his dad got him off for murder. You know the younger Seymores look up to the older ones, don’t you? Daddy sure as hell doesn’t raise them.”
Adam shrugged casually and pretended to examine his fingernails. “You’re making a lot of assumptions—unless you’re a lot closer to the family than you’re willing to admit.”
Julianne narrowed her eyes at him. Had he caught her gaze, his irises might have very well burned to ash.
I shook my head, trying to get Adam to put a halt on it, but he wasn’t paying attention.
Piss
ing Julianne off was a terrible idea, but Adam liked to stir the pot—whether it needed stirring or not. Better him than me, I decided.
The truth was, I agreed with him, but I wasn’t stupid enough to say so. Julianne had a temper. A hot temper, a quick and vicious temper—but also the kind that could burn slowly for years.
Macy, clearly aware of the tension, but choosing to ignore it, sighed heavily and flopped backwards on her bunk. “I’m bored,” she moaned. “Who are we still waiting for?”
Julianne rolled her eyes before shooting her an irritated look. Adam didn’t pull his eyes away from Julianne when he answered for her. “Stew and Renard,” he said. “They both decided to shower first.”
Julianne raised a perfect eyebrow at Adam, and he grinned like the cat who caught the gossip canary.
Nodding, Adam fed Julianne enough juiciness to temper her down. “Guess they thought the séance was an excuse to get friendly,” he added, which was bullshit, of course.
Julianne, though, she was ready to eat this shit up like buttered pancakes. “No chance in hell,” she squeaked, her jaw inches from her ankles. She didn’t rub her hands together and scream for more, but she didn’t need to because we all saw it. Joan, on the other hand, looked like she swallowed a hundred lemons.
Adam shrugged, his easy grin still growing across his face. “I’m just fucking with you. Honestly, I think Stew’s just dragging his feet. This whole thing kinda creeps him the fuck out.”
I avoided looking at Julianne, but I couldn’t quite hide my smile as she groaned in annoyance at Adam.
It wasn’t long before hurried footfalls outside the cabin caught our attention.
Joan opened the door before the boys even had the chance to knock, which didn’t faze Renard at all. He took the room in with the cool, regal gaze he used on everything.
Stew stared at his feet, his fine, shaggy black hair still wet from his shower. Renard’s wasn’t, but expensive scents wafted off of his bright aristocratically sculpted hair.
“Ladies,” Renard said formally. “Our apologies for being late.”
“No apologies necessary,” Joan crooned, gazing at Stew from under her eyelashes.
He pretended he didn’t notice, but the tips of his ears blushed bright.
Renard nudged him with his elbow as if to say, “I told you so.”
Stew shrugged away from him irritably.
“So how do we do this?” Stew asked, sounding desperate to get the attention off of them.
Julianne pulled a velvet draw-string bag out of her backpack. She untied it slowly and precisely, humming low in her throat. The sound did something to the atmosphere. Sucked all of the humor, the hormones, the lightness right out of it.
A solemn silence fell over us as we watched her pull the Ouija board out of the purple velvet. It was closed and locked, an expensive self-contained case that looked older than the cabin we sat in.
It was intricately carved, its corners and edges worn smooth with years—maybe decades—of use. The way the dark wood absorbed and reflected the light made it look like it was moving somehow, like the wood was liquid under the glaze, and it carried scents of sage and sandalwood. Its presence alone was enough to make me believe in real magic.
Julianne set it in the middle of the floor and opened it with ceremonial precision.
“Sit in a circle around it,” she said in the same low, ominous tone that she’d been humming in. “I’ll light the lanterns.”
“Why do we need lanterns?” Adam asked, frowning at the ceiling. “We’ve got light.”
Julianne huffed at him impatiently, then smiled in a way that was both creepy and patronizing.
“Artificial light repels spirits,” she said, as if she were explaining to a toddler why he can’t run in the street. “If we want the spirits to talk to us, we can’t have the lights on, can we?”
Adam’s face darkened, his lids lowered, but he returned her smile with interest. “Whatever you say,” he said. “You’re the witch.”
I don’t know if anyone else saw her shoulders stiffen. It was a small movement, almost imperceptible, and didn’t last long—but it was enough to tell me that Adam was going to pay for that comment. Maybe not now, but someday.
Julianne considered the word “witch” to be a slur against her and her family and wouldn’t soon forget about his casual slight.
We took our places on the big pentagram she’d drawn on the floor in chalk before the boys got there, carefully not to blur the markings with our movements.
Julianne lit the candles in five lanterns, which she placed on the points of the star. When she turned out the lights, crazy shadows fought for dominance over the little wooden board.
“Now,” Julianne said, her voice low and solemn. “Each of you place a finger on the pointer. Swear that you will not interfere with the spirits; that you will allow them to control the pointer.”
“I swear it,” Macy and Joan said together in the same solemn tone Julianne was using.
“I swear it,” I said, feeling silly, albeit a little uncomfortable.
“I swear it,” the boys agreed, one after the other, with varying levels of conviction.
Stew seemed freaked out already, but it could just be because Joan had taken the spot next to him and was subtly encroaching on his personal space however she could. Poor kid.
“What do we do now?” Stew asked, trying to shuffle away from Joan without moving the pointer.
“We need to warm it up,” Julianne said firmly. “Give it some easy questions first, just to open the connection to the spirit world. There’s one very important rule you should know.” She met each of our eyes, one by one. “Do not, under any circumstances, tell it your name. Don’t even ask it to name you. Spirits can harness the power of your true name and use it against you.”
“I thought that was fairies?”
“You read too many novels, Macy,” Julianne snapped. “Now. Warm up the board. I’ll go first, to show you what kinds of questions you need to ask.”
I never imagined spirits having to warm up for a performance, but I’m not exactly a spiritual kind of person. The fact of the matter was, this was Julianne’s forte, not mine.
Plus, who was I to question the witch?
Julianne inhaled deeply through her nose, then projected in a powerful voice that wasn’t any louder than a whisper, but seemed to carry all the way through the cabin.
“Spirits,” she said. “Tell me the name of the camp we are speaking to you from.”
The pointer trembled under our fingers and my heart leapt in spite of myself. Slowly, very slowly, the pointer moved from letter to letter. W-Y-T-I-P-O
“Shit,” Renard breathed.
“Watch your language in the presence of the spirits,” Julianne said silkily. “Many of them died long before your parents were born, and have old-fashioned ideas about things like that.”
Stew visibly paled and Joan nuzzled his shoulder comfortingly. It didn’t have that effect, though, since his face went bright red and his eyes widened as far as their almond shape would let them.
“Spirits, what’s the color of an apple?” he blurted out, sounding panicked.
R-E-D the board spelled out.
But it didn’t stop there.
In rigid silence, we watched as the pointer continued to move. From G to R to E-E-N-Y-E-L-L-O-W.
Julianne shot him an irritated look. “Really?”
He shrugged unhappily.
“Spirits,” Adam said with a smirk. “What did the girls eat for dinner?”
N-O-T-H-
“Stop moving the pointer, Adam,” Macy snapped. She was sitting next to him, so I guess she would know. He grinned at her, then shrugged.
“Fine, I won’t. Spirits, what did the cafeteria serve for dinner?”
M-E-A-T-L-O-A-F
“Weird,” Joan said with a shudder.
“The meatloaf or the answer?” I asked.
Macy smirked along with me. Julianne was less amuse
d.
“Spirits,” Renard said. “Where are the Olympics being held this year?”
B-E-R-L-I-N
“Berlin,” Joan read out loud. “Is that right?”
“Yes,” Adam said, rolling his eyes.
“Well how am I supposed to know?”
B-E-I-N-F-O-R-M-E-D, the Ouija board said. Joan squeaked in terror, pulling her hands away from the pointer and jerking back like she’d been pushed. Hand on her chest, she tried to suck in calming breaths, but every inhale was a ragged mess, accompanied by an equally shaky exhale.
Julianne smiled. “It’s ready,” she breathed and nodded to Joan who reluctantly reassumed her position in the circle.
“Spirits—Did the Seymore brothers have anything to do with Kitty May’s disappearance?” she asked, going right in for the kill.
The little pointer trembled for a moment under our fingers, then swung up to the YES at the top of the board so fast that it made us all jump back, snatching our fingers away from the haunted thing.
Julianne, as spooked as the rest of us, slammed the lid shut and locked it tight. Her hands shook as she slid the board back into its velvet bag, binding it so tight that her knuckles glowed chalk white with each tie.
“There,” she said, her voice trembling. “Now we know.”
“They killed her,” Joan said numbly. “They killed her whole family.”
Macy jumped up and slammed the light switch, flooding the room with yellow light. “Ugh,” she said, shuddering all the way down to her toes. “Don’t say that, Joan. It didn’t say they killed her and her family, it just said that they had something to do with them disappearing.”
Them Seymore Boys: An Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance (The Seymore Brothers Book 1) Page 1
