by Bella King
“Daniel is the one planting the firearm,” Andrew reminded me as I grabbed for the gun that he laid out on the table in a small room on the top floor of the building.
“I know,” I said, clutching the instrument in my small hand, feeling the weight of it. I had held a gun before, but it had been a while.
“So, put it down so I can clean it and give it to him. I don’t want anyone’s prints on it,” Andrew said, frowning at me.
“Fine,” I replied, placing it back down at the table.
Daniel cleared his throat. “So, you want me to give it to Laney first?”
Andrew nodded. “She’ll deliver it to Natasha.”
“How is Daniel going to give a gun to Laney? She’s going to know that it’s from us,” I said, confused by this part of the plan.
“Something you probably don’t know because I haven’t told you,” Andrew said, placing his hand on Daniel’s shoulder while addressing me, “Is that Daniel has been working as a double agent for some time. Laney thinks he defected from us and that he’s secretly with her. Truthfully, he has been supplying weapons to her, but only occasionally.”
Something in my head clicked when he explained Daniel’s role in all of this. The knife that Laney had used to carve her message into my stomach was the same one that he had given me for self-defense. That was because he sourced them from the same place.
“Oh, so you’re really the one responsible for this,” I said, lifting my shirt to show my scars.
Daniel cringed. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. It is what it is.”
Andrew shook his head. “Cool it, Rose. Accidents happen.”
“I know. I’m just teasing,” I said with a silly grin.
“You can tease after we get Natasha kicked out. Right now, we need to be serious,” he replied.
Troy and Martin gave each other a look at the mention of teasing. It seemed like they were eager to get back to enjoying some time together without all the drama and violence like we had done the other night in the garden. I, for one, was completely on board with them, but Natasha needed to be taken care of first.
“You’re going to alert the administration to Natasha’s use of a weapon, since they don’t know that you’re part of the gang yet and they will trust your innocent face,” Andrew said to me, giving a wink.
I smiled. “Got it.”
“Troy and Martin are going to distract the other girls that Natasha usually has with her so that I can get her by herself, and then I’ll start a confrontation,” he continued.
“Won’t you get in trouble?” I asked, concerned that the administration would find him guilty of inciting violence if he provoked Natasha.
“Maybe, but I’ve been through this before. She’s the one with the gun. I won’t have any weapons on me. I’ve cleaned up my bed as well so there is nothing that can be used against me when they inevitably search my belongings.”
I nodded, but still felt uncomfortable with how much danger he would be in during this.
“You’re going to have to trust me, Rose,” Andrew said, seeing the distress painted over my face.
I pressed my lips together, trying to stay strong. After everything we had been through, all I wanted was for the group to be safe and happy. That was it.
Daniel massaged my shoulders, shaking me a bit to loosen me up as Andrew stood straight and crossed his arms. “Any questions?” He asked, looking around at us.
We all shook our heads. He had explained everything clearly enough. All I had to do was run to the school security when I got the signal. My role was painfully simple, but I was still nervous about it. What if they didn’t take me seriously and Andrew got shot? What if they did take me seriously but arrived too late and Andrew was already lying in a pool of blood, Natasha long gone from the scene of the crime?
I tried to push these thoughts from my head. It wouldn’t do me any good to worry about them now. What needed to be done would be done, and I could only pray that it would go the way that we wanted it to go.
I followed the plan that Andrew had laid out for me. I located one of the security guards and began following him, checking my watch with increasing frequency as it became closer to prime time. I would have to alert him in about five minutes, but I would wait for a buzzer signal from Andrew. He had given me a long-range vibrating sex toy to place in my pocket, his way of injecting humor into an otherwise heavy situation.
It was a shame that I wouldn’t get to see Andrew’s confrontation with Natasha, but at least I would be able to give my contribution, and it was a crucial one. I cached the toy in my pocket over and over again to make sure it wasn’t buzzing without me noticing as I followed the security guard around quietly.
The guard didn’t notice that I was tailing him. I had to stay several yards back as he made his rounds through the school. I just hoped that he didn’t wander too far off from the place Andrew was luring Natasha. If he went too far, things could get ugly before he arrived to put a stop to them.
“Look who it is,” a voice said, interrupting my thoughts.
I twirled around to face Laney, standing in the hall with a smug look on her arrogant face. “Fuck off,” I grumbled.
Laney laughed. “I don’t think so. Natasha is about to have far more power than you could imagine, and your little gang is going to crumble.”
I rolled my eyes. She had passed a gun to Natasha and now she thought she knew everything that I didn’t. Nice try, bitch, but this was all part of the plan.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me, whore,” she said, the last word slipping from her lips like venom from the fangs of a serpent.
I couldn’t let the security guard get too far or else I wouldn’t be able to find him when the time came to go through with my part of the plan. I stepped back, away from Laney. “I don’t have time for this,” I replied.
“I don’t really give a fuck,” Laney snapped, drawing a knife from the waistband of her skirt.
Great, did this need to be happening now? I was just about to have to save Andrew’s life, and Laney was attempting to finish me off in the hallway. She was out of her goddamn mind, but I should have realized that when she carved her message into my stomach in the showers.
“You don’t want to do this,” I said as she began to walk toward me.
“Yes, I do,” she said, her voice trembling with what should have been nervousness, but was actually excitement. This woman was excited to get the opportunity to slit my throat in broad daylight. She really was a nutjob!
The vibrator began buzzing in my pocket as she came toward me. I jumped to the side but didn’t run toward the security guard. If I did, and if Laney chased me, then I wouldn’t be able to get him to follow me to where Andrew was. He would be too busy taking down Laney.
I got angry at the thought of her preventing me from saving Andrew. The rage boiled up inside me, quickly bringing on an intense rush of power into my body. Laney seemed to move in slow motion as she lunged toward me. I managed to sidestep her and throw out my foot, causing her to stumble and fall.
She smacked against the floor, but the knife stayed in her hand. “You’re dead,” she growled, springing up to her feet for another run at me.
I was prepared this time. I threw a punch before she could stand up completely, knocking her so hard that it felt like I had broken something inside of my hand. I probably had, but I didn’t have time to nurse it. I bolted in the direction of the security guard, trying to find him as the vibrator continued to buzz in my pocket.
Laney was out cold, crumpled in a mess on the stone floor of the corridor. This was the second time she had been knocked out since I started going to Ridgeview. At this rate, she would be braindead by graduation.
I would have laughed if I wasn’t so panicked. I ran as fast as my feet could carry me toward the security guard, screaming at the top of my lungs to grab his attention.
With a hand on the gun in his holster, he spun around on high alert as I came peeling down the hall toward him.<
br />
“Help, help, she has a gun,” I shrieked.
“Who?” He asked, his eyes growing wide. This was his moment. I was sure that he had been waiting for some excitement for a while. Patrol duty could be an awful bore.
“Natasha! This woman beside the chemistry lab. You have to go quick,” I urged, panting as I stopped in front of him.
“Stay here,” he said, holding up a hand and running in the direction of the chemistry lab.
I wasn’t going to follow his command. I needed to see how this played out. I ran after him, staying a few yards behind so that he wouldn’t get pissed at me for not staying back when he told me to.
The vibrator wouldn’t stop going off in my pocket. I groaned and pulled it out, throwing it at Laney’s unconscious body as I passed her. It seemed that the guard deemed a gun threat more important than her. Good.
“Down on the ground,” the guard shouted as he turned the corner. “Put the gun down!”
I stopped, praying that there wouldn’t be any gunshots. As far as I knew, Andrew was still safe. Natasha was the one who was in danger now, but not if she started popping off in the hallway. Then, we would have an even larger problem on our hands.
I couldn’t see around the corner at what was happening because I didn’t want to run up on the guard and get shot. That would have put a damper on the mood. I held back and waited. My throat was tight, and my hands were slippery with sweat as the time ticked onward. What happened now was out of my control.
Chapter 19
“Peach or lemon?” Daniel asked, digging into an icebox.
“You didn’t get mixed-berry?” I asked, placing a hand on one hip.
He chuckled. “You get what you get, Rose. It’s not that easy.”
I shook my head and smirked. “I thought you were better at your job than that.”
“Woah now, watch what you say,” he said, pulling a lemon-flavored alcoholic drink from the ice and handing it to me.
I took it, and promptly handed it to Martin so that he could pop off the lid for me. He did it with his bare hands, which was always impressive to watch. It didn’t seem to hurt him, and it was a neat party trick.
“For you, Andrew?” Daniel asked.
“Nothing for me,” Andrew replied, waving a hand.
“Loser,” Daniel teased.
“I didn’t think defeating Natasha qualified me as a loser,” he replied with a chuckle.
“You’re a hero,” I said, squeezing his arm. “You all are,” I said, correcting myself while looking around at the men that stood around me in the garden.
“I can drink to that,” Troy replied, raising his bottle.
We were all gathered in the old garden, celebrating another beautiful weekend after school. After Natasha was detained and expelled from the school on felony gun charges, things began to lighten up considerably. There was no need for all the drama, but we still had occasional trouble. For some reason, Laney couldn’t let things go, so we constantly had to keep her off our backs, but that was nothing compared to what we had to do before Natasha was kicked out. It was clear sailing from now on.
The scars on my stomach were starting to heal, growing into faint white lettering. Thankfully, with a knife that sharp, scars usually don’t stay for that long. It didn’t tear up my skin as badly as I thought it had. Besides, I was thinking of getting a tattoo over it when I got out of Ridgeview.
“Hey, could I ask you something?” Andrew asked, gently tugging on my arm.
“Sure,” I replied, taking a sip of my drink and giving him my attention.
“I want to get a picture of all of us together, but I don’t know how to set the timer on this damn camera,” he said pulling out a phone.
I laughed, shaking my head at him. Andrew was tragically bad with technology. It was charming, but he seriously needed help with it. I took the phone and showed him how to set the timer. “Use the back camera,” I said, tapping on the rear side of the phone. “It’s better.”
“Okay,” he said, then turned to the gang. “Everyone, let’s come in for a photo.”
Daniel was eager to get into the photo, smoothing back his hair and brushing the remaining strands into place with his fingers. He sprung up from the icebox and joined the rest of us as we gathered around the garden fountain.
Andrew walked a few feet away and found a suitable spot to place the camera on the crumbling border wall. He started the timer and jogged back to the group.
“Say cheese,” he said, smiling at the camera and pulling us all together in a huddle.
“Cheese!”
There was a flash, and our image was captured on the phone, in our memories, and forever in our hearts. Troy, Martin, Andrew, Daniel, and I were together in the paradise we had made together as a team. Life may have dealt us all a bad hand, but we were making the best out of it, and that’s all we could ever want.
The End.
More by Bella King
Hate You: A Dark High School Bully Romance
Black hair and blue eyes – an unusual combination. She walked with a slight sway to her hips. It was just enough to be sexy, but not enough that it looked like it was on purpose. Her lips were a soft pink, delicate and plump, with a rosy shimmer to them. Her uniform was always neatly pressed, the crisp whites shining against the deep blacks.
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, but she was also my most hated enemy. The funny thing was, she had no idea who I was or why I hated her. I thought it best to keep it that way. I didn’t need her to discover my intentions just yet. She would get what was coming to her in due time.
I stood with my shoulder pressed against the side of my locker. It was cold against my arm, even through the fabric of my white linen school uniform shirt. My eyes danced across her body as she walked with her back to me, away from the throngs of senior students rushing to cram their belongings in their lockers and get home.
She wasn’t like them. She was calm and didn’t seem to be in any hurry at all. I assumed she came from a rich family with the way that she dressed. I would have liked to have my linens cleaned and pressed every morning before school, but my family couldn’t afford that. Hell, we could barely afford my tuition at Blackstone Academy even with me working every weekend at my uncle’s car repair shop.
I watched her walk until she disappeared through the double doors that separated us from freedom every weekday from nine to five. I knew where she was going, because I already knew where she lived. I knew a lot about her, in fact, and I was going to keep finding out more until I had enough to ruin her entirely.
Some may call me bitter, obsessed, and maybe even cruel, but after what she had done to me, I didn’t much care what people had to say. Scarlet Verity Porter was going to pay dearly for the role she had played in ruining my family.
I had to keep my head straight if I was going to pull this off. I couldn’t keep drifting off into fantasy every time I saw her. She would notice if I gazed at her lovely body for too long. She would realize that I had vested interest in her, and I didn’t want that. This had to be a secret.
Secrets, as it turned out, were hard to keep. My ex-girlfriend Maddie was always hovering around me, trying to figure out why I was so interested in Scarlet. She was obviously jealous, but she didn’t have enough information to piece together what was really going on. I wanted to keep it that way.
I stood straight, removing my shoulder form the locker and taking my eyes off the doorway that Scarlet had disappeared through. It would do me no good to stare through it all evening while everyone was heading home. I also had a home to go to, but not a nice one.
I opened my locker and threw some tattered books into it. The whole thing was a mess. Crumbled papers, receipts, empty cans, and last year’s homework all lay scattered around the locker, but it didn’t matter to me. My books had been bought secondhand, and they didn’t need special treatment. The cover had been ripped off one of them and several pages were missing. Sometimes I had to borrow other peop
le’s books just so I knew what the homework was.
Thankfully, Maddie was very eager to please me after our breakup. She seemed to follow me around all the time, and she would always let me use her books if I needed them. She even offered to help me with my homework if I was having trouble with it, but I never accepted her help. I wasn’t stupid.
Maddie was a different issue that I didn’t care to address yet. I didn’t know why she was still skulking around me and popping out from around corners when I was trying to get to class, but it was distracting from my study of Scarlet. She was my target, and I wouldn’t let another woman distract me from her.
“Dylan,” a voice called from behind me.
Fuck, it was her.
CONTINUE READING…
Bully Her: A Dark High School Bully Romance
I watched in horror as the woman across from me slammed down her fifth shot, barely able to keep from vomiting as the cold liquid burned her throat. She was a small woman, with glossy brown eyes and a face that begged to please the leader of our group.
Megan wasn’t pleased, though. She shook her head and read out the next card in the deck. “Ava,” she snapped, turning to me. “What year was Palm Valley founded?”
That was easy enough to answer. It was engraved in a plaque in the center of the quad and was printed on every uniform shirt that the school produced. I was even wearing one of them now. I snuck a peek down at my shirt, double-checking the date on it.
1891, just as I remembered it.
I straightened my back, looking around at the expectant faces sitting cross-legged in the circle, then at the liter of frozen vodka that stood menacingly in the middle. I didn’t want to take another shot of that stuff. It was stronger than anything I had tried before, and it burned my insides as it moved down. I could still feel the first shot I took sizzling in my stomach, dissolving the delicate lining that protected it.
