Bully (Angel & Demons Trilogy Book 1)

by Ashley Love

  I eye all the unpacked boxes in the living room, sighing deeply. I wish that my dad had stayed long enough to help unpack at least, but this happens every time we move; I'm stuck unpacking it all. My parents don't even really seem to care how I decorate the place.

  Sophia seems to sense my weariness as I look at all the stacks of boxes, and so she comes up and takes my thumb, pulling me forward and opening the first box herself, beginning to hand me things from it. I give a little grateful smile, and we spend the rest of the afternoon, and into the night, unpacking as many as we can. We make a good amount of progress, although there's still a lot to go, before we heat up a couple cans of beans for dinner around nine, and I usher Sophia to bed upstairs shortly thereafter.

  She willingly collapses, to my relief, and I throw the blankets over her, switching off her light and leaving the room, packing her backpack for school downstairs, packing my own as well. I eye my new school supplies as I do, tendrils of nervousness curling in my gut. I hate this, going to a new school. But I have to. It'll be over soon, I remind myself. I just have my senior year to go, and then I can leave and go to college somewhere.

  I sigh as I stuff my last notebook inside, zipping up the backpack and dropping it next to Sophia's on the floor in the front entrance.

  When I lay down to sleep, pulling the blankets tight around me to block out the chilly September night, I stare at the ceiling for a couple hours. And I think. I think about how kind Alfred Singer had been at the craft store, giving me a job so willingly. I think about Bonnie next door, with the mischievous Ethan, whom I suspect may be an adopted son.

  And I think about Zane at the park. I think about how soft his freckled skin looked, about his loose black shirt, about his noticeably toned arms underneath that leather jacket, about his full lips, about his spiky hair, about his heavy boots, about his fiery eyes...about his everything. I've never been affected by someone this strongly before. But then again, I'm in a new place, and my nerves are probably disorienting my mind, making me vulnerable to sharper emotions.

  Still trying to convince myself that I'm not as heavily affected by this gorgeous boy as I think, I fall asleep smelling strings of cigarette smoke in the air.

  The dream begins as it always does. It's cold, and dark, and I don't know why I'm so sad, just that I am. So overwhelmingly sad. And it's weird because I'm not myself. I look at my reflection and see someone different, someone with a sallow face and weary eyes, years older than I know I am inside.

  I'm driving down this road in an old, old car that smells like industry and death, checking the rear-view mirror every few seconds with a sense of longing for the memories behind me, and a sense of hopelessness every moment I continue forward toward the endless horizon, far, far away from the life I've left behind.

  I know this, even if these thoughts and feelings are someone else's.

  Deep down, I've heard this story before. So many times since I've moved to Windsor Falls. Maybe it affected me more than I thought, because I've had this dream several times now, and I always wake up with tears in my eyes and my nose running and my heart heavy.

  And I lay there, staring at the ceiling, feeling like I've lost something I loved, even though I've never lost anything of the sort before. Not really. You can't lose something you've never had.

  2

  The woods are crisp this early on a Monday morning in September. Zane has always liked the cold more than the sweltering heat of the summer. This is nice. He likes to feel the burn of the frosty air licking down into his lungs and tightening his chest. It clashes with the dry heat of his cigarette as he takes another drag, chewing on the filter a little and tasting the menthol.

  He hates school, but doesn't everyone? Except for those fucking honor students that always annoy the crap out of him, because they seem to have their shit so together when he's already behind in most of his classes, only three weeks into his first semester of senior year.

  Zane is smart—he really is. Very smart, actually. He excels in math especially, and he's a fantastic writer, and a genius in science. He knows history like he knows the back of his hand, scarred up knuckles and all. He knows this, for the most part, but he's also unmotivated. What's the point? Go to school, grow up, get a job, die? That's it? Really, what's the point?

  But he forces himself to go to school anyway. It's not like he has anything better to do, and there's no way in hell he wants to hang out at home with Mike Peterson all day, every day.

  His heavy boots crunch over the twigs and dry leaves already falling from the trees in the forest behind his house. He cuts through here most days on his way to school; it's a faster route than taking the road. For a while, he hears nothing but the calm stillness of morning. It's too cold even for the birds to be singing. There's just the crackle of the trees, and his footsteps, and his exhales as he breathes out clouds of smoke that linger in the air as if frozen in place.

  He tucks his hands in his pockets, holding his cigarette between his lips so he can thaw out his fingers. As he comes up closer to the high school, he can hear students laughing and chattering as they file inside, and he hopes the janitors managed to at least crank up the heat in the classrooms. When he breaks free of the forest, his feet automatically carry him to where his friends are usually gathered.

  It's called The Docks—a small gathering of boulders and cement slabs right on the edge of a river, running into the forest with a bridge leading over it. It's where all the stoners and burnouts gather before classes and in free periods.

  Although usually, at this point, it's just Zane and his boys, because they have a reputation, and the moment one of them walks up, the rest of the smokers quickly depart. Zane stamps out his cigarette as he approaches, finding his friends huddled against the cold smoking their own cigarettes.

  Noah is inconspicuously taking swigs from an expensive flask he keeps in the pocket of his pea coat, and Zane is tempted to ask him for a little bit to warm his muscles, but decides against it. Ryker and Gordon are sitting down on a boulder together, pressed close, not even caring how gay it looks because it's so cold out right now. Slate is standing off to the side, and Zane kind of cringes when he sees him. He's never particularly liked Slate, but they hang out in the same small crowd, so he tolerates him. At the moment, he's smoking a hit from a pipe, what Zane assumes is just weed.

  It's not the worst Zane has ever seen the guy do, so he ignores it.

  He doesn't actually particularly like any of his friends that much, but they're the only friends he's got, so he deals with it in quiet resignation. He has a reputation; if he didn't hang out with these guys, he wouldn't have any friends, and hanging out with assholes is better than being alone.

  Noah isn't such a bad guy anyway. Zane met him his freshman year of high school when Noah was an exchange student from London. When he'd reappeared and actually moved here from Britain last year, Zane had been happy to see him, but baffled at the fact that he'd chosen to live here in this shitty town as opposed to England.

  Gordon is an alright guy, if a little flat personality-wise. Zane doesn't know much about him, other than the fact that he was raised in a military family and has strict parents who molded him into a stiff and cold sort of person. But Gordon can be one hell of a sadistic fuck if he wants to be; Zane has seen that firsthand with some of the younger, weaker students at their school.

  Ryker is just a dick, plain and simple. A pompous dick. Zane has no idea why he's even here.

  And Slate...he's the creepiest guy Zane has ever met. He steers clear of him whenever he can, but the guy always looks at him with hooded, piercing eyes that lick over his body like he's a steak instead of an eighteen year old boy. It pisses Zane off, but he says nothing. He doesn't know why. He thinks maybe all the others think Slate is creepy too, but they keep him around because Slate was held back for two years in a row as a senior, and just turned twenty-one three months ago. Old enough to buy them alcohol, which seems more important than distanci
ng themselves from a snide creep apparently.

  Zane closes the distance between himself and his four friends, his hands tightly tucked in his pockets, huddling from the cold, even as he savors the feeling of the air sliding down his throat like ice water.

  "Morning," he says gruffly, clearing his throat, voice even more hoarse than usual from his dry cigarette.

  "Where'd you get the shiner?" Gordon asks, nodding towards Zane's fading black eye.

  "Bear wrestling," Zane deadpans, instantly changing his mind about asking Noah for a swig from his flask. He doesn't even have to ask, just holds out his palm and Noah hands over the alcohol willingly. Noah may be a scumbag, but he's the best friend Zane's ever had apart from Liam. It's refreshing sometimes, especially when Noah reads his mind like he did just now.

  "You're hilarious," Gordon drawls, hacking and spitting on the ground beside himself before flicking his cigarette towards the river. It lands in the dry brush, but fizzles out before anything can catch on fire.

  Zane grits his teeth as the expensive whiskey rolls down his throat, huffing a little breath and instantly feeling better. He shoots Noah a grateful look as he hands the flask back, and then immediately flinches when he feels a bony hand land on his shoulder. He hadn't even seen Slate come up behind him.

  "You look tired," Slate says with phony concern, his voice the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, nasally and slick. "You alright?" His breath is sour.

  Zane shrugs his way out from under Slate's hand, trying to be polite about it. He wonders why he even bothers. "Late night, I'm fine. Anyone got any grub? I'm starving."

  Ryker fishes in his pocket and pulls out a foil-wrapped block, tossing it to Zane. "My mom makes them by the gallon, and they're disgusting. Take it."

  Zane peels back the foil to find a chalky white biscuit. Better than nothing. He nods his thanks to Ryker and takes a bite, ignoring the bland dryness of the bread as he chews and forces himself to swallow. It's better than the nothing he'd eaten at his house this morning before walking Liam to school.

  The five-minute-warning bell rings just then, and they all groan simultaneously, standing and gathering their things, stomping out their cigarettes. Like clockwork, Victor, the school security guard, saunters around the corner of the building towards The Docks. He comes by every day to make sure Zane and his friends get inside the school and don't wander off and ditch. Like a permanent babysitter.

  Noah gives Victor a dainty little mocking wave, and Victor purses his lips with a scowl. "I do believe he's beginning to like me," Noah mutters to Zane as they make their way towards the school.

  Zane eyes Victor and scoffs. "In your dreams. That man likes nobody."

  "He likes me," Ryker protests.

  Zane rolls his eyes at the same time as Noah snorts. "Anybody will like a boy whose family basically pays their salary," Noah points out. And it's true. Ryker comes from wealth, and a lot of it. The funding his family provides for the school is probably enough that the extra help of a security guard is easily affordable.

  Ryker has nothing to say to that, just bites his lip and allows Gordon to open the front door of the school for them. Zane tries hard not to let any part of his body touch Slate where the guy is walking too-close-for-comfort behind him. He can't wait to get the hell out of this place and away from Slate for good.

  It's the same thing every morning for them. Meet at The Docks, get inside, and head for Ryker's locker first. Zane would rather not tag along with his friends every single morning to each of their lockers, but he doesn't know how to say no. At least his, Noah's, and Gordon's lockers are close together so the process doesn't take longer than it has to. It's one of those high school teenage rituals that Zane really doesn't understand, groups of people going to their lockers together. Kind of like packs of girls going to the bathroom with each other. It makes no sense.

  Slate at least doesn't even seem to have a locker. He doesn't have any books, either. He has a backpack, but there's only a vast pharmacy of alcohol and drugs in there that conveniently disappears when there are monthly drug sniffing dogs that come into the school for random locker searches.

  Ryker rifles around in his locker, chatting about something that Zane's not listening to. He's snapped back to reality when Gordon nudges him. "Check out the fresh meat," he says to Zane in his low voice that is somehow always too calm for comfort.

  Zane looks at him and follows his line of vision to the lockers down the hall. It's still fairly crowded in the hallway, but Zane knows exactly who Gordon is talking about when he spots her.

  Ariel. That's what Liam had said the girl's name is. It's the girl from the park yesterday afternoon. Weird name. Zane wonders if maybe Liam heard it wrong. But a weird name like that seems fitting for a weird girl like her. She's standing at a locker several meters away, stuffing random notebooks into her backpack and juggling a few textbooks, as if trying to decide which ones she needs.

  "You seen her around before? She looks new," Ryker says, closing his locker and slinging his backpack over one shoulder. The five of them stare at Ariel down the hallway.

  Zane doesn't want to tell them that he knows who Ariel is, even if they haven't actually officially met yet. So he shrugs. "Mr. Wyatt said we're gonna have a new student in our math class this week. Maybe that's her."

  Slate grins, all chipped teeth and sharp eyes, and Zane has to look away before the smile makes him nauseous. "Shall we introduce ourselves?" he asks, his voice dripping like tar.

  He doesn't wait for a response, just begins sauntering over to where Ariel is packing her bag, dropping a pen and stooping over to pick it up. Gordon chuckles a little, following after him, and when Noah and Ryker start walking, Zane finds no choice but to follow them too. Slate is the first to reach her, and he places his hand flat against the locker next to hers, smacking the metal a little harder than necessary.

  Ariel jumps, startled at the sudden sound, straightening up and fumbling with her backpack a little as she looks up and sees him standing there. Her blue eyes quickly jump from Slate to the others standing close behind him, taking them all in before her gaze settles on Zane. Their stares lock and her eyes widen fractionally.

  Zane hadn't really been able to see Ariel clearly at Hartley's Bend yesterday. He'd seen an attractive, pale girl from several dozen yards away, and that had been that. But up close...Ariel is beautiful. And it's such a strange beauty that Zane isn't sure how to interpret it. She's got an oddly angular face, creamy pale skin, and an explosion of shiny almost-black hair sticking up every which way from her head like she's just run for miles. Her lips are pale pink and slightly chapped, and everything in the symmetry of her face comes together at her eyes.

  They're not just blue. They're like oceans, deep and penetrating and terrifyingly beautiful. And right now they're focused completely on Zane. It's almost too much to handle, like that cerulean gaze is carving him out raw. But he forces himself to hold her stare, because if he knows one thing, it's that Ariel is blushing on the outside as much as he is blushing on the inside.

  Zane knows he's attractive, and the look on Ariel's face yesterday at the park, the way she'd gotten flustered and flushed—which was unbelievably endearing by the way—suggests to him that Ariel knows it too. At least he has the upper hand here.

  "You're new, right?" Slate says, breaking the trance, and those lovely blue eyes slip back to Slate's face.

  "Um, yes," she replies, and struggles to free one hand from the bundle in her arms, holding it out to shake. "My name is Ariel."

  "Ariel?" Gordon pipes up. "Like The Little Mermaid? Weird name."

  Zane sees Ariel's throat ripple as she swallows, and she lowers her hand when Slate simply looks at it and doesn't shake it. "My mother was into religious studies for a while. I'm named after an angel. The angel of nature."

  "That's nice," Gordon says, his tone suggesting that he actually couldn't give less of a shit.

  Ariel seems to pick up on that i
nstantly, and she lowers her eyes a bit. Zane watches as a sort of resignation seems to wash over her. It's almost like she instantly knows that him and his friends are bad news. Smart girl.

  "Well, we just thought we'd welcome you to the school and wish you luck for your first day," Slate says, grinning sharply. Zane can tell by the look in Ariel's eyes that she's not buying the false friendliness, but she gives a perfunctory half-smile nonetheless and nods.

  "Thank you," is all she says.

  Zane tries hard not to look away when Ariel glances at him again, locking eyes with him, as if waiting for him to do something, say something, like they know each other.

  But then Noah bumps into Zane a little, as if waiting for him to say something too. Zane is widely known to be the wittiest in their little gang of assholes here. He's always the one who comes up with the eloquently worded phrases that end up hurting people the most. Because that's what he and his friends do. They hurt people. For fun. They're bullies. And it should bother Zane more than it does usually. It's only really bothering him now. Something is different about Ariel.

  But he shakes those thoughts aside. He has a reputation to uphold here. He clears his throat and plasters on a fake cocky grin.

  "Well then, good talk. See ya around, Ariel," he says, winking once at the girl, who stands there dumbstruck and wide-eyed. This isn't the kind of wink he wants to give her. This is a mocking wink, and the way he says her name isn't nicely. It's twisting the word around and making it sound ugly. Zane's good at this, hurting with words—just as good as he is at hurting with his fists. He sees it in the way Ariel's face falls slightly, as if she'd had hope that he would be less of a dick, like she knows him. And that actually pisses him off a little.