Bully (Angel & Demons Trilogy Book 1)

by Ashley Love

  Zane glares, huffing a little laugh and rolling his pant leg back down for now. "Like I'm gonna tell you."

  "So there is a girl?" Liam deduces with a grin, and Zane instantly feels better when he sees his brother smiling.

  "Yeah, maybe," he replies. "But you don't get to know."

  "Aw, come on! I told you mine!" Liam whines, jumping up from the toilet and walking to the bathroom door, opening it for Zane, who limps pathetically out into the hallway and towards the kitchen.

  He shakes his head. "If you get that Kylie chick to go on a date with you, then maybe I'll tell you about this girl. Deal?"

  Liam pouts to himself for a minute as they walk into the kitchen. "Deal," he grumbles, and Zane grins, ignoring the ache in his swollen jaw as he does it.

  "Whoa, what happened to you guys?" Abby asks from the kitchen table, and Zane and Liam exchange a glance.

  "Plane crash," Susan supplies from where she's frying something at the stove, giving them a skeptical look over her shoulder. Zane grins at her, and she rolls her eyes, turning back around. Liam plops down next to Abby, and Zane limps as subtly as possible over to the freezer.

  "Susan, you got an icepack?" he asks.

  "In the door," she replies, eyeing his leg as he tries to keep his weight off of it. He ignores her questioning glance and fishes out the cold pack, limping back over to the table and holding it to his shin tenderly. He still winces despite his gentle touch.

  "Alfred here?" he asks.

  "He'll be home in a while," Susan says. "He's just closing the shop now."

  Zane nods, leaning back in his chair and letting loose a long sigh. It feels good to be in this house. It's so warm and gentle, like walking into a Buddhist temple. All peace and family and no fucking shouting. He looks over at Liam where he's prodding at the bandage on his head, and Liam looks back at him. And for a second, Zane really wants to tell Liam about Ariel. Mostly because he just wants to talk about her, and he'll find any way to vent.

  But also, he wants to tell Liam about Ariel because Liam is his person, and he tells Liam about everything. And Ariel means something—Ariel is worth it. She's worth talking about. She's important. More than anything—more than Mike's psychosis, and Zane's failing grades, and Slate's grabby hands—Ariel is at the forefront of Zane's mind.

  And that scares him half to death.

  22

  Thanksgiving break from school is the whole last week in November, and to my surprise, both my mother and father make it home for a day or so at the beginning of the week off. They aren't able to stay for the actual Thanksgiving Day, but me, Sophia, Mom, and Dad share a quiet and expectedly awkward Thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday.

  Sophia is ecstatic to see them, while I'm more or less indifferent. I'd much rather be spending time with Mason, Charlie, and Kira, but I feel an obligation to at least spend one evening with my parents. It's not like they'll be staying longer than just one night anyway. They never do.

  And while it's nice to see Sophia so excited about cooking all day and stuffing herself full of pie and gutting a turkey like a little sociopath, I can't help but eye my mother suspiciously. The muffled voice of the man in the background of her phone call rings clear in my head. I can't stop thinking about it.

  My father seems in good spirits, at least, if a little tired. My mother mother is as strict as always, but tries to soften up for the holiday, even when I notice her avoiding my calculating gaze.

  I don't know why I care so much whether or not my mom is seeing someone in Central America while on the job. It's not like my parents have the greatest marriage anyway—they never see each other as it is.

  But it still unnerves me, maybe because I know that Sophia would be upset if she ever found out. Would be upset if anything ever happened to break this barely-there family apart.

  So I stay silent. I eat turkey and stuffing and sickly sweet cranberries and ignore my nagging suspicions and useless worries.

  My parents leave the next day and then it's just me and Sophia again, same as always. Bonnie has us over to her house for the actual Thanksgiving Day, and cooks enough food to feed a small third world country. She sends us home with armfuls of leftovers. I thinks that's nice. It makes up for the fact that our heater in our house is broken again, and I have to call Kira to come look at it.

  The week off from school is more relieving than I thought it would be. I'm not constantly looking over my shoulder, not constantly tensing up in anticipation of being shoved into a locker, not pining after a certain green-eyed boy with angry fists who I really should not be pining after.

  Maybe I need therapy. Charlie is right. Certainly this is Stockholm Syndrome.

  When Mason, Charlie, and Kira come over the day after Thanksgiving to have our own holiday, I try to forget about Zane and enjoy my time with my friends. It's effortless, having fun with my friends. My friends. It feels unbelievably good to say that.

  They've begun to call my house their "haven". With no parents here, it's a good place to escape, to be as loud as they want, to detox from school and work and people in general. We watch movies and gossip about theater and forget about all the homework the crappy teachers assigned us for over the break, somehow forgetting that this is supposed to be a break, and not more time to do homework.

  I bite my tongue and don't talk about Zane to any of them. I've talked about him so much already, and Zane is all I want to talk about to be honest, but I don't want to be judged. How could I be so infatuated with someone who is so awful to me? Is this some sort of abandonment issue thing? Maybe I just can't seem to forget that small endearing smile Zane had given me the very first time I had seen him at Hartley's Bend.

  Instead of unloading my feelings, I pour myself into making four intricate origami angels, giving one to each of my friends and keeping the fourth for myself. They're a sign of loyalty, a sign of protection, like friendship bracelets, I think.

  I'm inexplicably nervous when I present the gifts to each of them one night while we're gathered around the TV in the living room on blankets and pillows, eating Funyuns and chocolate-covered gummy bears. I don't know if this is taking it too far, giving these origami gifts to them. Are we this close of friends? Will they think this is weird?

  But when their faces light up and Charlie jumps on me with an attack hug and Kira smiles sheepishly and Mason slaps my ass in thanks, I know I've done something right, and feel immensely better. And I forget for a while about the shitty people I have to deal with, because there are shitty people everywhere, bullies and jerks. But I have my friends, and they're slowly restoring my faith in humanity.

  "I think I almost have it this time," Kira says, her voice muffled from underneath the heating unit in the back of my house.

  "It's alright if you can't fix it," I tell her. "I think I'm going to talk to my parents about sending enough money for me to replace it."

  Something clatters to the floor under the heater and Kira groans, reaching for it and trying again. I have no idea what she's doing under there. I don't know the first thing about fixing heaters. But I have faith in Kira. She's one of the smartest people I've ever met.

  "I am Kira freaking Tran," I hear her muttering to herself from under the unit. "I have a 4.5 GPA, a black belt in Karate, and I'm in advanced placement. I am not going to be mocked by one little heating unit."

  I press my lips together to keep from laughing as I listen to Kira grumbling to herself. I elect to give her some space for now as she mutters and curses under the machine, and I wander back down the hall to the kitchen where Mason, Charlie, and Sophia are hanging out. All three of them are sitting cross-legged on the island counter playing UNO.

  "I think that heating unit is going to be the death of Kira," I say, sighing and dropping down in a chair at the kitchen table.

  Charlie suddenly whoops triumphantly. "That's right. Draw Four, bitches!" she laughs, slapping down a card, and Mason proceeds to throw a pretzel at her head.

 
; "This game ends friendships," he groans, snatching four more cards up from the pile and adding them to his hand. He has so many cards that he can't hold them all fanned out. He's losing by a long shot.

  From down the hall, Kira curses, and something clinks, and then suddenly, there's that tell-tale screeching car crash sound from within the walls of the house, right before the heat kicks back on. All of them cheer, and I can hear Kira jumping up and down whooping happily.

  "That's right! I'm Kira freaking Tran!" she cheers. "You don't fuck with Kira freaking Tran!" She wanders into the kitchen covered in dust and red in the face, but she's beaming ear to ear. She glances at her watch. "Jesus, I've been working on that thing for three hours? It's already almost eleven!"

  "But, I don't have to wear my winter coat to bed tonight," Sophia says from the counter. "So your efforts are appreciated."

  Kira grins as she plops down in the chair next to me. "Damn right my efforts are appreciated."

  "Speaking of bed," I say, taking Kira's wrist and glancing at her watch too. "Sophia, it's time."

  She groans. "Can't I just play for ten more minutes? I'm winning!"

  "Bullshit you're winning!" Charlie protests, waving the three cards she has left in her hand in Sophia's face.

  "Nope, come on," I say, standing up and walking over, plucking Sophia's cards out of her hand and pulling her off the counter. "You stayed up until one last night. You can't do that two nights in a row."

  Sophia grumbles and mutters a goodnight to everyone in the kitchen, walking ahead of me. I follow her up the stairs and tuck her in, making sure the vent above her door is open and angled towards her so the heater is pointing at her bed. I still pile an extra blanket on top of her since the house is still relatively frigid.

  Outside, the night sky is perfectly clear, but the air is like ice, and smells like the coming snow. It's almost December, we're bound to get snow sometime soon. I'm looking forward to it actually. I love the snow, and I've heard the East Coast has some of the heaviest.

  Sophia sticks her tongue out at me as I tuck her in and I flick her cheek in response, twitching the blanket over her face so she has to sputter and claw her way out from under it again. "No waking me up before eight at least," I order, and then switch off her light and close her door, heading back downstairs.

  When I get to the kitchen, Charlie is packing up the UNO game, grinning triumphantly, and Mason is stuffing a handful of pretzels in his mouth glaring at her. It's obvious who the winner is. Kira is still sitting at the kitchen table smiling proudly to herself about fixing the heater.

  I can't help it. I yawn, long and loud, and when I do, all three of them look at me with raised eyebrows. "You can't seriously be tired," Mason complains. "That's just weak."

  I stifle another yawn and scratch my hand through my hair. "I just haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately," I admit, sitting down next to Kira once more.

  "Why not? Finals aren't for another few weeks, you don't have to stress yet," Charlie says with a smile, stuffing her UNO game into her tie-dye shoulder bag.

  "Are you kidding?" Kira interjects. "My mom has been quizzing me for finals since September."

  "Yes, but, Asian," Mason points out, waving a pretzel at Kira. "If you don't score hundreds on all of your finals, you'll get your bed taken away."

  Kira rolls her eyes. "You have no idea how right you are."

  "Is that why you can't sleep?" Charlie asks. "Do you not have a bed?"

  I chuckle. "Yes, I have a bed. I've just been having these weird dreams."

  "Ooo! I love dream talks!" Charlie urges, sliding off the counter and sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of me like a child in a kindergarten classroom during story time. "What are they about?"

  I huff and and scratch my head again, mussing up my already wild hair. "I...don't really know," I say. "Honestly, I've been having them since I got to Windsor Falls, but they just keep getting weirder."

  "Well what happens?" Charlie coaxes, and Mason throws a pretzel at the back of her head.

  "Leave the girl alone, you hippie," he says, and Charlie flips him off over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off of me.

  I shake my head, waving my hand. "It's okay, it's fine, maybe it'll help to talk about them."

  "They're not about Zane Peterson are they?" Charlie asks, eyeing me skeptically.

  I snort and shake my head. No, for once, my mind isn't flooded with thoughts of Zane.

  "Are they nightmares?" Kira asks, and I glance at her, pursing my lips.

  "I don't think so?" I reply, unsure. "I mean, they're not pleasant, but I don't wake up screaming or anything."

  "But you can't fall back asleep?" Mason asks.

  I shake my head head with a sigh, leaning back in my chair, scrubbing at my eyes tiredly. "I'm gonna be honest...I think that they're about Hartley."

  "Nathan? Or Elsa?" Mason asks, suddenly intrigued.

  I shrug. "Both I think," I reply. "It's like...it's like, in the dreams, I'm Nathan Hartley, and Elsa is dead in the woods, and I'm really sad and...I don't know. They're just depressing and weird."

  Charlie hums. "That is weird. It's like you're cursed or something."

  Kira laughs. "That's not dramatic at all."

  Mason jumps down from the island counter and strolls over. "Maybe you're haunted. It's the ghost of Christmas past."

  Charlie rolls her eyes. "Ariel is the furthest thing from a Scrooge," she argues. "No way the ghost of Christmas past would come and mess with her."

  "Plus it's only Thanksgiving," Kira points out. "The ghost of Thanksgiving's past doesn't sound nearly as cool."

  I chuckle, rubbing the back of my neck. "I'm pretty sure it's fair to say that I'm not haunted. I think I just heard too many stories about Nathan Hartley since moving here, and now they're stuck in my head."

  Mason clucks his tongue. "Well, there's only one way to find out for sure."

  "Find out what? If she's haunted?" Charlie asks.

  "Mm-hmm," Mason nods, looking between the three of us. "Ghost hunt."

  23

  Mike's been gone for a couple of days. Zane has given up on really caring where his father disappears to, but he'd hoped that they could at least have a Thanksgiving dinner together. The last time they'd truly had a holiday dinner as a family was when Diane was still alive. Zane barely remembers how warm it all felt. He doesn't know why he thought this year would be any different, what with his leg still a bruised and blotchy mess, and Liam's head wound still healing a couple weeks after the incident in the kitchen.

  Instead, Thanksgiving Day rolls around and Mike hasn't been heard from, so Zane takes Liam to Hartley's Bend around dinner time and they eat cheap Chinese takeout and spit tofu cubes at each other since neither of them particularly like the bland white blocks.

  Zane can't help but think that this is a lot more fun than if Mike were around fucking up the holiday for them. This is probably for the better. He and Liam stay at the park for hours, shoving each other around and gossiping about Kylie, whom Liam is still too shy to make a move on. Zane whaps the back of his head for that, insisting that he taught Liam better.

  They spend a good amount of Thanksgiving Break at Alfred and Susan's. The Singers had invited Liam and Zane over for Thanksgiving dinner, but Zane had declined. They've been over for the holiday the past three years—he didn't want to intrude, no matter how much Susan insisted it was okay.

  Liam sleeps soundly at the Singer household, content with the unconventional Thanksgiving he and Zane had shared despite the absence of turkey, and Zane is comforted by the fact that he's kept his little brother happy for a little while longer at least.

  An overwhelming sense of boredom leads Zane to hang out with Noah, Gordon, Slate, and Ryker a few times out at Ghost Town. It's getting colder out, but Zane ignores it, pulling his jacket tighter around himself and taking long slow drags on his cigarette.

  He and his friends stay later each nig
ht during the break, and for the most part Zane tunes them out as they laugh and talk about how drunk they'd gotten last, and which girls they are planning on fucking before the end of senior year. It's the same shit they talk about every time they hang out. It gets old. But Zane doesn't have anywhere else to go.

  It's a couple nights before the end of the fall break when they're out at the train cars again just past midnight. The air is brisk and cold and smells of snow that Zane doesn't think will actually fall. The only light comes from a piping hot gas camping lantern that Gordon brought along, despite the half moon clear in the sky. The tips of their cigarettes and joints glow like candle wicks just out of reach of the lantern's light.

  Mike had returned that morning without explanation as to where he'd been. His mussed state and rancid breath suggested another bender, but Zane just let it go and watched his father stumble into his bedroom and close the door.

  He'd left Liam home with Mike tonight, but his father was out cold, so Liam would be safe for now at least. Zane does not want to go back there; the house is claustrophobic with their dad there. He and Liam are silent as the dead sneaking around the place to avoid waking him. They only have about four dishes left unbroken in the kitchen.

  The train car seems colder than usual tonight, and Zane curls his toes in his boots in an attempt to keep them warm as Slate stands and pulls a bag out of his back pocket.

  "What's that shit? Did you bring coke again?" Gordon asks, eyeing it as Slate opens the package.

  Slate gives a feral grin and looks straight at Zane, eyes glittering in the lantern's light. "I thought we'd try something different tonight," he says, his eyes locked on Zane's, like he's challenging him to say no. As if Zane would say no anyway—he's such a pushover. And why the fuck does Slate always do that? Look at Zane that way? He wishes he could just tell him to fuck off.

  "Is that LSD?" Noah snorts, tucking his flask away in the inner pocket of his pea coat and sitting forward.