Bully (Angel & Demons Trilogy Book 1)

by Ashley Love

But then, Slate's hand slides up his shirt, and it feels too real. This is actually happening. This is actually happening.

  As Slate continues to thrust against Zane's backside, setting up a steady pace, grunting in pleasure, his hand grazes over Zane's burn scars under his shirt. He stops for a second, trailing his fingers over the scars, and then, to Zane's horror, he pushes his shirt up, exposing the scars to the moonlight.

  Zane feels the first of his tears start to run out of his eyes as Slate touches his scars, because this is personal. Being attacked the way Slate is attacking him right now is certainly a violation, but exposing his deepest secret is personal. A dry sob escapes his throat as Slate touches the scars, and the sound almost seems to turn Slate on more. He feels Slate blanket himself over him, still fondling his uninterested dick beneath him, thrusting his hips harder and harder as he enjoys himself more and more.

  Zane's still fighting. Fighting so hard the wood of the floor is slicing up his arms and chest, and his sides are cramping, and he doesn't even realize he's a crying, shaking mess of pitiful begging mixed with angry threats until Slate's thrusts start to grow erratic as he edges closer to climax.

  His hand's movements on Zane's limp dick become jerky and painful, tugging too hard and too rough, and he's gasping in his ear. Blood from his bitten tongue is dripping down onto Zane's neck, and he claws at the ground, trying to get away.

  A sound Zane doesn't recognize breaks free from his throat then, an animalistic scream of pain, when Slate digs his too-long fingernails into his scars, scraping into the scar tissue through his last few thrusts. Pain erupts across Zane's side through his scars, and it almost feels worse than when he was on fire. It's raw and agonizing, and Zane sobs out loud, in too much pain to be embarrassed by the fact that he's crying and thrashing like a pathetic little bitch.

  And then Slate cums. It's abrupt, and he bites down hard on Zane's shoulder as he finds his release, breaking skin, gasping raggedly, thrusting a few more times through his orgasm. Zane feels Slate fluids splash across his bare back, seeping into his shirt, hot and sticky and nauseating, and the hand on Zane's dick tightens so much he's halfway convinced it's going to break off. But it's nothing compared to the pain in his side where Slate's fingernails are tearing into his scars.

  Slate collapses on top of him, crushing him to the floor as he catches his breath. Zane is shaking so hard his teeth are chattering. He feels blood pouring out of his head where it hit the floor. His dazed brain tries to keep up with the present.

  He wants to just lay there, curl in a ball, and cry and vomit. But above all the hysteria, fear, agony, sickness, and pain he's feeling right now, he feels angry. His mind is still trying to catch up to the fact that this just happened. Was he just raped? Was that rape? Slate didn't exactly penetrate him, but still...

  Zane's not sure, but he doesn't care. It was wrong. So fucking wrong.

  He takes advantage of Slate's momentary bliss post-climax, and he swings his good arm back. His elbow connects with the side of Slate head, and he yelps, rolling off of him. Zane ignores the sticky feeling of cum on his back as he scrambles up. His legs give out beneath him, weak and trembling, and he collapses back to the floor, covered in blood and sex and sweat and tears.

  Slate rubs the side of his head where Zane's elbow hit, blinking hard and laughing a little, and as he tries to regain his footing to stand up, Zane lunges. He's still crying, but these are angry tears now. He's blind with rage. He jumps on top of Slate, trying his best to ignore Slate's dick still hanging out of his pants, and he swings. He lands punch after punch, hitting Slate's hands away as he tries to push him off. Zane ignores the colors swirling in his vision. They're angry colors, black and red. So much red. He's not sure how much of the red is an acid hallucination, and how much is blood.

  He keeps hitting until Slate stops laughing, and is just a gurgling mess on the floor. He keeps hitting until even the gurgling stops. Zane feels Slate's nose break under his fists, and teeth cracking, but he can't stop hitting, can't stop seeing red, can't stop crying.

  When Slate's hand drops limply away from where he's gripping Zane's shirt, he finally freezes in place. He stares down at Slate beneath him, a bloody unconscious mess. Slate's chest is moving up and down...he's still breathing. Zane wishes he wasn't. But Slate isn't worth going to prison for murder over.

  Zane's breathing hard. His ears are ringing. For a moment or two, he really wants to die.

  He pushes himself to his feet, catching himself on the wall to keep from falling, and he's shaking so violently he's worried his bones might shatter. He stares down at Slate, and then spits once at the guy, disgusted and hurt and angry and ashamed. But all he wants to do is get the fuck out of here. He just wants to go home.

  He ignores the feeling of blood running down his face and arms and torso, and he ignores the feeling of Slate's slimy cum soaking into the back of his shirt. He groans in pain as he drops down out of the train car on shaking legs, fingers trembling as he struggles to zip up his pants again.

  Wiping tears from his eyes, he takes off through the trees, not even paying attention to where he's going. He just wants to get as far away from Ghost Town as possible.

  24

  I tilt my head back and exhale into the icy cold night, watching the cloud of fog my breath makes dissolve up towards the tree tops. Mason is leading the pack, with Kira close behind, and Charlie and me are hanging back, hugging ourselves against the cold and breathing in the smell of the coming snow.

  "I think my boogers are frozen," Charlie mumbles, sniffling a few times and wiggling her nose.

  I chuckle, stepping over a protruding root on the forest floor. "Mason, how much longer?" I call out. The temperature is in the single digits and it's well past midnight already. We've been out here for hours, walking back and forth through the woods.

  Mason turns around, waving his flashlight at us. We squint and shield our eyes from the overly-bright beam. "You guys, this is a ghost hunt," he says. "You think Elsa is just gonna appear in the first ten minutes?"

  "It's been over four hours," Charlie points out.

  Kira shakes her head a little. "I'm so screwed," she complains. "My mom told me to be home by midnight!"

  Mason coos and steps forward, patting Kira on the cheek with a gloved hand. "The sacrifice will be worth it when we find Elsa Hartley."

  Charlie groans. "You know, I bet even Elsa's ghost has the common sense to find somewhere warmer to haunt in the middle of the night."

  "Or the common sense to just sleep," Kira adds, yawning and hugging herself.

  Mason rolls his eyes. "Ghosts don't sleep, you idiots. Everyone knows that."

  I raise eyebrow. "Is that what it says in the official ghost handbook?"

  Mason scoffs. "No," he replies. "But name one horror movie where the ghost attacks during the day. They're nocturnal, I'm telling you."

  Charlie laughs. "Mason, you're taking this ghost hunt way too seriously."

  "Hey!" he retorts, waving his flashlight around. "If we want our girl Ariel here to get some sleep, we're gonna have to solve her nightmare problem. And that starts with finding Elsa Hartley's ghost."

  Kira stifles another yawn. "And when we find her?" she asks. "Have you thought that far ahead?"

  Mason pauses, chewing on his chapped lip thoughtfully. "Anybody know how to build one of those nifty traps they used in the Ghostbusters?"

  I laugh, and all three of them look at me in surprise. I glance around. "What?"

  "Did you just understand a pop culture reference?" Charlie asks wonderingly. I pause and nod, and Charlie throws her arms around my shoulders with a cheer. "Yay! Our little baby's growing up!"

  Mason rolls his eyes, shining his flashlight into the trees, looking around. "If you guys don't keep it down, you'll scare her off," he whispers, shushing us. "She's got to be around here somewhere."

  Kira rolls her eyes. "I'm gonna head back," she says. "My mom's already gonna lock me
in my room for the next ten years for staying out this late." She turns and starts walking back towards town.

  "Hey, wait! Come on, man," Mason whines. "We need all hands on deck here!" He steps in front of her when Kira starts to walk away.

  My head snaps up as I hear a noise coming from the distance in the trees. My friends don't notice.

  "I swear to God, if you get me grounded Mason, I'll throw away your entire candy stash," Kira grumbles, trying to step around him.

  The noise sounds again, closer this time, and I peer into the trees, squinting. I see nothing but darkness.

  "I'm not gonna get you grounded!" Mason says, raising his hand up like he's taking an oath. "I promise, okay? Swear on the candy stash itself."

  "Guys?" I say when I hear the noise again, growing ever closer. They don't notice.

  "You've probably already gotten me grounded," Kira argues. "Please can we just go?"

  "Guys?" I say again, cocking my ear towards where I hear the sound deep in the woods. It sounds like someone running, but there are weird gasps too, like a drowning person coming up for air.

  "Can you just wait like ten more minutes?" Mason offers. "We can have one last look around and if we don't find anything, we can go."

  Kira rolls her eyes with a weary sigh. "Ten minutes. No more," she says. "Then I really have to go. It's almost four in the morning."

  "Guys!" I cut in, louder this time, and Kira and Mason both shut up and look at me. "Do you hear that?"

  All of them are quiet, listening for a moment.

  "Hear what?" Charlie asks, at the same time as Kira says, "I don't hear anything."

  I shush them. "Just listen," I order, looking into the trees. "I heard something."

  The second I say that, a voice cries out from deep within the trees. It's not very loud or very long, almost a little yelp like someone stepping on a thumbtack. Charlie squeaks in surprise, grabbing onto my arm in fear.

  "What the hell was that?" she whispers urgently, squeezing tight. We all stand there frozen in place.

  There are heavy footsteps running through the trees, and when I realize the steps are coming towards us, I shrink back closer to my friends, a little scared. Is this a ghost? Was Mason right?

  We all stand stuck in place, barely breathing as we hear the footsteps coming closer. Whoever is coming is running fast, breathing hard, deep gasping breaths that I can hear from where we are. There are tree branches crunching and crashing, and the frozen ground absorbs the sound of the footsteps loudly.

  Mason lifts up his flashlight and points it into the trees in the direction of the noises. Charlie slaps the light back down. "Are you crazy?" she whispers angrily. "It could be a serial killer!"

  "It could be Elsa!" Mason whispers back, grinning through his obvious fear.

  "God, gimmie that!" Charlie snaps, grabbing his flashlight. She fumbles with it and attempts to turn it off, but before she can douse the light, the footsteps crash and pound their way through the trees right in front of us. Charlie screams as a large, dark figure comes breaking through the trees into the tiny clearing we're standing in. The figure skids to a halt at the last second, falling back before it runs into us, and I watch as the person scuffles back across the ground.

  All four of us stare in shock at the person, frozen in place, and Charlie lifts the flashlight, more out of fear than anything, shining the beam directly into the newcomer's eyes.

  I suddenly can't breathe. It's Zane. It's Zane. What the hell is he doing here?

  The light from the flashlight reflects off a massive stream of blood coating the side of Zane's face, and there are tear tracks streaking his dirty cheeks. He has a wild look in his eyes like he's staring into the sun and his gaze keeps darting around from one person to the next. He's gasping for air, hoarse and horrible sounding, and even from here, I can see that he's shaking violently, covered from head to toe in dirt and blood and sweat.

  He looks awful, like a zombie, bloodied and hurt and panicked. His pupils are blown so wide I can barely see a sliver of that gorgeous green I've come to love about his eyes. His gaze darts around wildly for a few moments, and I hear Charlie utter a small, "Oh my God," as all four of us take in his bloody face.

  And then Zane's eyes fall upon me. Our gazes lock, and we stare at each other. He's looking at me, but it's almost like he's looking right through me, not seeing me at all. What the hell happened to him?

  All at once, Zane is scrambling up from the ground, standing before us, and he stares at me for a very long moment. As he stares, his breathing slows down, just a little bit, like he's calming down.

  But then, he looks away, and he starts running again, shoving his way through the four of us and taking off through the trees once more.

  "Zane, wait!" I call out before I know what I'm doing. My brain is screaming at me to help. Zane looks like he was attacked by a bear. He looks like he's under the influence of something, and he's hurt and scared and panicked. He doesn't stop when I call him.

  We all stare after him as he disappears into the trees again, and we listen as his footsteps crash and crunch away.

  "What the actual fuck?" Kira breathes when Zane's footsteps are finally no longer audible.

  I realize I'm breathing hard, clutching my stomach, and I glance at my friends. Charlie lets out a huge breath, bending over and holding herself up with her hands on her knees.

  "Jesus, that scared the shit out of me!" she exclaims, sucking in a few more breaths.

  "Can we go home now?" Kira asks shakily, eyeing Mason. Mason is standing there with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.

  "Yeah," he squeaks. "Yeah, we can go home. I think that's enough ghost hunting for one night."

  25

  When Zane stumbles out of the woods into his backyard, he collapses by the garden hose and immediately vomits. He's managed not to puke yet, despite the colors and the residual feeling of Slate's dick on his back and the pain vibrating through his body. He gags and coughs, vomiting mostly bile. He hasn't eaten anything in hours, apart from the two Smarties with the acid drops on them. Despite this, he kneels there on all fours retching and heaving for a good five minutes.

  By now, his tears have stopped flowing, to his relief. His face is still sticky and wet and salty with blood and tears, but no new tears are going to fall. He won't let them. He doesn't cry; that's something Zane just doesn't do. Embarrassment is starting to sink in with the more time that passes. Slate attacked him, and Zane had cried like a fucking baby. Above all—above being overpowered by Slate, above getting stupidly high, above everything—Zane crying like that in front him was the most humiliating thing to happen to him tonight.

  Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, spitting the last of the vomit from his tongue, he climbs shakily to his feet, holding onto the garden hose reel as another wave of nausea threatens to push its way up from his throat. He's dizzy, but he's not sure whether that's from the LSD, or from his head wound. He touches his trembling fingertips gently to the edges of the wound. It doesn't seem terribly deep, just swollen into a sizable lump from the impact his head made with the train car floor.

  His heart is beating so fast it's hurting his chest and he briefly considers whether it's common for eighteen-year-olds to die from heart attacks as he makes his way into his house. It's almost four in the morning according to the clock on the oven in the kitchen, and the house is dark and silent. He tries to be as quiet as possible as he stumbles into the living room, but he's gasping and crashing into things in a pitifully hysterical state.

  He needs to calm down. The last thing he wants is for Mike to come out of his room and find him like this. That would be just peachy.

  He doesn't really think past the sudden desperate need to get out of these clothes. His jeans are a little torn and covered in both his and Slate's blood, and the back of his shirt is soiled with semen that's now frozen to his skin from the icy cold night. Zane gags again as he pulls his shirt off and
the fabric sticks to his back, and he has to swallow repeatedly before he vomits again all over the living room carpet.

  He stumbles over to the fireplace that they never use against the back wall and throws his shirt in, his pants and boxers quickly following. He kicks off his boots and socks and throws them off to the side. He reaches into the fireplace briefly to fish his Zippo out of the pocket of his jeans, and it takes him a couple tries to flick the lighter on with his shaking, unsteady hands. Once it finally lights, he sets his clothing on fire, watching it go up in flames.

  When he's sure the flames are going to eat his clothes away completely, he takes a step back from the fireplace, standing there naked as the day he was born, staring into the fire. He sees nothing but red in the flames, dancing and pulsing outwards. He's not sure how much of it is the acid still taking its toll on his mind, but it's only making him feel worse. He has no idea what he's feeling right now, but if there were any opportune moment in his life during which he had every right to think about killing himself, this would be it.

  He either wants to die, or kill somebody else. He wants to go back out to that train car and set Slate on fire, just like he did to Ariel. Slate deserves it, he really does, the crazy fuck.

  But Zane doesn't move. He stands there shaking and breathing hard, naked and bloody, and he has no idea how long he's frozen in place like that. He's seeing red, but he wants to see blue. He tries his best to think about Ariel, because thinking of her had calmed him down earlier in the train car while he and his friends were tripping acid, before...

  Zane has to remember to breathe even. To think of blue. His jumbled, agonized brain can't think clear thoughts right now, so he just thinks blue. Blue, blue, blue, the color echoing in his head, and he calms down marginally.

  He doesn't hear the footsteps coming down the hall.

  "Ew, gross Zane!" Liam's voice exclaims from behind him, but Zane barely registers it. He just stares at the fire and wishes it was blue. Somewhere far in the back of his mind, he knows Liam just discovered him standing ass-naked in the middle of the living room, but it doesn't seem to matter right now.