Bully (Angel & Demons Trilogy Book 1)

by Ashley Love

  "Zane?" Liam asks hesitantly, but Zane doesn't move, just focuses on breathing in and out, existing in red and blue, the colors warring with each other in his brain. He distantly hears Liam's footsteps coming towards him, and his little brother appears beside him, looking up at his face.

  "Jesus, Zane, what happened to you?" he exclaims, and when he grabs Zane's arm to shake him once, it jolts Zane back to reality and he blinks, eyes dropping to Liam's face.

  Liam is a portrait of concern and alarm, and Zane just stares at him as Liam reaches over and snatches the thin blanket Diane knitted before she died from off the back of the couch, wrapping it around Zane's naked waist and knotting it so it doesn't fall.

  "Sorry, did I wake you up?" Zane hears himself ask, and his voice cracks hoarsely.

  "No, the smoke did," he says, stepping over to the fireplace and turning a knob. "You have to open the flue."

  Zane swallows hard and nods, noticing for the first time how smoky the room is. His eyes are burning.

  "Why are you burning your clothes?" Liam asks, coming back over and reaching up to tilt Zane's face towards the light, getting a better look at his gashed forehead. "What the hell happened? Was it Dad?"

  Zane grits his teeth, unable to stop the full-bodied shiver the rolls through him. "No," he replies, and leaves it at that.

  Liam stares at him for a long moment, and then takes his arm. "Come on," he says, dropping his questions for now. "Let's get you cleaned up. You look like shit."

  Zane laughs once, humorlessly, feeling that tickle in his nose that happens right before you cry again. He grits his teeth, staving off the tears. He's never been happier to see Liam in his life. He walks numbly with his brother back to the bathroom, and glances at Mike's door as they pass it.

  "He's not here," Liam provides Zane's questioning glance. "He left earlier, didn't say where he was going. So probably The Roadhouse."

  Zane nods again, sighing as his heartbeat starts to slow down. He's not shaking as badly anymore. Having Liam here is good. It helps. Now if only Ariel were here too, Zane would be complete. He would feel so much better.

  Wait. Was that Ariel in the woods? Did he hallucinate that? Why was she in the woods in the middle of the night? He must have imagined seeing her there. She couldn't possibly have been there.

  Liam reaches in and turns on the shower, and then gives Zane a gentle push towards it. "Wash off," he says. "Then you're telling me what happened."

  The hell I am, Zane thinks to himself, but he says nothing, just climbs mutely into the shower and drops the blanket from around his waist on the floor. Liam leaves the bathroom, allowing Zane some privacy, but Zane doesn't want that. He doesn't want to be alone right now.

  "Liam?" he calls out weakly, and a moment later, Liam pokes his head back into the bathroom, keeping his eyes away from the shower until the clear curtain fogs up enough that he can't see Zane's naked form.

  "Yeah?"

  Zane swallows, awkwardly cradling the shampoo bottle in his hands. "Can you stay?" he asks, and Liam just looks at him strangely for a moment.

  "Sure," he finally says then, wandering over and sitting down on the toilet seat, reaching into a drawer next to him and pulling out the first aid kit.

  Zane relaxes with his brother's presence next to him, and he tries his best not to gag as he feels cold, dry cum slowly rinsing off his back in the spray of the shower. He winces when the hot water hits the deep bite mark on the back of his shoulder, and dares to look down at his scars on his side. There are five deep and distinct half-moon cuts in his scars where Slate dug his fingernails in.

  Zane places a shaking hand gently over the marks, nearly whimpering as pains start to flare up. Swallowing back a fresh urge to cry, he scrubs his hair vigorously with shampoo, and rinses himself of sweat and blood and semen, ignoring the twinges of pain coming from his shoulder where something had popped earlier.

  Liam turns his back when Zane steps out of the shower, until Zane can get a towel around his waist. When he steps up to the mirror to examine the gash on his forehead, Liam gets a look at the extent of his injuries. Zane hears him pull in a little gasp that he tries to hide as he sees the fingernail marks in Zane's scars.

  "Zane..." Liam breathes, but Zane can't look at him. Liam pulls himself together and hands him a Band-Aid. "Are you gonna tell me what happened to you?" His voice is tight.

  Zane pulls open the wrapper of the Band-Aid. "No," he replies quietly, with finality, and secures the Band-Aid on his gashed forehead after reassuring himself that he doesn't need stitches. The Band-Aid has little prints of Saturn on it. It's dorky, and very Liam, and it puts Zane in a marginally better mood.

  Liam drops the subject, and he steps out of the bathroom for a minute, coming back with a fresh shirt and pajama pants for him. Zane gives him a weak smile in thanks, and Liam leaves so Zane can change. Zane doesn't even dare look at the bite mark on his shoulder before pulling his shirt on. He very quickly and very nauseatingly glances at his dick before pulling on his pants, examining for damage. There are finger-shaped bruises actually wrapping his shaft, and he didn't even know having a bruised dick was possible.

  All at once, he's diving towards the toilet and throwing the lid up, vomiting and retching, his stomach cramping as he pukes. God, he can't believe this is happening. It all feels like a dream, though that could just be the acid still working its way out of his system.

  He rinses his mouth and doesn't dare look in the mirror again as he turns and leaves the bathroom. He just needs to sleep. He needs to sleep, and in the morning, everything will be better. He doesn't go to his own room. He goes to Liam's. He'll swear to the grave that it's because he's worried Mike will come home, but really, Zane just doesn't want to be alone. He can't be alone right now.

  He curls up next to Liam, gripping the amulet Liam gave him in one hand, and Liam's wrist in his other, grounding himself there in the present. He doesn't sleep that night. Even after Liam dozes off beside him, facing him this time, Zane can't sleep. He just sees red and blue dancing before his eyes, swirling and colliding, mixing with the glow-in-the-dark stickers on the ceiling.

  He doesn't know how he's feeling right now. Angry, lost, sick, hurt, numb. He doesn't know what to call this. But he knows one thing. He wants to kill something. He wants someone's head on a stick. He doesn't even care who it is at this point. He just wants to draw blood.

  26

  It's been two days. Two days since Zane's been able to sleep. He lays there at night, in Liam's bed because he doesn't want to be alone in his, staring at the ceiling with the glowing stars and planets and moons, and he thinks. He thinks about everything, except for what happened at Ghost Town. He can't think about that.

  Since he can't seem to make himself stop thinking altogether, he chooses to think about everything else. He thinks about his grades, and Ariel Riley, and Liam's girl dilemma, and even his mother. Ever since The Accident, he's been pretty diligent about not thinking about Diane. But, although thinking about her makes him sad, he'd rather do that than think about something else and vomit his guts up again.

  His scars hurt. They ache and burn and throb like a whole other being strapped stubbornly to his side. He can't tell how much of the pain is real from the fingernail marks, and how much of it is in his head. He remembers the way his whole house used to smell like tangerines after his mother took a bath, and a sharp stab of pain shoots up from the scars on his thigh to the ones on his ribs. He remembers pulling the cushions off the couch when his mother lost her wedding ring, finding it wedged next to a couple Cheerios and a pen cap, and his scars flare up in pulses of aching burn that travel to the very tips of his fingers. He remembers the smell of his mother's burning chicken pot pie, eerily similar to the smell of burning hairspray, and he curls in on himself as the pain becomes too much to ignore.

  But he will not cry. He won't do that, no matter how much it hurts. Especially not in front of Liam.

  Liam has be
en a godsend. He cooks for the both of them, meals that solely consist of instant noodles, toast, and canned baked beans since he doesn't really know how to cook much else. Zane forces himself to smile as much as he can at his brother, and accepts whatever food he's given, and swallows repeatedly when he feels like his stomach is going to reject it.

  Liam asks no questions about what happened in the woods. He doesn't ask why Zane was standing naked in the living room burning his clothes. He doesn't ask about the fingernail marks on his scars. And he doesn't ask Zane why he won't go sleep in his own room. Liam just accepts it all, and does his best to take care of him like Zane has been taking care of him all this time.

  And when Mike comes home on Sunday and demands to know what happened to Zane's face, Liam lies and says he slipped in the shower, because Zane freezes up and doesn't know how to respond to his father.

  By the time Monday rolls around and they're meant to go back to school after Thanksgiving Break, and Zane's gone his third straight night without more than twenty minutes of restless sleep, he's got dark circles under his eyes like a drug addict. He has a dull, constant headache that Liam tells him is from sleep deprivation, and his stomach always feels like it has a rock in it no matter how little he eats.

  He's done nothing but think for three nights straight. And a switch has flipped in his brain. He's angry. So fucking angry he can feel it in his teeth, an ache like cavities, like chewing on tinfoil. He's so angry he's curled his hands into fists hard enough that he has half-moon indents on his palms from his fingernails.

  He needs to hit something.

  He needs to kill something.

  He needs to hurt someone.

  He almost breaks his cell phone when he sees that he has a few missed calls and texts from Noah and Gordon, because thinking about them makes him mad. Everything makes him mad. The way his toothbrush accidentally caught his lip and pinched it for a moment this morning made him mad. The way Mike left his dirty dish in the sink last night, and now the food's all crusted to it and dry, makes Zane mad. The cold weather and the feeling of it hitting his tired skin makes him mad. And the fact that he's out of cigarettes and doesn't have time to go buy more before school starts this morning really makes him mad.

  Liam senses his mood and stays out of his way, although Zane would never take it out on him. He's not their father, after all. He just ruffles Liam's hair, and leaves the house without a word, clenching his fists that desperately need to connect with some faces.

  He's late (which pisses him off too) so he takes the woods to school, and passing by The Docks is unavoidable. He stops at the edge of the forest when he reaches the school, because he didn't think this far ahead. He didn't think about what he would do when he saw Slate. He knows what he wants to do. He wants to skin him alive, and snap every bone in his body nice and slow. But he can't do that. And he hasn't allowed himself to think about Ghost Town or Slate in the past few days since...

  And now, he's standing here at the edge of the trees, smelling the cigarette smoke in the air, so angry he can feel his blood circulating, and he doesn't know if he can keep walking. Because what if Slate is at The Docks right now? Zane imagines that he probably wouldn't have told their friends what he did to Zane. And Zane's certainly not going to tell them, or anyone for that matter. So what is he supposed to do? How is he supposed to explain to his friends why he suddenly doesn't want to be on the same planet as Slate, let alone sitting in the same room?

  But he doesn't have to explain anything. At least not yet. When he finally forces himself to nut up and keep walking, he can't help but glance at The Docks. Slate isn't there. It's just Noah and Ryker sitting there, and when Noah sees him, he waves him over. Zane stops walking, torn between wanting to run into the school, and bumming a cigarette off of Noah. His hands are shaking from nicotine withdrawal.

  Sighing, angry with himself and with every living thing, he turns and heads for The Docks. Noah sees the expression on his face, and instantly hands him his flask. Zane accepts it, not even caring what's in it, and takes a long swig. It doesn't make him feel any better, but it warms his cold, empty stomach.

  "Can I bum one?" he asks Noah, and his voice is so raspy and awful he barely recognizes it himself. Must be that his throat is raw from all the vomiting.

  Noah takes his flask back and whips out a cigarette for Zane, lighting it for him and everything. Noah has always been a good friend, even if he's a scumbag like Zane is. The first drag on his smoke is heavenly. He closes his eyes as he takes it in, a wave of exhaustion washing over him. He doesn't feel any less angry, but at least physically he feels better.

  "You look like a corpse," Ryker comments, and Zane just glares at him. He doesn't even have to try to muster up a good glare. It just comes naturally. His permanent expression today is a glare. It must be a scary one, because Ryker shrinks back a little and looks away, saying nothing more.

  Noah knows when to not comment on Zane's appearance and/or attitude, so he just gives Zane one more swig from his flask before he tucks it away in his pea coat, not asking any questions about his obviously horrible state. They sit there in silence as they smoke, and it's only when Zane reaches the end of his cigarette that Noah hands him another and lights it again before speaking.

  "You hear what happened to Slate?" he asks, and Zane chokes on the inhale, coughing and trying not to vomit again. He's getting so tired of vomiting. His abdominal muscles are actually sore from it.

  He doesn't say anything, a fresh wave of anger blooming in his chest. He can hear his blood pumping in his ears. He doesn't have to say anything though. Noah isn't just talking to him, he's talking to Ryker too.

  "What do you mean?" Ryker asks, and Zane forces his hands not to shake as he takes another drag.

  "He's in the hospital," Noah provides. "Apparently that old coot who lives out in the backwoods found Slate wandering around battered bloody on Saturday afternoon."

  "Really?" Ryker exclaims. "What the hell happened?"

  Noah side-glances at Zane, but Zane keeps his eyes down. It's not that hard to figure out. Zane is a fucked up mess, and Slate got his face smashed in. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who did it. However, Noah says nothing. He just shrugs.

  "Slate says he doesn't remember a thing," he replies. "The police were there at the hospital, but he told them he's not pressing charges for a crime he can't remember, if indeed there was a crime. He'll be there a few more days."

  Ryker huffs, shaking his head. "Damn, what an idiot."

  Noah hums in agreement, and Zane says nothing. He realizes he's been staring at his cigarette not smoking it, and it's burned down a bit, ash clinging to the tip. His throat has closed up in rage.

  He needs to hit something. He really needs to hit something.

  As Noah starts to explain to Ryker how fucked up Slate's teeth looked when he went to see him in the hospital, Zane shoves himself suddenly to his feet. Ryker and Noah call after him, but he doesn't respond, walking towards the school, ears ringing and heart battling with his ribcage.

  He's going to destroy the first person he sees.

  27

  I'm just walking into the school when I hear a huge commotion. A few students are running down the hall towards the noise and I stop for a moment, staring at a crowd that's gathered.

  I spot Kira at her locker near the front door, and I wander over to her, dodging a few students as they make their way towards the ruckus.

  "Hey," I greet when I reach her. "What's going on?"

  Kira shrugs. "I just got here," she replies, closing her locker. "Come on."

  She drags me by my arm over to the crowd of gathered students. The advantage of having Kira there, a short, small little girl, is that she can wiggle herself and me through the crowd. There aren't actually that many students here. The hallway is just small, and everyone is gathered together compactly.

  I mutter a few apologies as I run into some people while Kira is pulling me along. When
we reach the front of the crowd, my breath catches in my throat.

  Of course I would see Zane first thing Monday morning. Of course that would be the first thing I see. He's in the process of throwing another student onto the floor and climbing on top of him, his fist connecting with the kid's face. Despite how awful it is, it's actually a little impressive. The student is about a foot taller than Zane, and probably a hundred pounds heavier, and Zane is throwing him around like a rag doll.

  That's not to say that the student isn't fighting back, but I see something in Zane's eyes—a blankness. He's like a machine right now, hitting and hitting, not reacting when he's hit back.

  This is weird. This is weird. Usually, when Zane bullies people, he picks on students who are smaller than him, weaker. Like that freshman Barry Cook, who couldn't even bench the bar. Or me, who really isn't that much smaller than him, but who doesn't fight back. He doesn't go after people who are bigger than him. And he doesn't even go after people period without his friends there. I have never once seen him bullying someone or attacking anyone in the halls when he's alone and the other Cancers aren't with him.

  This guy must have done something really bad to piss Zane off.

  Zane lands another punch across the guy's face, and the student's nose is bleeding, but he's otherwise unaffected, he's just so big. He flips Zane over at one point and gets a few good punches in before Zane finds his way on top of him once more and hits him harder. This isn't bullying in the classic sense. Zane is in a fight now. An actual fight. And while I've heard that he's been in fights before, this seems different.

  An image of his panicked, empty eyes when he was running through the woods on Friday night flashes through my mind. What happened to him? Something happened, because here he is acting even crazier than usual. Here he is with a look in his eyes that I don't recognize.