Bully (Angel & Demons Trilogy Book 1)

by Ashley Love

  Zane runs into the woods and finds the worn path, his green eyes darting around, searching for signs of life. He hopes and prays that he's wrong about this, but something nagging at the back of his mind tells him that he's right. Ariel is still out here somewhere, and Zane just hopes to God that she's okay.

  31

  I know of rain. I know of the wet, cold touch of drops on my skin. I know of tears and precipitation and the spray of hoses in the summer storm. I know these things. This I know.

  I don't understand why I'm so cold right now. How I can be so cold, but so warm too. How I can feel like I'm standing under a waterfall in a desert and it's slowly filling me up, up, up, draining my life away. I'm so full yet I'm so empty, and everything is so conflicted.

  There's that hot warmth on my cheek again, but it's rough like sandpaper and burns like poison ivy now, it's been going on so long. It's been an eternity since my last dance. It's been an eternity since I've had a drink. I keep dreaming of fire and whistles and bloody fingernails and everything is green. So green.

  The sun keeps climbing and it's all so wrong, because it was just night, and everything was purple with crickets and sparkling with snow. And the deer was there, motherly and angelic. But now it's day. Now it's day. Why is it day?

  It occurs to me that perhaps I should just stop thinking at some point, because I'm dreaming of pencils and merry-go-rounds and blood, and I think maybe that's a bad thing. Because no person on the right side of death dreams of things like that.

  But I can't help it. It's delirium. It's safer here, yet so terribly dangerous. And there's Sophia and my parents and my friends and Zane, all so far out of reach as I float on solid frozen ground.

  The deer keeps coming back. It's here now, licking me like it was before, always just standing there licking my cheek. It hurts, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I enjoy the company, especially now that I can't really open my eyes anymore. A fleeting thought suggests that I might be dying, that these delirious thoughts are my mind sugar-coating the ugly stuff. But it doesn't seem to matter.

  I just wish I could get a fucking drink of water as I fade out once again.

  32

  For an hour straight, Zane's been running up and down the worn path in the woods, looking for something, anything. Any signs of life.

  He's trying to remember what happened yesterday afternoon. It's all a little fuzzy because he was drunk at the time, but even if he hadn't been drinking, his head wasn't on straight anyway, and everything is clouded in a haze of anger and whiskey.

  He tries to remember where they were when he and his friends attacked Ariel in the woods. He distinctly remembers dragging her off the main path as they were hitting her, and they had ended up in some bushes, but he can't remember exactly where.

  He listens to his feet crunching over the frozen ground, ice-covered leaves shattering beneath his boots, branches snapping. As far as a December afternoon in Vermont goes, it's not terribly cold out here. There's a thin membrane of snow coating the ground, but mostly everything is just frozen in place in the chill. There's isn't even a breeze. It's like the world has just stopped. Zane thinks that's actually kind of appropriate. This whole town is a place frozen in time.

  His brain keeps going over and over what happened yesterday, but he keeps getting distracted. He keeps thinking about that little girl Sophia, and how sweet Ariel is with her at Hartley's Bend, and how Ariel had made sure her coat was on straight and her scarf was snug that one morning Zane had taken the long way to school and discovered where her house is. He thinks about Charlie Cooper at school, and how he blearily remembers Ariel giving her her jacket yesterday afternoon because she didn't have one.

  Zane feels sick to his stomach. He hurt Ariel. He hurt someone like that, who plays with her little sister at the park and gives away her jacket in the cold. How could Zane do that to someone so good?

  And if his gut feeling is right, and Ariel is still out here somewhere...that means she's been laying out here all night and all day, without a jacket, beaten bloody.

  And here all this time Zane thought he wasn't going to end up like Michael Peterson.

  Running a hand through his hair in frustration, trying to swallow back his self-loathing and anger that's threatening to rise again, he pushes on through the trees. His knuckles are still all torn up and bloody from the fights yesterday. He remembers the feeling of Ariel's hard jaw against his fists, the sickening crunch of every swing. His friends had just laughed and cheered him on for a while there, each of them getting in on the beating in their own way. A kick here, a shove there.

  And Zane remembers them trying to stop him. He remembers one or two of his friends reaching down to try to pull him off of Ariel after a while. And he remembers hitting them away and continuing to beat her up on the forest floor. And then they'd left her there in the icy woods, laying in her own blood on her side, shivering from the shock and the cold. They'd just left her there.

  Zane had figured Ariel would be alright, that she would get up and wander home just like she always did after her beatings at school. That's just how it is now. It's routine. Ariel takes a beating, and then wanders on home. Zane thought she would be fine.

  How stupid.

  When he starts to hear the sounds of students laughing and chattering, he knows he's getting closer to the high school. But when they were beating up Ariel yesterday, they couldn't hear anyone. He's gone too far. Growling in frustration, he turns around and starts following the path back towards town.

  It takes him no more than five minutes before suddenly, he sees something. Laying there in the woods. He squints at it and walks over to it.

  It's Ariel's torn up backpack.

  Zane grits his teeth, staring at it for a moment before reaching down and scooping it up. He peers into the trees, looking for any signs of life, anything at all.

  He doesn't see Ariel at first. Everything is the same shade of grayish-brown in the afternoon winter light. But then he hears a crunching sound, like something walking through the woods, and he freezes when he sees a deer. It's a small deer, and it's alone, just standing there several feet off the worn path. And it's staring at him. He just stands there and stares back, because what is he supposed to do when a deer is just fucking staring at him?

  They stare at each other for an eternity, almost long enough for Zane to consider the fact that maybe this deer is a statue. But then it moves, and Zane watches as the deer bows its head and starts licking at something on the ground.

  Zane's heart nearly falls out of his ass. The deer is licking a person. There's a person laying there. All Zane can see is a tuft of dark hair, but he knows it's Ariel even before he takes a step off the path and sees the rest of the fallen girl. The deer goes darting off when Zane moves, startled by the sound of him dropping Ariel's backpack on the ground again in shock.

  She's laying in exactly the same spot Zane and his friends left her yesterday. She's curled on her side, her back to him, and powdered with a tiny dusting of snow. He can see a few footprints on the back of her torn and dirty T-shirt, and he swallows back a wave of nausea.

  He just stands there. He doesn't know what to do. What if she's dead? She's not moving, not reacting to the sound of Zane's footsteps or the fact that a fucking deer was just licking her face. Zane can't move. He just stares, blinking a few times as if this is a hallucination.

  Ariel never got up. She never made it home. She's been laying here all night. She could be dead.

  Zane pulls in a shaking breath, clenching his bruised fists. Clearing his tight throat, he tries to muster the ability to speak.

  "Ariel?" is all he can manage, and it's so quiet he barely hears it himself. Dammit.

  He tries again. "Ariel?" he calls a little louder.

  There's no response, no movement. Nothing. Just the dead silence of the frozen woods and the click as Zane swallows past the dry lump in his throat. Shit.

  Zane forces himself to inch forwa
rd, chewing on his lip, heart pounding in his chest. His footsteps seem overly loud crunching across the ground towards her, and there's dread sitting heavy in his gut. More than anything, he just wants to turn around and run away like he did yesterday, run away from this problem that he's caused. But he can't do that.

  When he reaches Ariel, he kneels down next to her and peers over her shoulder, getting a look at her face for the first time.

  It's a fucking disaster. Her face is peppered with black and purple, one eye swollen and ringed in bruises. There's a gash on her cheek and she has a split lip, the blood long-dried on her alarmingly pale skin. Most of the blood has been cleaned away, probably by the deer that had been licking her face.

  Zane nearly has a heart attack when he hears a tiny noise, and he realizes it's breathing. Ariel is breathing. It's a horrible sound, coming from between her cracked and slightly parted lips, a rasping choked sound like she's trying to breathe through sand. But she's breathing.

  She's alive.

  Zane fights back a wave of self-loathing and panic as he reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder, turning her onto her back. Ariel doesn't wake up as he does, her head flopping limply to the side. Zane tries to shake her once, gently.

  "Ariel?" he says, louder, but there's no response once again. The side of her face that had been pressed into the ground is bloody and dirty—the deer hadn't been able to reach it and lick it clean.

  Zane pulls in a sharp breath and snaps into action. Just because Ariel is alive right now doesn't mean she's going to be alive for long. She's been out here all night in the freezing cold, and she's unresponsive. He shoots his hands out, flinching at how cold her skin is when he touches it. Her rasping breaths hitch a little as he slides one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees, scooping her up from the ground and hugging her to his chest.

  He stumbles a bit under Ariel's weight as he stands, hoisting her a bit higher once he gets his footing. Ariel isn't a small girl—she and Zane are just about the same size—so this isn't going to be an easy walk home. But Zane doesn't care. Ariel hadn't deserved this. Hadn't deserved anything him and his friends put her through. It was immature and stupid and mean what he did yesterday, hurting Ariel this badly. Just because Slate hurt him, doesn't mean he needed to take it out on her. She was just the new girl in town, and for some reason Zane and his friends saw that as reason enough to target her. Why did he do that? Why does he have to be so fucked up?

  Why is he so fucked up that he left Ariel bloody and bruised and broken, unconscious on the forest floor where she'd spent the night huddled in on herself, too hurt to even stand and walk the mile or so home and curl up in her warm bed?

  Zane turns and starts walking back towards his house as fast as he can. He's thankful that his house is right up against the trees—he'd rather not be seen carrying a bloody and unconscious girl down the street. He glances down at Ariel every few seconds, maybe hoping that her eyes will be open. It feels surprisingly good to be holding her. It's something he has wanted to do for such a long time, just hold her, like someone would do with a lover. But this is all wrong. It isn't supposed to be like this. Ariel isn't supposed to be this limp, half-dead victim in his arms.

  Zane's muscles are burning from Ariel's weight by the time he makes it back to his house, but he doesn't stop. At this point he's considering whether or not he'll have to take her to the hospital in his condition. She could be hypothermic from spending the night out in those woods. She could have a concussion from the blows to the head. The wounds Zane's own hands had inflicted could be infected. Anything is possible.

  All Zane knows is that he has to help her. After beating Ariel up and leaving her there in those woods, he has to help her. He owes her this. He needs to make it right. He has to help her or risk hating himself more than he already does. This is his fault.

  He manages to fight his way through his back door with some fumbling, almost dropping her once. He glances at the neighbor's house and is thankful to find that the squash lady isn't watching him. Lord knows that's what he needs right now, for her to be spying on all of this. He has to turn and walk into the house sideways through the small doorway, kicking the door shut behind him and carrying Ariel down the hallway.

  Liam and Dad still aren't home, which is a relief. Zane needs to get Ariel into a bath. That's the first thing he can think to do. Anything to warm her up, because her skin is still frigid to the touch. During the walk home, she had unconsciously curled herself against his chest, her face now pressed to his neck and hands weakly clutching the material of his shirt, probably seeking out any warmth she can get. More than anything Zane wants to turn his face and bury his nose in Ariel's dark hair, but it would be wrong. Everything about this is wrong.

  He kicks the bathroom door shut behind himself and sets Ariel gently on the rug next to the bathtub, not even hesitating before reaching over and turning on the water as hot as it will go without burning her skin. He pauses for a moment as he reaches for her shirt, because this feels invasive, stripping her down. But he needs to, if he wants to warm her up.

  Gritting his teeth, Zane peels off Ariel's shirt, wincing at the footprint-shaped bruises littering her back and stomach. He peels off her pants next, discovering more bruises and scrapes, and he hesitates before deciding to leave her bra and underwear on, just in case she wakes up. That would be a hard one to explain.

  When the bathtub is full, he lifts her carefully, and places her slowly in the water, making sure her head stays above the surface, but immersing her ice cold limbs in the heat. His heart is pounding, and he's not sure whether it's from the exertion of carrying Ariel, or from panic and fear that she might not wake up.

  She remains unconscious, her back resting against the edge of the tub, head lolling to the side. Zane watches her for a moment, waiting for any sign of movement, but nothing happens. Swallowing hard, he takes a washcloth and dips it into the water, reaching out slowly and touching it to the blood on her cheek, wiping it away as gently as possible, cleaning first her face, and then her dirty arms, neck, and torso. He wipes tenderly at each of her tattered fingertips and broken nails where she tried to claw the ground to get away, and moves on down to her feet.

  Zane zones out as he works, eyeing Ariel's body. She's a lot more womanly than Zane thought she would be. She has a flat, smooth stomach, nice sized breasts, and surprisingly toned arms. On the right side of her stomach, Zane spots a long jagged scar, silver-white in contrast to her pale olive skin. Zane trails his fingertips over it as he's cleaning. It's too uneven to be a surgical scar, and he wants to know what it's from...but that's not his business, and he has no right to wonder.

  Shaking himself, he finishes cleaning, and then just sits there by the bathtub, hugging his knees and staring at Ariel's unconscious face, debating what to do. If she doesn't wake up soon, Zane is going to bring her to the hospital. He knows what will happen if he brings her to the hospital. Police will be called, and Zane more than likely will be charged with assault. But at this point, he doesn't care. He deserves it. He deserves to go to jail. Liam will be okay. He can go live with Alfred. Zane should pay for what he did to Ariel out in those woods.

  Blowing out all the breath in his lungs, Zane fights the urge to throw up yet again. He's still hungover, and he hasn't eaten anything. But he thinks to himself that Ariel hasn't eaten anything either, or had anything to drink since Zane and his friends beat her up. So why should he be allowed to eat when she can't? It's unfair. He should suffer.

  He's too tired and shaken to stop himself this time, and so he just allows himself to give in to his impulses for once. He reaches forward with a weak hand and dips it into the hot bathwater, taking Ariel's limp hand in his and just holding it. He makes sure to keep it under the water so her cold fingers can continue to thaw out, but he just wants to hold her hand. He would tell himself that it's for Ariel's comfort, but he knows that's a lie. He's comforting himself right now, selfishly. He's just happy
that Ariel is okay, and he wants more than anything to make this right. How is he going to make this right?

  "I have a crush on you, you know," he says, his voice sounding overly loud in the quiet bathroom. Ariel doesn't stir when he says it, and Zane stares at her unconscious face, swallowing hard. He feels a little flutter in his chest when he says it out loud, because even though Ariel isn't awake to hear it, he has never told someone he had a crush on them before. Not ever.

  "I've had a crush on you for a while actually," he continues with a little humorless chuckle, hating himself so fucking much right now. "I just didn't know how to tell you."

  Who does this to someone they have a crush on? Zane is halfway convinced he needs to be committed.

  Ariel's face twitches a little, and Zane freezes. She makes a little noise under her breath, and Zane thinks maybe she's going to wake up, but then she stills once more, and doesn't move. Zane barely breathes, waiting for her to move again, but she doesn't.

  Eventually he releases his breath and relaxes. He looks down at Ariel's hand in his in the water, and mindlessly plays with her fingers, running his thumb over her knuckles and gently over each tattered fingernail. It feels so good to hold her hand. Among other things, it's one thing he's wanted to do for a while. Just hold it, relish in the feel of its weight in his palm.

  "I guess I'm not really telling you right now either, since I'm pretty sure you can't hear me," Zane goes on. "But I just thought you should know. And that I'm sorry for what I did yesterday...and what I've been doing to you since you got here." Zane runs his free hand through his hair in regret. "Sometimes I just lose my mind, Ariel," he says weakly. "And I'm a wuss. I don't know how to say no to my friends. I'm not a good person. And you didn't deserve this."