Bully (Angel & Demons Trilogy Book 1)

by Ashley Love

  He stays home. He stays home until the school counselor calls Mike after the weekend to inform him of Zane's absences. It earns Zane a bruised rib and blackened toenail, but he gets the picture and musters a pathetic sliver of courage to force himself to go to school the next day.

  He's been spending a fair amount of time the past several days listening to the music on Ariel's iPod that he stole back from Ryker. He still hasn't had a chance to return Ariel's backpack and iPod to her on account of the fact that he hasn't been able to bring himself to set foot near the school. He's still trying to think of ways he can make everything up to her, and in a pathetic attempt to right some of his wrongs, he downloaded his entire music folder onto Ariel's iPod too, in addition to her music.

  Zane loaded AC/DC, and Led Zeppelin, and Metallica, and Black Sabbath, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Bon Jovi, and much, much more onto Ariel's iPod. All the music he owns, he put on there. Maybe as some sort of apology, however lame it is. Who knows if Ariel even likes the kind of music he likes? Although Zane has a hard time believing that anyone could not like his music.

  But he does it anyway. And now Ariel's iPod is full to capacity, with all of his music, and all of her's. As Zane leaves his house to go to school for the first time since last Monday, he clutches the iPod in his pocket like a lifeline, Ariel's backpack slung over his shoulder. He trudges through the woods and tries not to think about what he was doing the last time he was in these woods.

  His stomach is flipping and tossing and turning with nerves by the time he breaks free of the trees and is walking across the parking lot towards the high school. He's so nervous that he forgets about the fact that The Docks are right there, until he hears Noah call, "Zane! Where you been, mate?" from across the lot.

  Zane's head snaps up, his eyes turning towards The Docks, and instantly, his hand tightens around the iPod in his pocket to the point where he thinks he might break it.

  Slate is sitting right there. Ryker, Noah, and Gordon are all there too, but Zane barely notices them. His eyes lock with Slate's, and Zane had no idea it would be this hard to see him for the first time since that night at Ghost Town. He actually stumbles a little, and freezes in place. Slate just stares back at him, sucking on his cigarette, and when he sees the way Zane's battered face drains of color, a slow smile spreads across his still-bruised face, and he gives Zane a sharp, feral grin.

  Zane's stomach twists violently with sudden nausea, and pains instantly flare up along his scars. Noah calls to him again, but Zane can barely hear him over the blush rushing in his ears. His face flushes, and he instantly feels both overwhelmingly angry and overwhelmingly ashamed. Slate is smiling at him, grinning like they share some sort of inside joke.

  Zane feels stomach acid burning the back of his throat, and God he doesn't want to puke again. He tears his eyes away from Slate's grinning face, swallowing convulsively, and he walks quickly towards the school on shaking legs, gripping his scars to stave off the feeling of fingernails digging into them, ignoring Noah and Gordon calling after him.

  He completely forgot about the fact that Slate was back. He'd been so wrapped up in the thought of encountering Ariel Riley today, that he'd completely forgotten about Slate. In some ways, that's a good thing. Thinking about her is something to occupy his mind so he doesn't think about what happened at Ghost Town. But now his head is throbbing painfully, overflowing with panic and dread and humiliation.

  He pushes his way into the school, shoving past a couple of freshman guys not looking where they're going, and b-lines it to the bathroom. He pushes inside, and falls to his knees in front of one of the toilets, gripping the edges of the seat, kicking the stall door shut behind him, not even caring that there are probably millions of ass germs clinging to the porcelain.

  He's breathing hard. Deep, gasping breaths that hurt his bruised ribs, and when he sees something drip in the toilet water, rippling the surface, he realizes there are a few steady tears running down his face. Damn it, he will not cry. Why is he even crying anyway? So Slate attacked him—boo fucking hoo. Get the fuck over it, princess.

  Zane clings to the toilet seat for a few minutes, just trying to breathe, even if the stall smells like stale cigarettes and old man sweat. He lets his watery eyes wander over the walls of the stall, reading some of the graffiti students have scribbled onto the metal with mechanical pencils while they're taking a shit, about who fucked who, and which teacher has a huge ass, and who can't handle their alcohol. It distracts him enough that he gets his breathing under control, but his stomach is still flip-flopping with nausea.

  He slumps down next to the toilet, thankful that there's no one else in the bathroom right now. He's halfway considering writing something on the walls of the stall too—Super senior Slate is a filthy fucking homo rapist. But he doesn't. He entertains the idea until he feels himself begin to panic again, and then he forces himself to think of something else. Anything else.

  He knew this was going to happen. He knew eventually Slate would get out of the hospital and come back to school. Zane can feel fingernails, and the memory of hot cum on his back, and the sharp pain of bony fingers squeezing his flaccid dick so hard they left bruises that are still there. His shoulder aches where the bite mark is still healing, and...

  Fuck.

  Zane leans over the toilet bowl and vomits.

  Damn it. There goes his breakfast. His nose runs as stomach acid burns his sinuses, and he retches a few times, eyes watering. He stares down at the fouled toilet water, watching a few Cheerios that he ate this morning bob on the surface of the vomit-filled water. Ugh, that's disgusting. He spits, and reaches up, flushing the toilet before he throws up again just from the sight of his half-digested breakfast.

  He sits there on the floor for a minute catching his breath, his heart beating steadily, nose burning from the vomit.

  He allows his mind to wander to thoughts of Ariel, because thinking about Ariel and her big blue eyes and her gorgeous, gorgeous heart makes him feel better. He'll allow himself to think about her right now. He can't force thoughts of Ariel out of his mind if he expects to not think about Slate's claw-like fingernails.

  He allows himself to think about how good it felt to hold her hand while she was in his bathtub, how strong yet delicate those fingers felt. Zane replaces the feeling of teeth sinking into his shoulder with the feeling of Ariel's hand in his, and he rubs his fingers together at the memory.

  He pulls in a deep breath, holds it, and then releases it. His mouth tastes awful, but he feels a little better. All he wants to do is go home, but if he misses another day of school, Mike might actually kill him. So Zane grabs the bar on the handicap stall wall, and pulls himself to his feet on weak, shaking legs. He wipes the lingering tears off his face and sniffs, opening the stall door and walking over to the sink, rinsing his mouth out and looking at his reflection.

  Beneath all the bruises and scrapes from his father's well-deserved beating, Zane is pale white, like a ghost. Even his normally-prominent freckles have seemed to fade into dull, off-white splotches that look like cancer. He looks sickly and sallow and he has dark circles under his eyes that mix in well with the bruises.

  Today is going to fucking suck.

  He fishes a piece of gum out of his pocket to rid his mouth of the taste of barfy Cheerios, and then takes a shuddering breath, walking out of the bathroom just as the five-minute-warning bell rings. He glances both ways in paranoia, but he doesn't see Slate, so he shifts his and Ariel's backpacks more snuggly onto his shoulders and heads to his first class.

  He can't pay attention in his morning classes, but that's nothing new. He stares at everything blue in each classroom, clinging to thoughts of Ariel so he doesn't think about Slate. His eyes keep darting to the little rectangle windows on the classroom doors, half-expecting to see Slate standing on the other side of the glass grinning in at him, waiting for him, watching. Zane's skin crawls, and he scratches his arms like there are bugs under
the surface. More than once, he massages the heel of his hand into his scars as they flare up in psychological pain.

  But he clings to thoughts of Ariel.

  By the time senior lunch rolls around, Zane is starving, since most of his breakfast was expelled from his stomach earlier. But he's too afraid to go to the cafeteria. He knows Slate is going to be there. He knows his friends will go to The Docks like they always do during lunch, but Slate is going to be in the cafeteria for the first five to ten minutes buying food.

  Zane can't go in there until Slate leaves. God, he's pathetic. He's such a fucking pansy. But he just can't. He can't go in there. He can't face Slate. At least not yet.

  Instead, Zane wanders down to Ariel's locker. He knows it's probably creepy that he has her locker number memorized, but him and his friends have harassed her there enough that he just uses that as an excuse for why he remembers where it is.

  He picks the lock easily, after glancing both ways to make sure the hallway is empty. It's actually funny how easily he picks the lock. He's gotten used to acquiring useful skills like this over his life, little troublemaker that he is. When he gets the locker open, he finds another backpack inside. It looks like an old backpack, like maybe Ariel fished out a used one from the back of her closet to bring to school since she lost the one she was wearing in the woods the day Zane attacked her.

  He shifts the torn backpack off his shoulder and hangs it next to the one already inside her locker, smoothing it down a little too gently and reverently for comfort. But whatever. That backpack is probably the closest he's ever going to get to being a part of Ariel's life besides the whole bathtub incident. He fishes her iPod out of his pocket and sets it on the one shelf inside the locker, making sure it's near the edge so that she sees it when she opens her locker.

  Zane is just about the close the door again and lock it back up, when he pauses, spotting the pictures taped to the inside of the locker door. The first one he sees is a picture of Ariel's sister Sophia. It looks like a bad school photo. Sophia has her hair sticking up in odd angles with rainbow scrunchies wrapped around the various clumps. There are beads in her red hair too, and she's wearing braces with rainbow rubber bands on her teeth. As far as school pictures go, Zane thinks it's pretty awesome, but it's the kind of photo that would piss off someone's parents for wasting money on a goofy photo.

  Zane smiles a little before he can stop himself. He lets his eyes trail down to the other pictures. There's one of Ariel and Sophia on a swing with the word Arizona scribbled in sharpie at the bottom, and Zane can't help but stare at her blue eyes reflecting the bright desert sun in the photo. It's faded and old, but those eyes are so vivid still. There are pictures of Ariel's theater friends in there too, including Charlie Peterson, and that Asian girl that Zane and his friends harassed in the stairwell that one time before Ariel stepped in and defended her. There's also a picture of that neighbor lady that he saw Ariel with the morning he discovered where she lives, covered in flour and looking with wise eyes at the camera.

  Zane is smiling a faint little smile as he studies the pictures, but he notices with a little confusion that there don't seem to be any pictures of Ariel's parents. That's odd. Zane wonders if maybe they're dead, and feels a pang of guilt and sadness in his chest.

  When a couple of girls come out of a classroom next to Zane, he swallows and closes her locker, walking away and towards the cafeteria, his stomach growling. He feels a little better now that he's returned Ariel's belongings, and had a little glimpse into her life through the pictures in her locker. He feels like a bit of a stalker, but he's going to be selfish today, because he doesn't want to think about Slate.

  He hesitates at the door of the cafeteria, glancing inside, making sure Slate isn't still in there. He also feels a little nervous, because he knows Ariel is in there, sitting at the corner table where she always sits with her friends, probably folding up some origami bug for Alfred's shop.

  But Zane swallows down the butterflies and the simultaneous nausea, and walks in, keeping his eyes forward, staring at the frankly obese lunch lady to keep from looking elsewhere. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the douche football player he'd gotten in a fight with last week and been in detention with glaring at him. He has to hold back the smirk. Despite the fact that it was wrong to just randomly get in a fight, it felt good to punch the conceited jerk.

  Zane buys his food quickly, grabbing a rubbery-looking grilled cheese sandwich in plastic wrapping, and a Coke, wishing desperately that it was a beer, and pays the lunch lady quickly, probably paying too much. But he walks away before she can give him his change, reflexively heading towards the door leading outside and to The Docks.

  Wait, what is he doing? He freezes as he walks, staring at the outside door, and he feels his stomach flip when he sees his friends out the window, smoking and talking. Slate has his back to the school, but Zane still shivers, and he has to tear his eyes away before he feels the urge to puke again.

  He turns on his heel and quickly sits down at the table closest to him. He's actually never eaten lunch inside the cafeteria before. It feels different, and a little uncomfortable, but it beats the alternative of going outside and trying to stomach his food while sitting several feet away from Slate.

  In his distraction, he sits down next to a group of preppy girls, and they all look at him in confusion. He realizes one of them is Lisa Braeden, a girl who had a crush on him a while ago before she ended up with a broken nose that everyone knows Slate gave her. Zane swallows and gives her a strained smile, and she wrinkles her face at him, rolling her eyes. The group of girls grab their lunches and stand, moving to another table.

  Zane shrugs. Whatever. He isn't exactly well-liked at this school, and he has a bad reputation. He's used to people not wanting to be around him, and he's grown to be fairly okay with it. There's a group of students at the other end of the table working on homework that glance briefly at him in mild wonder, but then just go back to doing their work. Zane unwraps his grilled cheese and opens his Coke, taking a long swallow before biting into the sandwich. It's disgusting and soggy and everything Zane expects of boxed cafeteria food, but he doesn't mind it. He forces himself to eat, because his stomach is knotting in hunger, and he glances around.

  Of course his eyes automatically drift in the direction of Ariel's table, and he nearly chokes on his bite when he locks eyes with Ariel herself. Those big blue eyes are fixed on him, round and wide, like she just happened to glance up and froze when she noticed he was there. He stops chewing and stares back. He can't help it. Ariel looks at him for several long seconds, and then blinks and looks away. Zane can see her throat ripple as he swallows.

  Her face is still a mess, even after a week of healing. The swelling around her eye has gone down, to Zane's relief, but her bruises are still there, all a sickly grayish-yellow color now. Zane feels guilty just looking at them, but he swallows it down and forces himself to continue eating.

  He can't seem to get himself to look away from Ariel though. He watches her the entire lunch period, watches her keep her eyes resolutely down, her fingers skillfully folding and bending a yellow piece of paper into what looks like an origami sun from here. He notices that she seems to be struggling with not looking up at him. She glances up a few times, in his direction, but doesn't ever look directly at him again.

  That stings a little, but he knows he deserves it after what he did.

  Later, in math class, it doesn't get any better. Zane sits in his usual spot, and just stares at Ariel's profile the entire period. His palms are sweaty and his stomach is fluttering like a middle school girl with a stupid crush. And let's face it—Zane basically is a middle school girl with a stupid crush right now. Only, with complicated circumstances and a mountain of mental issues tacked on.

  He barely hears Mr. Wyatt lecturing about sine, cosine, and tangent graphs, because he's too busy wishing that Ariel will look over here, if only to let him catch a glimpse of blue. Mr. W
yatt is actually a great teacher, and he knows how to engage his students. He's one of the only teachers that seems to pay extra special attention to Zane, like he really cares whether or not he fails. But today, Zane just can't pay attention. He just can't.

  Not when there's an angel sitting in the same room as him.

  39

  When the bell rings signaling the end of math class, I gather my papers quickly, wrinkling some of them in my haste, and dart out of the door in a flash. I can see Zane out of the corner of my eye watching me, and it's all just too much. It's too much because all I want to do is go over there and grab the lapels of his jacket and pull him in for a kiss. I want to kiss his soft-looking lips. I want to bite his muscular neck. I want to tear his clothes off. And I'm a virgin. I shouldn't want to tear Zane's clothes off—I've never felt like tearing anyone's clothes off frankly.

  And I'm still equally as afraid of Zane as I am infatuated with him.

  So I rush out of the classroom the second math class ends, darting down the hall before Zane can follow me. He's been staring at me unwaveringly since lunch. And all I want to do is stare back, to take in that vibrant green, and those adorably boyish freckles, and that strong jaw that's covered in bruises. I wonder what happened to his face. I wonder why he's been gone all week. I wonder a lot of things that I shouldn't wonder.

  And I've been wet in my panties since lunch. Since I saw Zane staring at me like I was a steak.

  It's just not fair.

  It's not fair that I can feel this way about my tormentor. It's not fucking fair.

  Of all the people I could have gotten a crush on, why Zane? Why the one person I can't have? Just, why?

  I rush to the bathroom, and step inside, happy that there's no one else in here, and I go over to the sinks, dropping my books on the floor and turning the faucet on, splashing my face with cold water. I need to snap out of it. If I can't concentrate in school anytime Zane is within the same breathing space as me, how am I ever going to graduate?