Bully (Angel & Demons Trilogy Book 1)

by Ashley Love

  He buys Liam a ticket at the door, and shows his student ID so he can get in for free, and then lets Liam pick whichever seats he wants to sit in. Zane gets a little nervous when Liam ends up choosing the very first row, because he wants to get the best view of the play possible. What if Ariel happens to glance up at one point during the play and spots him sitting there? Is that embarrassing? Should Zane be embarrassed that he's here? Is it creepy?

  He's not sure, but he lets it go because he doesn't want Liam to see how nervous he is.

  The auditorium slowly fills up, and the whole crowd speaks in a dull roar. Zane flips through his program, reading about the various acts in the play, and the credits to the crew of the theater club. He specifically searches for Ariel's name under the cast, and when he finds it, he gets a little thrill in his stomach, which is probably stupid and girly, but whatever.

  When the play starts, Ariel isn't in the first two acts, and Zane sits there mildly interested in the plot. But mostly, he's bored, just like Liam said he would be. Zane doesn't like theater—it's kind of a well known fact. He does see Abby up there on stage though, and smiles a little. She's playing some frilly valley girl, which is so unlike her.

  When the third acts starts up, and the lights turn towards the stage, Ariel is suddenly standing right there, and Zane sits up a little straighter. She's dressed in a leather jacket and ripped jeans, and she's got this uncharacteristic glare on her face. Zane remembers seeing somewhere that Ariel plays "Stephanie" the school bully/mean girl in this play, and he almost laughs because Ariel is pretty much dressed exactly like Zane dresses every day.

  And frankly, that leather jacket on Ariel is hot. Zane adjusts himself and tries to think of something else before he pops a boner in the middle of the play. That would be fucking humiliating.

  The bruises Ariel received a couple days ago when Zane's friends beat her up at her locker are gone from her face, and Zane assumes that the costume people must have covered them with makeup. But they did a good job, and she doesn't even look like he has anything on her face. Just that smooth, pale skin that Zane has come to love.

  And when Ariel starts to say her lines, in that soft voice that sounds angry right now because she's acting, Zane actually does get half-hard in his pants. He takes off his jacket, even though it's relatively cold in the theater, and holds it in his lap so Liam doesn't happen to glance over and see his stiffy through his jeans. That's the last thing Zane needs.

  As the play goes on, Zane really can't concentrate on what exactly it's about. He just stares at Ariel acting as the bully. She does surprisingly well, and he imagines that it's because she's had her fair share of experiences with bullies, Zane included. It makes him feel guilty, but he tries to swallow that down, just focusing on how hot Ariel looks in that leather jacket.

  Sometime during the eighth act, she raises her eyes and happens to glance towards the audience, and Zane freezes when she looks right at him. He's not sure if she can actually see him with the lights pointing directly into her eyes, but the way Ariel stutters just a tiny bit and freezes up in the middle of her lines answers that question pretty clearly.

  She holds Zane's stare for a few long seconds, and then tears her eyes away, getting herself back into character. The whole interaction is subtle, but Liam notices, and it seems to be the first time he realizes who is on stage.

  He nudges Zane and leans in to whisper in his ear. "Hey, isn't that Ariel?"

  Zane shoots him a glare, but blushes a bit, and his embarrassment is a little obvious on his face.

  Liam snorts. "Now I know why you wanted to go to the play, you sap."

  Zane shoves his head away, shushing him, and Liam snickers to himself, turning his eyes back to the play.

  All through the last hour of the play, Ariel glances up at Zane several more times between her lines, and Zane presses his lips together to keep from smiling, his stomach flip-flopping with butterflies, because he can see the faint blush on Ariel's cheeks, even from here. He's suddenly so very grateful to Liam for choosing to sit in the front row.

  When the play ends, the audience gives a standing ovation, and when the whole cast comes out onto stage and holds hands for a bow, Zane locks eyes with Ariel once more, and she actually smiles at him again. It's just like the smile in math class a couple days ago. It's tiny, and endearing, and Ariel's eyes sparkle with how genuine it is.

  Zane is again frozen in place when she smiles at him, and he doesn't have a chance to snap out of it and smile back before Ariel turns and walks off the stage with the rest of the actors and actresses. Liam snorts as they're walking out of the theater.

  "Well now that you're done having eye-sex with her, I think it's time you go home and take another shower. What do you say?" Liam teases, and dodges Zane's hand when he goes to whap Liam on the back of the head. He's embarrassed, but he laughs with his little brother, and slings an arm around his shoulders as they walk out of the crowded theater and towards the woods.

  It's almost ten when they finally make it home, and Zane just automatically heads to Liam's room again to hang out. He loves hanging out with his brother. Liam is a dork, and way too smart for Zane to hold an intelligent conversation with, but he's still fun to hang out with. They talk about movies, and girls, and Liam tells Zane all about Kylie and what he plans to do with her on their date next week.

  Zane rolls his eyes and changes that whole plan, giving Liam expert advice on where to take Kylie and what to do with her and all that shit that girls like. They're both only twelve, so it's not like they're going out to a bar or anything, but they're going to ride their bikes into town and see a movie. It's a good first date for Liam.

  They talk for an hour or so in Liam's room before they hear a crash down the hall as the front door swings open and hits the wall. There are actually holes in the wall of the front hallway from the doorknob because Mike is constantly crashing into the house in a drunken stupor and slamming around.

  "Zane! Liam! Where are ya!" they hear Mike shout, and he sounds angry. The brothers exchange a glance, and who knows what Mike is angry about this time, but Zane doesn't feel like dealing with his shit tonight.

  He gets up quietly from the bed and goes over to Liam's bedroom door, closing and locking it and switching off the light. When he turns around, Liam is already opening the window, and Zane climbs out first before turning and lifting Liam off the sill. They jog down the street until they're out of sight of their house, and then slow to a walk. They'll go to Alfred's again tonight. Maybe Zane will get a chance to congratulate Abby on a job well done in the play, even though he honestly didn't pay attention to much besides Ariel.

  Despite the fact that's it's friggin' frigid outside, they still stop when they pass by Hartley's Bend, and Zane pushes Liam on the swings for ten minutes or so since they haven't been to the park in a while.

  When they finally make it to the Singers', Susan ushers them inside out of the cold and whips them both up some homemade hot chocolate. Zane sees Susan sweep her eyes up and down both their bodies, reflexively checking for injuries, and when she's satisfied that neither of them have taken a beating tonight, she sits them down at the kitchen table with Abby and Alfred, and the five of them just talk and laugh for the rest of the night.

  It's almost one in the morning when they finally head to bed, and Liam and Zane share the bed in the guest room. Zane lays on his side and stares at the taxidermy stag head hanging over the door. It stares back at him, and it sort of reminds him of the deer he saw in the woods when he found Ariel laying out there. It creeps him out, so he turns over and faces Liam, who has already fallen asleep and is snoring softly with his face smashed into the pillow.

  Zane is tempted to reach out and flick his nose, but he restrains himself. He shifts his arm and feels the pull and sting of the burns there. And suddenly, despite the fact that he's really not in a bad mood right now, and he's not having a panic attack or thinking about Slate and Ghost Town, Zane wants to burn hi
mself again. It's a strange urge he feels, and it actually scares him a little.

  What if, when the time comes, Zane is unable to stop burning himself? What if, when his problems are all gone and he gets the fuck over Slate's attack, he doesn't want to stop hurting himself? Is his arm going to end up looking like Swiss cheese with how many burns he has? Will he start to burn himself on his thighs so the scars are easier to hide? He grimaces as he thinks about trying to wear jeans over a healing, oozing burn. That would be downright uncomfortable.

  He suddenly feels a little guilty about what he's doing. What if Liam finds out? How would he react to the idea that Zane has been mutilating himself? Would he be angry? Would he be sad? Would he have Zane checked into a psych ward? Any number of things could happen.

  Zane really doesn't want to go to a psych ward.

  And he has to protect his brother. He can't do that from the inside of a padded room. And he will not let Liam find out about the burns.

  He reaches out across the bed and wraps his hand around Liam's wrist, because it's comforting, and he closes his eyes. Maybe he'll be okay. Maybe everything will be okay. He just has to keep telling himself that, no matter how much of a lie it is.

  44

  I'm actually stupefied when both my mother and father show up just in time for Christmas. And they actually stay the night, which is equally as baffling. Mom, Dad, Sophia, and me have a quiet and expectedly awkward dinner on Christmas Eve, where Sophia does most of the talking. But even she trails off after a while, and everyone is left in silence, with nothing but forks scraping against plates and nauseating chewing noises filling the quiet room.

  My family never really has much to talk about when all four of us are together. Dad is a salesman, so what is there really to tell? Mom could have some pretty interesting stories about her anthropology work in Central America, but she doesn't really talk about it, and I don't ask.

  And on the flipside, I don't have much to talk about in the way of school. What am I supposed to say to my parents? Am I supposed to tell them about how I get beat up all the time? Or how I've helplessly fallen for one of my bullies? The same bully, in fact, who was involved in leaving me half-dead out in the woods for an entire night?

  Really though...what am I supposed to say?

  I do mention theater though. I tell them about the winter play and how that went, and my mother and father hum a little and nod, and Dad mentions how he never knew I was interested in theater. But frankly, Dad doesn't know much of anything about his children, so it doesn't come as a surprise that he doesn't know this about me.

  On Christmas morning the next day, all four of us have stockings propped up against the fireplace in the living room with our names stitched into the tops. I receive some odd gifts from "Santa", including a razor kit from a duty free store, a Made In China Costa Rican flag, a package of running socks, and a mesh bag of chocolate coins. I accept the gifts with a smile though because, hey, gifts. Free stuff. Who doesn't like free stuff, even if it's strange free stuff?

  We only have a few bigger presents stacked on the other side of the living room to open later in the day after a Christmas morning breakfast. No one in the family really took the time to go out and buy a tree for Christmas day, so we take the coat stand that we never use out of the front hallway and place it in the center of the living room, so we have something to arrange the presents around. Sophia insists on running to the basement really quick and grabbing a string of rainbow Christmas lights to wrap around the metal arms of the coat rack, so it further resembles a tree. It doesn't really work, but I humor her anyway, even if half the lights on the strand are burned out.

  We sit and open presents that are just as strange as the ones in the stockings, and then we sort of split off and spend the rest of Christmas Day hanging out in our rooms. Mom and Dad make a team effort of cooking a decent Christmas dinner, with Mom complaining that there are too many casseroles in the fridge to fit anything else in there. I smile secretly to myself. The casseroles probably taste better than anything my parents are cooking anyway.

  My mom is acting strange. She's generally a pretty subdued person, but she's acting even more reclusive than usual. She doesn't talk much, and she keeps giving Dad strange looks, like she wants to say something, but then backs out at the last second. I wonder if my mother's personality has changed a bit since she's been in Central America. She hasn't been gone that long, but still. People change, and she isn't like I remember.

  I have Kira over briefly in the middle of the afternoon to see if she can fix the heater again. She struggles for about an hour in the back hallway, but eventually the walls make that car crash sound and the heater kicks back on. I grin and thank her, and secretly slip her the mesh bag of chocolate coins that I got in my stocking to show my gratitude.

  When we sit down for dinner, the heater sputtering and pumping hot air into the kitchen, horrible Christmas music playing softly from the TV, Mom has us us say a prayer before we eat. I didn't even know my mother was religious, aside from her naming me after an angel. We've never prayed around the dinner table before, and we've only been to church a couple times in my life. I'm not religious, and I have no reason to be. Where does God come into the picture? I don't see God helping me out very much in the grand scheme of things. I tried to find God once, find some faith, but that was a bust.

  Maybe if God existed, He'd snap his fingers and fix the damn heater in our house.

  I stifle a laugh as Mom recites the prayer, and me and Sophia exchange a sneaky glance, smiling at each other before we all say "amen" and start to eat. It's another quiet, awkward meal, as tradition calls. Dad asks me and Sophia what our favorite gift was today, and just to be a little shit, I claim it was the running socks that really tickled my fancy. Sophia laughs, and I kick her under the table.

  We finish the dinner with some sporadic, mindless chatter here and there, and I watch Sophia inconspicuously push her green beans to the side and bury them in mashed potatoes so she doesn't have to eat them. Mom bought a premade apple cobbler that she pops in the oven for dessert, and when we all sit down to eat it after taking a brief break to allow our stomachs to settle from the large dinner, we don't get more than two bites in before she suddenly sighs loudly and drops her fork.

  "I can't do it anymore," she says, and it's almost like the words are punched out of her, like she literally couldn't hold them in for another moment. Me, Sophia, and Dad all stop eating and look up at her in confusion.

  "What?" my father says.

  Mom shakes her head, chuckling a little, but she sounds positively exasperated, and tired. "I just...I can't keep it in any longer," she says, throwing her hands up in the air like she's saying oh well. "There's something I need to talk to you guys about."

  I eye her with a crinkled forehead, and Sophia continues to ferry small bites of apple cobbler into her mouth as she stares at our mother. Dad sets down his fork, and we all wait silently for Mom to continue.

  She takes a moment, licking her lips and rubbing her forehead, and then looks up. She looks right at my father, unwaveringly, and her voice is firm and professional. "I'm having an affair," she says, and somehow she doesn't sound at all sorry. Everyone just stares at her for a few moments, and I'm not sure if I heard her correctly.

  "Excuse me?" my dad says, and he leans forward a bit. Apparently he's having the same issue I am. Neither of us are quite sure what we just heard.

  Mom huffs an annoyed sigh. "I'm having an affair," she repeats, and then she pauses for a moment, pondering something to herself, and then continuing. "Actually...it's more than that, to be honest. I'm in love with him, and I would like a divorce."

  Dad just blinks at her for a few moments, letting that sink in, his face a mixture of disbelief that slowly dissolves into anger. He stands up so fast and so suddenly that his chair scrapes across the tile floor and tips over, clattering loudly onto its side. I see Sophia jump next to him. "What?" he says, and this time, he's shouting.


  My mind wanders back to the phone call I had with my mother a couple months ago. I remember that voice I heard in the background of her call. I was right. My mother was having an affair all along. I guessed right, from the very beginning. Wow.

  I'm actually not that surprised, but I was sort of thinking it would all blow over. And here my mother is confessing it to the whole family.

  Just wow.

  My throat tightens up, and I have to gulp especially hard to swallow the half-chewed bite of cobbler in my mouth. Mom holds up her hands in a placating way, but it's almost condescending. "Now, let's just stay calm about this," she says to Dad. "It's a simple request. We'll just get a divorce and be done with it. No huss, no fuss."

  I sneak a glance at my father, and he's gone pale, but there's a shade of deep, angry red crawling up his face slowly but surely as everything sinks in. And seeing my father angry puts a heavy rock in my stomach, because Dad is usually a mild-mannered lump of a guy. He doesn't get angry, just really serious. And right now, he's losing control.

  "What the fuck are you talking about, Naomi?" he shouts, and my eyebrows actually shoot towards the ceiling. I think maybe that's the first time I've ever heard my father cuss in his life.

  Mom's face crunches in anger. Apparently she doesn't appreciate the cussing either. "Watch your language, James! That's no way to talk in front of the kids!"

  "Stop changing the subject!" my father shouts, and then he shouts something else, but I withdraw into my own head. I hate listening to people argue, and frankly, I get anxiety from it. So I lean back in my chair, forcing myself not to listen to my mother and father suddenly shouting at each other over the dinner table.

  Divorce. Wow. I didn't even think a divorce between my parents was possible, what with them being separated for the majority of the time anyway. I swallow, picking at my cobbler with the tip of my fork, not eating it because my mouth is suddenly pasty and dry, and I have a lump in my throat. I don't know why I feel like I'm having a mild panic attack when, outwardly, I look very calm...but then I look over at Sophia.