“Please don’t tell anyone!” Angie shrieked. She looked sad and desperate as she lay curled on the floor in her school uniform.
“Shit!” the black hair kid yelled. “Why the fuck are you in here?”
“I should be asking you guys that,” I bluntly replied. “But I think that I already know. Wow, Angie, you’ve really stooped low to get back at me, haven’t you?”
“You know what they say,” Angie said as she stood to her feet. “It’s just as important to have friends in low places as it is to have them in high ones.”
“I’m standing right here,” said the black haired guy who now seemed insulted by Angie’s comment.
“Shut up, Kyle,” she warned before turning back to me. “The question is, Mairead, what are you going to do about it?”
“To start, I’m going to the principal.”
“No!” Kyle shouted.
“I said, shut up!” Angie roared. “I understand what you’re saying, but we have to work something out.”
“Do we?”
“Yes,” she winced. “Unless you want everyone finding the tape with you and your cousin.”
“Who else knows?” I asked looking over at Kyle.
“Just him.”
“You didn’t tell any of your girl friends?”
“If I told them, everyone in the school would know as well. What would be the fun in that? I feel like some people are just moths looking for a flame but I want to bring them the fire.” Angie appeared to be more intelligent than I was giving her credit for. Still, she wanted something in exchange.
“What are you proposing?” I asked.
“Let’s all forget about this,” Angie said. “I’ll destroy what evidence I have and then you shut up about what you know.”
“What about him?” I turned my head toward Kyle.
“Don’t worry about this one,” Angie said looking him up and down. “I’ve got more dirt on him to last two lifetimes.”
I felt embarrassed for all of us standing in the room together. Angie’s pettiness had brought us here, but I knew that we were at a stalemate.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Thank you!” Angie said as she breathed out a sigh of relief. It suddenly dawned on me that she could have gotten in over her head.
“What are we going to do about homecoming?” I asked.
“I’ll convince the student council to have more nominees,” she explained. “Then you and I can bow out of the competition.”
“I like that plan,” I replied honestly. Luckily, Angie was smart enough to know when to stop. “I’m out of here; you guys can finish or not, but spare me the details.”
As I walked from the room, I felt relief find me again. It was as though the healing magic of the hot tub was still with me, washing away my worry. My body felt warm and soon so did my head. Except that the feeling on my skull was sharper and singeing. Suddenly, I was falling onto the floor. I looked upward to see that Kyle had hit me over the head with a microphone stand. His arms swung up and came down on me again until I saw darkness.
Road Trip
The sting in the back of my head throbbed even more as I bounced around. I was afraid to open my eyes to unveil where I was. For all that I knew I was still lying on the floor in the AV room. However, the shaking around me indicated that I was moving at a fast speed. Before opening my eyes, I tried to speak.
“Uh…” It was all that I could muster.
“Look who’s up,” Angie laughed. Her voice was coming from in front of me. Gathering my strength, I blinked. Kyle was driving a car in the middle of the night. Angie was sitting in the passenger’s seat, changing the radio stations.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Do you know how difficult it was to get your body out of the school?” Angie asked as she looked backward at me. Her demeanor was nonchalant. This made the situation that much more disturbing. “We had to wait all night in there before dragging you out. Also, you don’t look big, but you are one heavy girl.”
“I think I threw my back out!” Kyle joked as we sped along the road. It was winding further and further up a mountain.
“Have you been here before, new girl?” Angie asked. “These mountains are extraordinarily high. In fact, if someone were to fall off the elevation of one of the cliffs, they would splatter so badly that dental records would be needed to identify the body.”
“What?” I groaned in confusion.
“With your school uniform on, they won’t know which student you were,” she laughed. “Though they might figure it out once they find your typed note discussing how depressed you’ve been this year.”
“Pull over,” I moaned.
“Okay!” Kyle shouted. He swerved the car and nearly sent us off of the edge. My heart raced thinking that we were about to fall off. Angie cackled as we sped faster into the darkness.
Adrenaline was kicking into my body. I looked up to see that it was after midnight. Frantically, I looked around my phone. Suddenly, I noticed that my hands were tied together with black cords.
“We chucked it,” Angie said. “Can’t have them figuring out where you went. Plus, Kyle thought that if we threw it off the side of the road it would be all that more believable that you hitched a ride up here just to jump off the cliff.”
“That’s insane,” I said.
“Not as insane as being a cousin fucker!” she screamed. “That’s what the note says, anyway. It’s inside of your locker at school just waiting for your aunt and uncle to find it. You have a really easy password to guess, by the way. It was the same numbers that lined up with Cade’s name. Two, Two, Two, Three. You are really obsessed with him, aren’t you?”
“Fuck you, Angie!” I shouted.
“I completely understand,” she laughed. “I was obsessed with that asshole, too. I sent him so many videos of me shoving dildos into my pussy, just to get him off. Kyle has helped me make every one of them, too. Didn’t you, Kyle?”
“I love watching you get off, babe,” Kyle answered as he leaned over and kissed Angie.
“Kyle even helped me hack into Cade’s cloud account and automatically set it up to backup any video he took on his tablet,” he giggled. “There were so many of him just jacking off like an egotistical fucktard. The golden didn’t show up until I saw your pretty little face exclaiming that you didn’t want to be filmed. Kyle is the genius I could only dream of.”
“I’d do anything for your sexy lips all over my cock,” Kyle sneered.
“Even if she’s sending the videos to her ex-boyfriend?” I was terribly confused by this insane situation. Though it was frightening to think about how much more information Angie could have hacked into if she desired.
“Cade and I could have double teamed her!” Kyle shouted back to me as she shot forward on a short straightway. “I call sloppy seconds!”
I shuddered at his comment. Angie had found herself a deranged new boyfriend that could carry out her dubious plans. Cars whizzed by us with their headlines blaring and horns honking as we sped past.
“You guys ran me off the road a few weeks ago, didn’t you?”
“Good job, idiot!” Angie laughed. “You’re not so stupid after all.”
I started to realize that I was in the strong talons of a couple of crazy birds. They were planning on killing me and hiding the evidence. Panic returned to my face. I had to get out of there and fast.
Twisting my body, I managed to pull a few of my fingers free of the tightly coiled restrictive cables. My back ached as I moved toward the door handle, but I had no other choice. My fingers flicked at the handle to open to the door.
“What’s she doing?” Kyle asked as he saw me turning into the door.
“Stop moving, bitch,” Angie demanded as she turned around. “Switch on the child’s safety lock, just in case.”
I knew that I only had moments left. Struggling, I twisted so much that I pulled a muscle. Though it hurt immensely, through the pain, I reached for the handle.
“Got it!” Kyle responded. In the corner of my eye, I could see his hand winding toward the buttons on his armrest. Just as he went to push the button, I leaned down and pushed the door open.
“Holy shit!” Angie screamed as cold air drafted into the car. The winds were strong, but I didn’t have another choice. I rolled my body into a ball and fell out of the door.
The asphalt road was hard and unforgiving. It smashed my shoulder, causing me to bounce and fall onto my face. Then the gravel shoved itself like thick needles into my skin.
My entire body pulsed with pain. Luckily, the cables binding my feet broke apart during the impact. I shifted my weight in order to pull myself into a crawling position, where I made it to the side of the road.
I saw Kyle’s black car swerve to the opposite side of the road as Angie flung open her door. She was screaming loudly as she forced him to pull over. As soon as the car stopped, she bounced from it and headed for me.
“You fucking cunt!” Angie roared. “I won’t let you get away–“
Before she could finish her sentence, bright lights blasted Angie’s face. All of it felt like slow motion as a semi truck turned around the corner. First, it crunched into the side of Kyle’s car. I saw his body eject from the driver’s side as he hit into the mountain.
Then, as the breaks squealed, the truck crushed into Angie. Her face was distorted with surprise as she was knocked to the side of me. Her body tumbled a few times before finding the edge of the mountain. Shocked and horrified, I assumed that she was dead before she fell because Angie didn’t scream as she plummeted off of the cliff and into the dark canyon.
Rule of Three
I remember my grandmother telling me an old tale about the Rule of Three. She said that tragedy loves company. It finds itself in the wake of the dead, the shadow of dishonor, and the pit of sorrow. Two weeks after the events that took place with Angie, I felt as though I knew this pain all too well.
There wasn’t a word profound enough to describe how much I missed my mother. I wanted her to pull me out of my dark room, hold me and tell me that my future was bright. She had a way of explaining life’s most difficult situations in a way that left me speechless. There was no arguing when words couldn’t form in my mouth and she knew how to bring me there.
“You’ll be okay,” my mother said from her deathbed. Her hair was gone, he skin was pallid, and her eyes were sunken. Tubes races around the room filling her with meds so that she couldn’t feel pain. Still, I found her as stunning as she was before she became sick. “When you least expect it, someone will come along and make you feel in a way that you’d never thought possible.”
“How do you know?” I sobbed.
“Because that was how I felt when you were born,” she smiled. “Love never dies, it just continues through us.”
This was something that I could never forget. As I buried myself in the covers of the bed and my depression, I heard them echo through my head.
The second tragedy was Angie’s will to kill my spirit. Secretly, I felt sorry for her, because she was also the cause for the third tragedy. Her parents admitted to the police that she had been very mentally ill. They were advised to take her out of the academy and sent for treatment, however, they were too ashamed. I understood though because even when my mother became ill, I had a difficult time coping with the truth. In Angie’s situation, her sickness could be covered with pills that worked when she took them and make up to hide her self-inflicted scars.
She had met Kyle at group therapy sessions. They were supposed to help each other through school, but as it turned out, their unstable relationship exploded. They had a list of people that they wanted to destroy. Cade was on the top of the list and crossed out with my name in its place. Somehow, I suppose, it was easier for her to hate me than him.
Beyond tragedy, my grandmother also spoke of the good rule of three. In this, three good things would follow the tragedy. It’s a secret that most people never speak of because they tend to focus so much on the darkness that the light is forgotten.
For me, all three of the good fortunes were comprise of those closest to me. The first were my uncle and aunt who give me a new home in Mayville. The second were my friends, Penny and Jill, who sent me positive messages every week after my reclusion. I never wrote back, but they knew that I was reading.
Penny text me:
Everyone is freaking out about what happened. I’m so sorry that I acted like a brat about you getting nominated for homecoming queen. I feel terrible. We love you, feel better.
Then Jill:
I know it has only been two days, but we miss you. Hope you are doing well.
Finally, both of them sent the same one at the same time.
We’d love to see you soon. Please call when you’re doing better!
I had every intention of inviting them over. However, I wasn’t ready. The police had come twice to ask me questions about the incident. Kyle and Angie’s parents sent lawyers to pay me off. I didn’t want money or retribution. Their children were dead and I felt bad enough over this.
Suddenly, there was a knock on my door. I wished it were Cade, but he hadn’t been coming around much after the incident. I understood since I had been so depressed that I didn’t speak for nearly a week. My actions probably seemed cold and distant. Uncle Tim put himself in charge of bringing me breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I spoke with him some, but he understood that I wanted to keep my conversations short.
“Hey,” he said as he opened my door. “I brought you some comfort food. This time it’s chicken noodle, macaroni and cheese, and a vegetable panini. Don’t worry, this soup was made from scratch and has tofu instead of chicken.”
“Thank you,” I smiled small as I sat up in my bed. He sat the tray on the side of the bed.
“Feeling any better?” he asked.
“A little,” I replied.
“That’s good,” he said nodding his head. “One step at a time.”
“It smells amazing,” I said glancing at the dinner.
“Tastes even better. Okay, I’ll let you go,” Tim grinned and then he started for the door. “Oh, Mairead, I brought you a visitor.”
“Who?” I asked as Tim walked out of the room. The door was still open, and a moment went by before Cade stepped through it.
“Hey, baby,” he smiled looking more handsome than ever. “I’ve missed you.”
“Wait,” I was shocked. “Does he know?”
“He does,” Cade said nodding his head. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“How?” my spirits already felt lifted, except that it seemed for the wrong reasons.
“I told them,” he explained as he sat on the bed with me.
“Why did you do that?”
“Alice went to the school to empty out your locker in case you needed things to study with.”
“Oh, crap! There was a note in there that Angie wrote!”
“I know, but then I had t explain the truth to them.”
“So how did they take it?”
“They grounded me and forbid me to see you. I even heard them talking about sending me off to boarding school for next semester.”
“How did Tim and your mom come around?”
“They felt terrible for you and knew that I might be able to get you out of here. Plus, I told them the honest truth about how I feel.”
“Which was what?” I asked with worry.
“That I’m in love with you,” Cade said, as he looked me in the eyes. “I love you, Mairead.”
My heart stopped. Tears formed in the corners of my eyes and trickled down my cheeks. It was as though all of my worry, fear, and regret had been expunged by his words.
“I love you, too,” I whispered. Then we met in the middle with our lips joined. As Cade’s arms moved around me, I could see that the light I had been waiting for had come for me in my dark corner. With the tragedy in the past, the world was waiting for us and it seemed brighter than ever.
The End.
About the Author
Lauren Branford has traveled the world, meeting people from all walks of life. For Miss Branford, writing is more than expressive, it is liberating. Scribing subjects on matters that society has deemed racy and prohibited are the most delicious treats from her library.
Lauren Branford currently holds residence in California.
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Book Series Preview
Stepbrother Secrets
by Lauren Branford
Sebastian’s body was perfectly golden as he laid by the pool on a hot August afternoon. Six feet tall with auburn hair and the greenest eyes this girl had ever seen, Sebastian was more than a hunk; he was a dream. I hadn’t seen him lifting weights or even exercising since the day I arrived at the estate in June, days after my eighteenth birthday. However, he had one of the finest forms that I had seen on a man. Chiseled abdominals lined in a perfect set underneath his full, smooth pectorals. Sebastian was nearly ten years older than me and I found him all of the man that I ever wanted.
“Audrey, is it?” Sebastian asked when we were first introduced. “What a classic and beautiful name.”
I blushed and twisted my leg in the same way an impish girl might do at the sight of a beautiful man. That is, however, how he made me feel: small and curious.
I sat near the top of the hill, between the trees and watched him sunbathe each afternoon. Sebastian always made sure to lay in such a way that none of his limbs were touching. I assumed that that was for one of two reasons: either he wanted sun to flow evenly between the gaps of his arms and torso or he knew how delicious he looked in that position. Whichever the reason, he had my attention.
Forbidden Games (Forbidden Ties Series Book 2) Page 3
