by Gemma Weir
The Spare - Part Two
The Kings & Queens of St Augustus #1
Gemma Weir
The Spare - Part Two
The Kings & Queens of St Augustus Series
Copyright © 2020 Gemma Weir
Published by Hudson Indie Ink
www.hudsonindieink.com
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it wasn’t purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referred to in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorised, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
The Spare - Part Two/Gemma Weir – 1st ed.
ISBN-13 - 978-1-913904-02-9
Contents
1. Tallulah
2. Arlo
3. Tallulah
4. Arlo
5. Tallulah
6. Arlo
7. Tallulah
8. Arlo
9. Tallulah
10. Arlo
11. Tallulah
12. Arlo
13. Tallulah
14. Arlo
15. Tallulah
16. Arlo
17. Tallulah
18. Arlo
19. Tallulah
20. Arlo
21. Tallulah
22. Carrigan
23. Tallulah
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
Also by Gemma Weir
Other Works from Hudson Indie Ink
One
Tallulah
“You just couldn’t stand to see your sister happy, could you?” Mom snarls, her teeth clenched together as she slowly prowls across the room toward me.
“I,” I start to speak, clutching at my face as wave after wave of agony pulses through me.
Dad grabs me, lifting me up before he strikes me again, the ring on his pinkie finger slicing across my cheek.
My mom moves above me, spittle hitting me as she hisses out every nasty, poisonous word. “I’m ashamed to call you my daughter. You’re a vile little mistake of nature. You’re the child we didn’t want but had to have, and look at you now, you traitorous little whore. How did you get him to do it? Did you offer up your dirty little whore cunt for him and then force him to propose?”
“I didn’t,” I cry.
Her sharp fingernails grab a chunk of my hair as she snatches my face up and slaps me so hard the sound of her palm hitting my cheek echoes through the room.
I dart a look at my sister and I think I see a flash of something in her eyes, but I don’t get a chance to focus on it because Mom still has hold of my hair and is screaming in my face.
“You nasty, evil, ungrateful slut. You’re no child of mine. You’ve always been jealous of her, because she’s better than you. She’s prettier and smarter and she gets everything. She gets all the money and you get nothing,” she screams, her face so close to mine that all I can see is the ugly clenching of her snarling teeth in her red, angry face.
Her grip in my hair loosens as she throws me backward, causing my head to bang off the door again and my vision dims as blackness curves around the edges.
“Move,” she screams, and I try to get up, but my limbs don’t feel like my own. I scramble and claw at the floor, shuffling to the side just enough that I avoid the door as she throws it open and stomps through it.
Dad glares down at me as he follows her and I flinch, waiting for him to hit me again, but he just walks past, his lip curled in disgust as he looks down at me.
My face throbs, my head ringing, as the longest seconds of my life pass. I expect Carrigan to get a kick in while I’m on the ground, but to my surprise, soft, gentle hands carefully touch me and I look up to find her next to me.
“Come on,” she whispers, trying to pull me up.
With her help, I manage to get to my feet, my head spinning once I’m upright. She doesn’t release me as we climb the stairs, staying with me until we’re in my room.
“You need to go,” she says quietly, and I swear there’s a tinge of regret in her voice.
“What?” I ask confused.
“Use your trust fund and leave. They’ve…” she pauses. “They’ve lost it. This money; they’ve lost the plot.”
“What about you?” I ask, feeling closer to my sister in this awful moment than I have in years.
“I’ll be fine,” she says, a small shaky smile on her lips. “I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I should have stopped them down there. I should have—”
“Did you know what they were going to do?” I ask, interrupting her.
“No,” she cries. “No, of course not. I thought they’d shout at you, but that… Your face,” she says, lifting a shaky hand to touch my cheek that’s still burning. “You need to go. We’re eighteen and they can’t take your trust fund no matter what they said,” she says again, running into my closet and pulling out one of the large luggage cases that are in there. She starts piling stuff into it, dragging my clothes from the hangers and stuffing them into the case.
I want to argue, but I don’t. Because she’s right, I can’t stay here. So, I grab the things I can’t leave behind and stuff them into the case.
“Call Arlo, have him come get you,” she says, urgency lacing each word.
“No, I have someone who can help,” I say, not wanting to tell her that Greg has already offered to help me run. “But how am I going to get this case downstairs without them seeing?”
“We’re going out. We’re due at the Harvey’s at six and it’s over an hour’s drive so we’ll be gone soon. Lock the door once I go, then as soon as we leave, run. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she says, shocking me when she pulls me into a tight hug.
Wrapping my arms around her, I hold her to me, sad that we’ve never had the relationship I’d hoped we would, and knowing that now we probably never will. When she pulls back, her eyes are glassy, but she tries to smile as she walks to the door and leaves. I lock it behind her and spend the next hour packing everything I need to run and never come back.
It feels like time drags as I wait for my parents to leave. It’s Greg’s night off, so Dad’s driver, Tim, is taking them to the Harveys. As I pull up Greg’s contact in my cell, I worry that he won’t answer.
“Miss Tallulah, is everything okay?” he says, worry lacing his voice.
“Greg, if that offer still stands, I need some help,” I say, my voice cracking.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“It’s going to be okay, Miss Tallulah,” he says before he ends the call, and I sit staring at my cell and the huge suitcase that holds everything I own.
A knock at my door has me jumping to my feet and I panic, thinking that maybe one of my parents didn’t leave, even though I watched them climb into their car.
I freeze, not even breathing, as the door opens and Mrs. Humphries peers into my room, s
tartling when she sees me. “Oh, Miss Tallulah, I’m sorry. I thought you were…” her words trail off when she sees the rapidly forming bruises that are appearing on my cheeks, the cut that’s still red and oozing blood, and the huge suitcase I’m not even attempting to hide beside me.
She pushes the door wide and is beside me a moment later, her careful hands turning my head so she can see my swollen face and split lip more clearly. Her lips purse and she inhales sharply. Releasing me, she takes hold of the handle of my suitcase and drags it to the door without another word.
I follow her silently, not sure what I can even say in this moment as the deceptively strong housekeeper lifts my case like it weighs nothing and carries it down the stairs, lowering it to the floor in the foyer.
“Do you need any money?” she asks.
Tears fill my eyes as I shake my head. “No, but thank you,” I say, my throat thick with emotion.
An unfamiliar car pulls up to the steps outside the house and Greg climbs out dressed in jeans and a shirt. He mounts the steps to the house brazenly, like he doesn’t even care if my parents are in or not, and I’ve never been more grateful to have someone who cares about me like my loyal driver does.
I open the door and he takes one look at my face and starts to breathe faster, his eyes bulging. “Those evil motherfuckers,” he growls.
“I just want to leave. Can you please just help me leave?” I beg.
“I’ll kill them,” Greg hisses.
“No, you won’t, they’re not worth it, but I do need your help getting to a hotel. Carrigan told me that they can’t take my trust fund, so I have plenty of money. I just need to leave,” I say calmly, despite the tears that are rolling down my cheeks.
“Tell the fuckers, I quit,” Greg shouts to Mrs. Humphries.
She nods. “I’m only staying to keep an eye on Miss Carrigan, else I’d quit too. I don’t trust them enough to leave her here alone, even if all I can do is watch. Take care of yourself, Miss Tallulah,” she says, squeezing my arm affectionately.
“Thank you, Mrs. Humphries,” I say, as Greg grabs my case and we leave, walking toward his car.
He drops my case into the trunk as I climb into the passenger seat and I keep my gaze forward, avoiding looking at my family home until he’s sitting next to me and we’re driving away. Only then do I risk one last look back at the place my family fell apart, all because of money.
“Are you sure about this? Why don’t you come back to my house? My wife will fuss over you and you can decide what to do next, where to go,” Greg says, as we roll to a stop outside the hotel I convinced him to bring me to.
“I appreciate the offer more than you will ever know, but I don’t want to impose on you and your family, and I shouldn’t involve you in my problems more than I have already.”
“It’s no imposition. My daughter is only a year younger than you and I’d rather you were somewhere safe,” he says imploringly.
“I’ll be fine. You’ve helped me more than you realize. I don’t know how to thank you,” I say, my voice cracking a little.
“You’re a good girl, Miss Tallulah.”
“Please call me Tally,” I say, offering up the nickname that Arlo uses and that I’ve become fond of.
“Miss Tally, are you sure I can’t convince you to come home with me? I really don’t like the idea of leaving you alone and hurt at a hotel.”
“I’m sure. I promise I’ll be absolutely fine, but you have my cell phone number and I have yours, so maybe we can stay in touch?” I say, feeling silly for asking, but needing a link to someone who cares about me.
“Sweetheart, I never had any intention of just leaving you here and not checking up on you. I want you to let me know once you decide what you’re going to do. If you change your mind and want to come stay with me and my family, the offer is open indefinitely,” he says, reaching over and squeezing my hand comfortingly.
“Thank you,” I choke out, my voice cracking as tears fill my eyes. He squeezes my hand again and then climbs out of the car, opening my door like he has a thousand times before. He grabs my case from the trunk, then escorts me into the hotel as I arrange a room for the night.
With my room key in hand I reach for my case.
“I can bring it up to your room,” he says.
I smile and sigh. “I can manage, Greg. This is your night off, you should be with your family.”
“I don’t like leaving you here, Miss Tally, please come home with me. You need people to take care of you, and my wife… well Ronnie, she knows how much I worry about you,” he says, his brow furrowed and his lips turned down into a worried frown.
Pressing a soft kiss to his cheek, I smile shakily. “Thank you, Greg. Tell Ronnie I said thank you to her too.”
He nods and I take the case from him and head for the elevators, smiling and lifting my hand in a small wave as the doors close on me, leaving me all alone.
Two
Arlo
With my cell to my ear, I listen as Tally’s cell goes straight to voicemail for the twentieth time today. I’ve been ringing and texting constantly since she left mine on Saturday, but she’s ignoring me. I thought about going to her house, but I’d rather not have an argument with her about me not telling her family the truth in front of them.
But now it’s Monday again and she’s still not turned her cell back on. To be honest, I’ve never even seen her with a phone, and I only know she has one because she gave Fitzy the number. The clothes he picked out for her are still at my house. He was going to have them delivered to her house, but I convinced him to have them sent back to mine in the hope that she’d contact him to ask about them, but she hasn’t.
The Archibalds’ town car pulls up outside school and I push away from my car and stride toward it, watching as a driver I’ve never seen before climbs out of the driver’s seat and goes to open the rear door.
I immediately move to the other rear door and open it, expecting to see Tally waiting for her sister to leave before she circles back like she’s done in the past, but the seat is empty. Closing the door, I look up and only find Carrigan, talking to her crowd of minions at the bottom of the steps.
“Where’s Tally?” I ask, stomping over to Carrigan and interrupting her conversation.
“I don’t know,” she says dismissively.
“What?”
Blinking slowly, she turns her back on me and carries on her conversation, like I’m nothing but an annoying insect. “Hey,” I snarl, reaching for her shoulder and spinning her around to look at me. “Where the fuck is Tally? Her cell’s been turned off since Saturday.”
“Why would I know where she is? She’s your fiancée. Surely you should be keeping better track of her,” Carrigan spits angrily, before pulling out of my grip and stomping away.
As I watch her walk away, I can’t help the feeling that something about her seems off. She’s not usually a bitch to me, but it’s more than that. I scan the halls for Tally until the bell for homeroom rings, then I ignore my own class and head to hers hoping to catch her, but her desk is empty. I’m not sure why I expect to see her walking through the halls when I’ve spent three-and-a-half years at the same school as her and only seen her a couple of times. But the thing is with Tally, once you know who she is, it’s hard not to see her, not to search for her.
By the time lunch rolls around, I’m starting to get really fucking pissed off. She can’t just disappear; she’s my fucking fiancée now and I want to see her, damn it. Stomping into the lunchroom, I make a beeline straight for Carrigan, with Olly, and Watson trailing behind me. I swear Olly is more upset than me that he hasn’t seen her, and if I wasn’t so angry at her for going AWOL and fucking radio silent, I’d have punched him for brooding over my fiancée.
“Carrigan, we need a word,” I say through clenched teeth, my hands braced on the table beside her.
“I’m eating,” she says dismissively.
Leaning down, I get in her face. I’m so much angrier th
an the situation warrants, but I want to know where the fuck Tally is and Carrigan is the only person who can tell me. “I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing. You’re going to come and talk to me for a fucking minute or I’m going to lose my fucking mind,” I hiss.
Turning to glare at me, her face pales a little when she sees my expression. She silently pushes back her seat and gracefully rises until she’s standing next to me. Her face so eerily similar, but yet so different to Tally’s.
Like the uppity Little Miss Goody Two Shoes she is, she leads the way out of the cafeteria; the sound of her heels clacking along the wooden floor lost amidst the noise of the busy lunchroom. I follow behind her, with Wats and Olly matching pace at my side, until we’re halfway down the corridor and away from anyone who could overhear our conversation.
“Where is she hiding?” I snap, the moment she stops and turns to look at me. “I know she’s like a fucking ghost at this school, but you must know where she’s hiding.”
Carrigan’s lips purse into a straight line and she places her hands on her hips. “Have you tried the library? There’s a private study room she uses. Although I honestly don’t know if she’s here at all.”
“Why wasn’t she in the car with you this morning? What the fuck is going on? I haven’t been able to get hold of her since she left my house on Saturday.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to speak to you,” Carrigan says with a smirk playing at the corner of her lips.
Taking a step closer to her, I lean down until my face is only inches from hers. “What did you say to her? What bullshit did your parents come up with? Your dad already offered me the twin swap, and I turned him down flat. So, before I go and kick down the front door at your fucking house, where the hell is Tallulah?”
