by Ella Miles
Copyright © 2020 by Ella Miles
EllaMiles.com
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Cover design © Arijana Karčić, Cover It! Designs
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Lies Series
1. Langston
2. Liesel
3. Langston
4. Liesel
5. Langston
6. Liesel
7. Langston
8. Liesel
Vicious Lies Chapter One
Also by Ella Miles
About the Author
Lies Series
Lies We Share: A Prologue
* * *
Vicious Lies
Desperate Lies
Fated Lies
Cruel Lies
Dangerous Lies
Endless Lies
1
Langston
Five Years Old
* * *
“Langston!”
My name booms through the small house, rattling my tiny frame as I lie on the floor of the kitchen, staring up at empty cabinets. I wish these cabinets were filled with food, any food, to soothe my aching belly. I’d even take broccoli.
I don’t know why my father has to yell so loudly. Our house is a tiny one-bedroom, one-bathroom, with a galley kitchen and a couch for a living room. My father could whisper in the house and I would still hear him.
I stop daydreaming about a stocked kitchen and pull myself up into a standing position. My bones pop and creak like an old man as I stand. It takes all of my willpower to walk into the living room where my father sits with a beer. He’s staring up at the barely still working TV, watching some football game in between skipping channels.
I walk solemnly in front of him. There is only one reason my father calls my name. It’s better to do what he says or my fate will be worse. Giving in means the pain will end faster.
My three foot nothing body stops in front of my father. I don’t speak, I know better than to do something that idiotic.
“I told you to take out the trash,” my father says.
“I did, but—” Why did I open my mouth?
It doesn’t matter that the trash doesn’t fit in the trashcan, and the trash company won’t take any extra bags outside the designated can.
“It reeks in here! You didn’t take out the trash like I said.”
Smack.
My body is already prepared for the impact as his hand thumps across my cheek. I hold back the tears, knowing I just have to hold on until I’m no longer in his sight before I cry. Crying gets me beaten worse.
“Take out the trash now! Before I beat your ass until you can’t sit for a week.”
I run into the kitchen and yank the lid off the trashcan that is almost as tall as me, before using both of my hands to pull the bag out. It gets stuck—probably a liquor bottle my father jammed into the can.
I sweat and grit my teeth to keep from making a sound, to keep the tears inside. If I let them out, I’ll end up with a broken bone. I do everything I can to get the trash bag out myself.
Finally, the bag comes free, knocking me off balance. I fall back to the ground, the bag landing on my lap. It smells like canned tuna and sour beer.
I wrinkle my nose.
I can feel my father’s stare. I scramble to my feet, heave the bag up with my two tiny fists and carry it out the front door. Once outside, I can take a breath. Father won’t care how long I take; he just wants me out of his sight and the smell gone.
I let the bag fall to the ground, dragging it down the front stairs and down the driveway until I reach the full trashcan.
I consider my options: leave the bag next to the trashcan and get in trouble when the trash company doesn’t pick it up, or find another way to get rid of it.
I look at the house across the street that also has its trashcan out on the end of their driveway. It doesn’t look like it’s overflowing.
Maybe mine will fit?
It’s worth a shot.
I drag my bag across the pothole-riddled street, hoping the bag doesn’t rip. The bags we use aren’t the durable kind; they’re the kind that tears if you jostle the bag the wrong way. There is a high probability I’ll leak trash all over the street—then I’ll really get my ass whooped.
By some miracle, I make it to the neighbor’s trashcan without a significant rip. I lift the lid off their can—there’s room!
I heave my trash bag up…
“What are you doing?” a girl says.
I drop the bag at the sudden voice, and it lands in the trashcan. I snap the lid shut.
I look over at the girl crouched behind a bush, which must be the reason I didn’t see her when I walked over. She’s covered in dirt. I can’t tell if those are freckles on her cheeks or just more dirt under her hazel eyes and shoulder-length blonde hair. The only thing girly about her is her pink shirt with a picture of a pony wearing a tiara on it.
“Disposing of a body,” I say, wondering how she’s going to respond. I figure if she calls her parents or the police and tells them there’s a body in the bag, the relief when they discover no body will bode better for me than the truth.
I also expect my words will get rid of her faster than the truth.
I don’t expect her to cock her head, her eyes to light up, and a smile to lift her lips.
“What are you doing?” I throw her words back at her as I cross my frail arms in front of my body.
“Hunting.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Hunting what? I don’t see a gun.”
Her eyelashes flutter at that, but she’s not afraid. You can’t be scared to grow up on a street like ours.
“I don’t think a gun would help me.”
“What are you hunting?”
“A spider—I think its home is out here somewhere, but it keeps coming into my room at night.”
I’m intrigued by this girl who hunts spiders.
I look back at my house. I should go back.
And do what?
I don’t have any toys.
I don’t have any food.
This girl will be a good distraction.
“I’ll help you,” I say.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Have you found the spider yet?”
“No.”
“Then you need my help.”
“Fine, but you have to do what I say. I’m the one in charge.”
I smile. “Deal.”
I walk over to where she is now crouched down again, examining the outside of a window where there are cobwebs scattered across the corner of the window.
“So, what does this spider look like?”
“He’s big and black and has a red spot on it.”
“And where did you see this spider?”
“It crawled on the floor by my bed last night. He scared the crap out of me. I’m going to find him. I think this is his web he uses to catch other bugs, and then he goes inside to sleep where it’s warm.” She points to a web along the windowsill.
“Uh-huh. What makes you think this web belongs to the same spider as the one you saw last night?”
That gets her thinking. “I don’t know. Let’s go inside and see if we can find a web there.”
I nod and follow her into her house.
She starts crouching down in the living room.
“Where is your bedroom? Should we start there?”
She stops and looks at me with eyes that could kill. “This is my bedroom.”
“Oh.” She
doesn’t have a bedroom, either. She’s just like me.
“Is that a problem? Can we not be friends because I don’t have a bedroom? I’d like to see your bedroom then if you are too good for me.”
I smile. I like how strong she is. She isn’t embarrassed that she doesn’t have a bedroom.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because I sleep in the living room, too. I don’t have my own bedroom either.”
She smiles. “That’s what I thought.”
“Do you have any siblings?” I ask, sometimes kids have to share their couch with other kids.
“No, you?”
I shake my head.
That makes her smile more.
“Good, that means you need me to be your friend.”
“I don’t need you to be my anything. I don’t need friends. I already have plenty of friends.”
“Liar.”
I frown. “I’m not lying!”
She takes my hand. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone that I’m your only friend.”
I roll my eyes. There is no winning with this girl.
“Let’s find this spider,” I say.
She nods.
We both crouch down and search around the ten-foot by ten-foot square that is the living room.
“I found it!” she squeals.
I crawl over to where she’s staring in the corner.
“You found the web and the spider, hunter.”
She wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue. “Don’t call me, hunter. My name is Liesel.”
“Nope, your name is hunter.”
“But that’s a guy’s name.”
“Huntress?”
She nods, liking that better.
“What’s your name?”
“Langston,” I say my name out loud and shutter. My father calls me Langston. I only think of his beatings when I hear someone call me that name.
She notices; her eyes soft with sympathy as she looks at me more closely for the first time. She’s probably noticing my swollen eye and bruise, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Kill it before it gets away,” I say, pointing to the spider that is now starting to crawl along the wall.
“I can’t,” her voice is quiet.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“You have to kill it. I think it’s a black widow spider. It’s poisonous. It could kill you if you don’t kill it.”
She thinks about my words for a second and lifts her pink sparkly flip flop to kill it, but then her foot slams back to her side. She can’t kill the spider.
There is conflict in her hazel, gold speckled eyes. She needs the spider to be dead, but can’t kill it herself.
I lift my worn, off-brand tennis shoes and slam it over the spider, killing it.
“Killer,” she whispers.
“What?” I ask, terrified that she’s going to be mad at me. I can’t handle that. I really could use a friend.
“Your name. I’ll call you killer. You’ll call me huntress, and I’ll call you killer.”
I grin and nod, liking the nickname a lot better than her calling me Langston.
Just then, my stomach growls. I haven’t eaten anything all day.
Hers growls louder a second later, making us both laugh.
“You got any food?” I ask.
She hesitates and bites her lip before she answers. “No.”
She’s lying—her first lie. I can tell. But when I look her over, I realize she needs whatever food she has a lot more than I do.
“It’s okay. Enzo said he’d bike over later and bring me food.”
“Enzo?”
“He’s my friend.”
“Sure, he is.”
I laugh.
We both lay on the floor, leaning our heads against the foot of the couch.
Her smile drops as suddenly as it appeared. “How did you get that bruise on your eye?”
“That man I killed and put in your trashcan—he fought back. But don’t worry, I won,” I lie. Mine is an obvious lie, unlike hers. I’m five years old. I couldn’t kill someone if I wanted to. The most I’ve ever killed is a spider. Although, I know my future. I suspect killing will become a means to survive.
She nods, pretending to accept my lie like I did hers, but she knows the truth. She knows my mother or father did this to me. It’s the tale of too many kids in our neighborhood.
“I think we should make a pact,” she says suddenly.
I sit up, looking at her. “Oh, yea? What kind of pact?”
“I’ll hunt whatever needs hunting for you, and you’ll kill for me.” She holds out her pinky finger to me.
I’m not really sure why she thinks we need this deal. Maybe she needs me to kill her father for her like I need someone to do it for me. I’m not big enough to kill him now. But if she asks me to kill hers in a few years, I will gladly.
I link my pinky finger with hers. “And if either of us breaks our promise?”
“Then, the other gets whatever they want. They can take whatever they want of the other’s. Demand anything. This is an unbreakable vow.”
“Like in Harry Potter?”
“Yep.”
“Fine, this is an unbreakable vow. I will always kill for you. And you will always hunt for me. Deal?”
We shake our pinkies together. “Deal.”
2
Liesel
Eight Years Old
* * *
The sound of the police siren sends chills down my spine as I try to sleep on the couch in the living room. I only have a light blanket, but I’m still drenched in sweat from the summer heat and lack of air conditioning. I don’t know what time it is, but I’d guess past midnight. I should be asleep—I have school in the morning—but even without the sirens blaring, I wouldn’t be able to sleep between the heat and my empty belly.
I wait for the sirens to disappear again, but they grow louder, closer.
I hold my breath as I hear the sirens just outside my house.
When you live where I do, sirens are never a good thing. Sirens aren’t coming to save someone. They are coming to lock someone up or to drag the body off after an overdose or gunshot. The police never make it here in time to stop the suffering. Not in a poor area like this.
I start running out of oxygen, and still, the sirens don’t leave. Their lights continue whirling, reflecting into the living room that serves as my bedroom.
I lift my head to glance out the window and gasp.
The police are entering Langston’s home.
I jump up and run to the window and peer through the broken shades at the scene before me.
My mind races with all the horrible things that could have happened to the boy who has quickly become my best and only friend. I call him killer, but the truth is I don’t think he’s killed much more than a spider. I still call him that because it beats seeing the torment in his eyes when I call him Langston like his father does. Someday, Langston will earn the nickname I give him. I know that. But for now, it’s still an innocent nickname—one that doesn’t haunt him, or me, yet.
What happened?
Did Langston’s father finally take things too far? Did he hurt him, injure him, kill him?
Please, no.
Please let it be his father. Please let him have drunk too much alcohol. Let him have alcohol poisoning or, better yet, be dead.
Let it be Langston’s mother.
Just don’t let it be my killer—Langston has to live.
I should wait inside my house, where I at least have the illusion of being safe.
I can’t.
Not when I don’t know if Langston is alive, hurt, or dead.
I run out the front door, not giving a damn about my own safety.
My feet are bare; my frayed T-shirt hangs down below my knees, hiding my shorts beneath, and my hair hangs in frizzy blonde waves. None of that matters—only Langston.
“Langston!” I shout, using his name instead
of killer.
I run across the street, slipping between the two police cars that have arrived so far. I hear more approaching sirens in the distance.
I make it across the street. The front door is open. I should wait outside, but I can’t.
I run up the uneven stairs full of cracks. I know each crack by heart, which makes it easy to avoid hurting my bare feet as I run.
Then I’m inside the small house already filled with too many people.
Three police officers.
Langston’s father.
I don’t see Langston.
“Langston!” I shout even though I shouldn’t. I should blend into the shadows for as long as I can before being noticed. As soon as the police officers notice me, they’ll escort me outside, and then I won’t know anything.
The female officer turns at the sound of my small voice. Her lips thin in disappointment as she walks over to me. She squats down so she is eye level with me.
“I’m so sorry,” she starts.
“No,” I whisper. “He can’t be dead.”
I look past her, searching for the boy—the only one in my life who matters, who will ever matter.
She shakes her head.
What does that shake mean?
“Your mother—she didn’t make it. She’s in heaven,” the officer says, putting her hands on my shoulders to comfort me.
I exhale a breath.
I should cry, show some emotion. This woman thinks I’m Mrs. Pearce’s daughter, that I just lost my mother. She’ll let me stay with Langston if I cry.
So that’s what I do. I cry like I just lost a caring mother, instead of being relieved that my best friend is still alive.
The woman pulls me into a hug. That’s when I spot him, and my heartbeat settles.
Langston is standing in shorts and no shirt, revealing his too-thin frame. His hair is a shabby mess on top of his head, and he’s staring down at something.
His mother.
