Wild War

by Laurelin Paige

  I glanced at the diamond on her left hand and the plain gold band beneath it. “Do you get to keep that when he leaves you? I bet you could get some decent rent money with it.”

  “You’re ungrateful and self-centered. Just like your father.”

  There he was—my mysterious father. Half of the time, she claimed that he’d been a one-night stand. The other half, she claimed she wasn’t even sure who he was. And yet she knew enough about him to identify his hateful qualities whenever it was useful to her.

  I’d grown immune to the mentions by the time I’d hit ten. “I’m the one who’s self-centered? Okay. Sure. How about I offer a selfless act then and volunteer to get out of your hair altogether. Let you enjoy your new family unit without any extra baggage.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.” She turned off the stove, setting the cooked carrots on a cool adjacent burner. “We want you here. I want you here. I always wanted you with me.”

  “You disappeared for a year! If you wanted me, why did you abandon me?” I hadn’t minded her seeing my rage, but I could feel a more vulnerable emotion bubbling up in my chest, threatening to burst.

  “I didn’t abandon you. I left you with a good family—”

  “They thought you were going for a job interview. We didn’t hear from you for four months!” And then another nine passed after that before she’d informed the Goodies she’d gotten married and could finally take her son back. “How is that not abandonment?”

  “I was doing what I thought was best,” she snapped. She stared at me, her gaze heavy and loaded, and I met her back with equal venom.

  “How could you do that, Mom? How?” I hated the way my voice cracked and how my vision suddenly felt blurred.

  She opened her mouth, and for the briefest second, I thought she might actually give me something real.

  But then a timer buzzed, and she jumped back to her duties, grabbing mitts before heading over to the oven. “It’s complicated,” she said as she took out the baking dish with the ham.

  That’s all it ever was with her—fucking complicated.

  The only reason I showed up to dinner ten minutes later was because I was hungry, and as much as Carla sucked at mothering, she was actually a good cook.

  It wasn’t at all to please Langdon Stark.

  Sure, he’d huffed and puffed the whole ride, telling me about rules and manners and what to expect living in “his” house, but I’d seen this act before. Even the smack against the head wasn’t anything new. Carla hadn’t married any of her boyfriends before this one, but they all liked to assume authority over her son right off the bat, as if that quality would make them more attractive to her. Truth was, she just needed to have someone pay the rent, and she’d spread her legs. She couldn’t care less if they were “good” with me.

  Needless of my motivations, I walked into the dining room at six twenty-nine. The table had been set, all the delicious food my mother had been preparing now displayed in matching dishes. Julianna was already there, pouring water into glasses. She didn’t even look up as I sat down across from her.

  I chuckled to myself as the grandfather clock in the living room struck half past, and Daddy Stark still wasn’t seated, but before the clock’s song had ended, there he was, walking toward the chair at the head of the table with such precision, it was as if he were part of an automation.

  My mother scurried in on his heels, her face red as she put down a tray of dinner rolls. “I’m sorry, Langdon. I didn’t time the bread right.”

  Her husband gave her a disapproving look, but I had a feeling it was less to do with her two-second tardiness and more about me. The fact that all eyes had moved to me, the only one sitting, validated that feeling.

  “Is this how you’ve taught the boy?” His admonition came out thick and ominous.

  I had to shoo away the urge to protect my mother. She’d made her bed. If I got lectured along with her, so be it.

  Besides, I honestly had no idea what I’d done wrong.

  “He’s been away for some time. He’ll catch on quickly.” She didn’t look as sure as her words. She gestured toward me with her head, but I couldn’t decipher her meaning.

  Had I sat down in the wrong seat?

  My mother started to explain. “We don’t sit until—”

  Langdon cut her off. “In a proper household, the master is the last to arrive, and the first to sit. As this is your first night here—and as you’ve likely been in a home led by less attentive adults—I’ll give you an allowance for tonight’s ill behavior.”

  “Wow, super kind of you.” Was this guy for real?

  His daughter’s eyes went wide. My mother shifted nervously.

  “Stop fidgeting, Carla.”

  Immediately, she became motionless. Everyone stood real still, waiting. It took a beat before I realized what they were waiting for. “You mean you want me to stand now?”

  “I didn’t explain how the dinnertime seating worked so that I could hear my own voice.”

  But hadn’t he just said he’d give me an allowance?

  I stood up, slowly, trying to decide if my mother’s ham was worth this much trouble. When I’d been standing and nothing happened, I definitely was sure that it wasn’t. “What did I fuck up now?”

  My mother inhaled sharply.

  Forget this. I was just about to ditch the bullshit when my gaze caught on the girl across from me. Julianna. My mother had told me about her in the same conversation that she’d told me about her marriage. A breath after she’d told me I was moving back, as though having a stepsibling might be enticing.

  She hadn’t mentioned that Julianna was also a teenager. Or that she had plump, raspberry-colored lips. And that her long, toned legs made a simple school uniform skirt look obscene.

  Just my luck that my stepsister was a complete hottie.

  It was her piercing blue eyes that kept me sitting there, and not because they were beautiful, but because they felt deep. Like what I saw was only wading in the shallows, and there was a whole ocean underneath. Those eyes were an anchor. They held me in place, and suddenly it occurred to me that leaving might be weaker than staying, and maybe this was a good time to show a bit of strength.

  “Cursing in this house will be punished,” Langdon said. “That will be your only warning.”

  “Like, you’ll wash my mouth out or…?” I trailed off when I noticed Julianna frown. I’d yet to see her smile, and I was curious what that looked like.

  Though with this hardass for a father, I doubted she did that very often.

  Smarting off more didn’t seem to be the way to go about seeing it, so I kept my trap shut. Tense silence strung out between the four of us as we stood at our places, waiting. Waiting.

  “Could someone give me a little guidance here?” It was evident I was supposed to do something, and I still didn’t know what was expected of me. The ham wasn’t going to be any good if it was cold.

  “Typically, when one insults their elders, it is customary for him to offer an apology.” Stark had waited a handful of seconds before answering, almost baiting the others to answer first. I suspected that would have pissed him off, them talking out of turn and everything. I was starting to understand that this prick was after more than respect. He enjoyed this power game. Enjoyed the taunting and inciting.

  He probably enjoyed the punishments that followed as well.

  My mother had dated someone like that years ago, when I’d still been in elementary school. My middle finger on my left hand was crooked from an incident with that prick. I’d carried a ball of dread with me in my stomach the entire time Carla had been with him. I’d never slept better than the night we’d spent in a shelter after he’d kicked us out.

  I was older now, though. In four months, I’d be old enough to go out on my own. In eight, I’d have a diploma. Whatever this asshole wanted to dole out, I could survive that long. I didn’t need to bend to his whims.

  Julianna’s eyes stayed steady on me.

>   I found myself speaking before I made the decision to apologize. “I’m sorry for my ill manners.” Remembering a rule he’d given me in the car, I added, “Sir.”

  Stark’s lips turned up slightly at the corners, but I sensed he was more pleased with my discomfort than my apology. “Not so hard, was that? Even the best dogs need training. You’re a quick learner. I can tell.”

  He sat down.

  I was smart enough to wait until the women started to sit before I followed suit, which they didn’t do until Stark had given a nod.

  Once seated, I reached for a roll, only to have a fork come swiftly down into the bread, centimeters from my finger. “Surely, you are not in the habit of eating before grace?”

  The Goodies had been the pray-before-meal type as well. “We served ourselves beforehand at the last place,” I said, which was a lie but not something he’d ever know, and did I really deserve to have my hand nearly jabbed for the “mistake”?

  “How vulgar.” He genuinely looked a little sick at the thought. “Who will volunteer?”

  He was staring at me pointedly, a not-so-subtle hint.

  Before I had time to decide if I was going to let him bully me into doing what he wanted, Julianna spoke. “I will.”

  Stark’s eye twitched, but when he turned his gaze to his daughter, he beamed. “Of course you will, darling. Setting an excellent example. I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  She smiled, pleased to have him pleased.

  A rule follower. My instinct to keep my distance from her had been right then. Likely, she was the type to tattle. Headmaster’s pet and his daughter as well. Ten bucks said she had no friends. I certainly wasn’t getting in line for the role.

  She bowed her head and started reciting a memorized prayer. I turned to look at my mother, a woman who had never prayed once at the dinner table when I’d lived with her in the past, and found her eyes closed and her hands clasped, her mouth moving silently as Julianna spoke.

  Great. Ma had found God. As if she didn’t have enough dysfunctional relationships.

  Rolling my eyes, I glanced at Stark. He hadn’t bowed his head, and his stare was fixed on me, his expression cold and hard and menacing.

  Quickly, I lowered my head, in time to hit the “Amen” and lift it again.

  Serving began the instant the prayer was over, but only to Stark. Julianna placed a slice of ham on his plate followed by a spoonful of carrots. My mother stood and circled the table to dish him some mashed potatoes and gravy. It seemed I was expected to give him a roll since they were in front of me.

  So I did.

  Earning me a relieved smile from my mother.

  When she sat down again, she waited expectantly for her husband to taste his food. All of it. Julianna sat still as well, though she was watching me, her face unreadable.

  “Very good, Carla,” my new stepfather said. “The ham is perfection.”

  I could feel her shoulders relax.

  Then he went on. “Good thing it is too. It makes up for the lack of glaze on the carrots. And three starches in one meal? You know better than that.”

  She lowered her eyes. “The asparagus had gone bad.”

  “Then you’ll learn to plan better. Won’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  He took three more bites before he motioned to us. “Go ahead. Eat up. It’s already getting cold.”

  She and Julianna began dishing up their own plates. I waited until they were done, just in case there was a women-go-first rule I didn’t know about, then served myself. Though, to be honest, I’d begun to lose my appetite.

  Picking at my food, it began to return. The ham really was perfection. And the carrots were amazing the way she’d made them—with rosemary and oil. They’d been my favorite before.

  I felt a softening toward her when it occurred to me she might have made them for me.

  But then, out of the blue, she announced, “I’ll do better, Langdon. I will.”

  “I know you will, dear.” While I took those words as a threat, my mother glowed. As though fueled by her husband’s support, ignoring the fact that she’d only needed it because he’d cut her down in the first place.

  I knew then that I’d lost her. Knew that any hint of the woman who had once cared for me was gone. Knew that even if she’d chosen the carrots over the asparagus for me, she wouldn’t do it again. That every choice after this would always put him first.

  Once more I scanned the table—the do-gooder across from me, the stepfather with a need for control, the mother who’d abandoned her son.

  I’d been without her for a while now. For the first time, I realized I was truly on my own.

  Three

  Cade

  “Look who’s got the hots for New Boy.”

  I followed Troy’s gaze to a group of girls in gym clothes walking the track, which was really just a quarter-mile gravel path that circled the school’s main grounds. They were looking at us and giggling, suggesting they were talking about us as well, but I had no idea why he’d assumed it was me that had their attention.

  “Which one?” Birch asked, more interested than I was. I’d already stopped looking.

  “Amelia.”

  Birch nodded, as though his acceptance meant something to me. I hadn’t decided yet if it did. He was definitely the popular man on campus, and befriending him would have its benefits.

  Being a loner had benefits too.

  Birch kicked at my shoe to get my attention. “Amelia would be a good starter girlfriend, Cade. I can hook you guys up, if you’re into her.”

  Starter girlfriend. “Fuck you.”

  He laughed. “It’s not a comment on your experience, asshole. There’s a hierarchy. You can’t get to the top-ranked girls without proving yourself with the lesser.”

  “He’s not dicking with you,” Troy said in a way that suggested it wasn’t unlike Birch to bullshit.

  I leaned back against the shed, turned off by both the idea of a ranking system with the girls and the notion that who you dated was just another way to show off status. It was true in my last school, too, but after only three weeks, I could tell it was worse here.

  That was the whole environment at Stark Academy, though. All that mattered was power, power, power. Not only did the curriculum enforce the belief, but most of the students came from family backgrounds that exemplified it.

  I was definitely the odd man out. In more ways than I could count.

  Birch misinterpreted my silence as hesitation. “Come by my room tonight,” he said. “I’ll tell her you need a tutor, then I’ll make myself scarce.”

  There was no doubt he could make it happen. Not only did Antoine Birch have the face and charm that girls went for, but he also had a pedigree that made him influential. His father was president of one of the nation’s premier banks. His mother, a notable French actress who lived in London. His connections had the staff wrapped around his finger, and there wasn’t a student on campus who didn’t jump when he told them how high.

  I actually could use some help with schoolwork, a fact I wouldn’t admit to the guys. I’d gotten decent grades in the past; not from trying. Natural instincts weren’t enough to survive at a prestigious school like the one my stepfather ran. I wasn’t made for it. Not because I was afraid of hard work, an accusation I’d already heard from his lips a time or two, but because I wasn’t made to be reined in.

  But getting out of the Stark household, even under the guise of being tutored, wasn’t a task I’d figured out how to manage yet. The few attempts I’d made had ended in menial punishments. No television privileges one night. No dessert, another. A backhanded slap across the face a couple evenings before.

  I preferred to be seen as a tough guy, but I didn’t know if I had the stomach for it. I was fully aware that I’d only scratched the surface of Stark’s wrath. I was already toeing the line by ducking out of study hall to sit out here and shoot the shit. I wasn’t sure I was ready to push my luck with more disobe
dience.

  “I’m not really interested in a girlfriend,” I said finally, hoping the true statement would get me out of having to prove myself a rebel.

  Birch pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his shoulder bag and stuck one in his mouth, a Zippo poised to light it. “What are you interested in? Fags?”

  I cringed at the remark, even though I was sure he’d said it to be clever rather than homophobic.

  “Fag. You get it? Because they call smokes fags in Britain.” Troy was the perfect lackey. He’d probably suck him off, if that’s what Birch wanted, and Troy had made it perfectly clear he was not into boys.

  I ignored the invitation to pour praise on the top dog and answered the question. “Keeping my head down and graduating.”

  Birch passed the pack and the light to Troy. “Ah, I get it. You got a girl back home. Promised to be faithful?”

  “No, no. I mean, there was a girl I fucked around with, but it wasn’t like that.” Well, it wasn’t like that for me. I’d been clear from the start with Heather that relationships weren’t my thing, which hadn’t prevented her from latching on.

  The sex had been too good for me to dump her altogether, but honestly, if there was anything good that had come from being suddenly transported to Wallingford, it was that I no longer had to deal with her constant attempts to make us a couple.

  “So you want a fuck buddy.” Cigarette lit, Troy passed the pack and the light to me.

  I paused before taking one out. Though the shed and the grounds behind it were an area that seemed ignored by the adults, we weren’t exactly out of sight.

  On the other hand, I’d really missed smoking.

  Fuck it.

  I put the Camel between my lips and lit it. Then I set the pack and the light on the ground at my side. “I wouldn’t mind a fuck buddy. If you could find me a chick that wouldn’t get attached.”

  Birch looked back to the running path where the girls gym class was still walking the loop. “For that, I’d suggest her, but you know.”

  I took a drag as I again followed his line of sight and this time landed on Julianna. Her long hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her expression intent as she jogged past slower students. Her legs were more muscular than I’d realized. Her ass, more toned. She really was beautiful.