The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels Series Book 1)

by Callie Hart

  For the very first time, a small flicker of emotion flashes over his features. I haven’t angered him, though. His composure doesn’t falter even for a heartbeat. He simply looks…confused. With careful, measured, even steps, he moves towards me, and a kernel of fear begins to take root inside me. What…what the hell is he going to do?

  “I have a temper,” he grinds out. “A bad one. I had to master it a long time ago, otherwise it was going to master me. So, yeah. I’m not exactly the most reactive person you’ll ever meet. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing going on in here,” he says, tapping the side of his head. “I’m not aloof. I’m not cold. I’m not distant. I’m learning. And I feel everything, Silver.” He pauses, an unfamiliar edge of uncertainty smoldering in his eyes. It looks like he’s battling with himself over what he should say next. He speaks quickly, then, rushing the words out, as if he wants to expel them from his body before he can change his mind.

  “You’re right. I told you that you were a means to an end in the bathroom, that I wasn’t interested in you, and that wasn’t true. I am not trying to use you as a source of entertainment, though. I’m trying to figure you out. I’m intrigued by you.”

  “Why the hell would I intrigue you, for Christ’s sake?”

  He doesn’t miss a beat. “Because you’re still standing. Because, after everything you went through, you didn’t fucking break.”

  He’s so close to me now. Closer than he’s ever been before. I’m unsteady on my feet, and my heart is rioting against my ribs, as though it’s trying to break free from its cage and flee the scene of a crime.

  “Strength is drawn to strength, Silver, and I think there’s a chance that you might be the strongest person I have ever met.” His warm breath skates over my collar bone and the shiver that follows doesn’t just slide over my skin—it sinks deep down into the marrow of my bones. With excruciatingly slow movements, Alex reaches out a tentative hand and takes hold of the curl of hair that’s fallen free from my sloppy ponytail. He gently winds it around the end of his finger, pupils blown, his lips parted, fixated on his finger and my hair that’s wrapped around it. He whispers the words that follow. “It isn’t just that. I also happen to think that you’re the most beautiful fucking thing I have ever witnessed with my own two eyes. I am watching you just as much as you’re watching me…and I don’t trust myself to look away.”

  Ho…ly….shiiiiiiit.

  I am seventeen-years-old. The world is changing around me so rapidly that I worry I might never find my place in it. Just a few short years ago, I was so sure of everything. I loved boybands, and horses, drawing and playing my guitar. Then, almost overnight, nothing was certain anymore, and things I thought I knew to be true no longer were. It was as though I was a caterpillar, happy, learning and growing, and then without warning I began to transform into something else. There has been no chrysalis, though, no cocoon to hide away inside, safe, until I’m ready to reemerge into the world, new and fresh and complete. No, all of my transformations have taken place out in the open, in public, for all to see, and the process has been horrific.

  In the past year alone, I’ve had to endure more trauma and heartache than most people are asked to endure in their entire lifetimes. Something precious was taken from me, ripped away, stolen with greedy hands and whiskey-soaked breath, and I felt it inside me—that bottomless, dark chasm that swallowed any hope of me ever having a normal teenage life. I’ve believed, since the moment I rolled over onto my side on the bathroom floor of Leon Wickman’s father’s bathroom with my insides all torn up, blood making the insides of my thighs sticky, the smell of copper hanging heavy in the air, that I would never be capable of feeling affection for a guy ever again.

  And yet…

  Here I am, seventeen-years-old, unbroken…and the way Alex Moretti is looking at me now has kindled something in the hollow of my chest that I thought had perished.

  Alex swallows, his eyes on fire, and I can read his intentions on his face: he’s going to kiss me. He’s going to press his mouth on mine, and he’s going to bury his hands into my hair, and he’s going to steal my breath, and my heart and the tattered remnants of my fragile soul…and I’m going to let him, because I’m intrigued by him, too, and—

  “Get out.”

  I hate the words even as I whisper them, but I can’t. I can’t fucking do this.

  Alex’s eyes, half lowered, open wide at the command. He immediately takes a step back. Next thing I know, he’s sliding on his leather jacket, which has been sitting on Dad’s workbench this entire time, and he’s leaving the garage. He swings his leg over his motorcycle and then sits there for a second, staring at me. “I’m not going to force you to fall for me, Silver. You’ve already been forced to do too much. But don’t blame me if I try and change your mind.”

  “You’ve got more chance of pulling down the moon.” My throat throbs, aching against the words, but they’re the truth.

  Alex turns the key in the ignition, and the motorcycle’s engine roars to life. The single beam of its headlight feels like a tractor beam, pulling me toward him, tugging at the very cells of my body, but I stay absolutely still as he backs down the driveway, out onto the street, and rides off into the rain.

  14

  ALEX

  Another shift at the Rock. Halliday doesn’t show, which is a relief. I don’t want to deal with anyone from Raleigh right now, least of all a member of Kacey Winters’ Sirens. Montgomery has me make a run for him just before midnight. I hand off the bag and accept the envelope all without looking up at the person I’m making the deal with. I don’t want any faces sticking in my memory, and this has never felt good to me. I don’t know what’s in the bag, but it’s probably drugs. Coke, maybe. Hopefully not meth or heroine. I don’t like the idea of being Monty’s mule any more than I like the idea of losing out on the cash if I tell him I won’t do it anymore, so I try and get the job done as quickly and painlessly as possible.

  Monty gives me a six-pack and my own little envelope containing our agreed upon amount. Once my shift's over and I'm back at the trailer, the green neon digits of the alarm clock next to the T.V. reading two twenty-three in the morning, I squirrel the envelope away in the box behind the water heater. Then, I drink the six-pack in silence, staring at the static on the television screen, thinking about Silver. The over-sized t-shirts she wears are a shield. A defense. She uses all that extra fabric to hide her body from hungry eyes. I should know—I couldn't take mine off her when I saw her in that black lacey number she was sporting yesterday. She wore that for me, to impress me, to catch my attention, and when she got it…

  She was afraid.

  She was afraid of me, which is not okay. I’m a piece of shit, sure. I’ve done plenty of things I’m not proud of. I still do things I’m not proud of on a regular basis, running Monty’s deliveries being a prime example, but I have never, ever hurt a girl. I’ve never laid my hands on a girl unless she’s begged me to do it, and then it’s only been to bring her pleasure. I’ve never encouraged a chick to do anything she didn’t want to do. Damn it, I don’t even disrespect women when I open my fucking mouth.

  Silver doesn’t know this. She doesn’t know me, so her reluctance to give me a shot is understandable.

  I fall asleep on the couch—nothing new there—and my neck’s killing me when I wake up. I shower while the coffee’s brewing, hurrying because I don’t want to miss Silver before she disappears through Raleigh’s doors and manages to give me the slip for the rest of the day. But when I open the trailer door…it’s fucking raining so hard I can barely see three feet in front of my own face.

  No way I can ride to Raleigh in this. I’m going to have to drive the old Camaro, and it’s been so long since I even started the engine it’s bound to be fucking dead. When I throw my ass inside the car, slide the key into the ignition, and turn it over, I’m met with the straining sounds of one very unhappy combustion engine. It stutters, catches, almost strengthens, and then dies. Fuck,
I hate when I’m right.

  I've been fixing cars since I was old enough to hold a wrench, so it doesn't take long to hook the Camaro up to the neighbor's car and zap some life into the old girl. It does mean the bell's already rung by the time I jog inside the school building and Silver's nowhere to be seen, though.

  I think about missing homeroom altogether and just waiting for her outside her room; I need to have my attendance marked even if I am late, though, otherwise Rhonda and Maeve are gonna shit themselves, and I can’t be fucked dealing with that right now. Besides, hunting Silver down and lurking in the hallway until she appears is pretty fucking close to stalking, and I doubt that will help.

  At lunch, Jake informs me that my presence is required after school for my first training session with the team, even though the schedule Coach Quentin gave me doesn't have me down until next week. “All good, though, Man. We're all gonna be on a massive high for Leon's party and no extra sit-ups or push-ups required to make our shirts look good. Plus, that first beer is gonna taste so fucking good if we've earned it on the field.”

  I really fucking hate the way he throws his arm around my shoulder and grins at me, laughing like a hyena, but I allow it. Jacob needs to believe I'm toeing the line with him for more than one reason. I'm still working out the details, but there will come a day when Jakey Boy's crown slips, and I'll make sure the whole school is on hand to witness it. His fall from grace will make Silver’s descent look like she tripped and landed on the world’s most comfortable feather mattress.

  Training’s brutal. My lungs are scorched, and my legs are on fire before we're even halfway through warm-ups, but I hide it well. Can't let these motherfuckers think for one second that I can't keep up. I can, and I do. But I also make a personal note to start running every morning. My cardio could be better.

  Jacob’s as subtle as a sledgehammer to the head as he whispers into his buddy’s ears, encouraging them to put me through my paces. I’m tripped, punched in the back, and bombarded with a series of late hits that Coach Quentin ignores with a level of skill that I find pretty damn impressive. I was expecting this kind of shit, though. I’m the new guy. This probably won’t be the last training session I walk away from covered in bruises, and it won’t be the last time my new teammates give me the rough treatment. In their eyes, I’ll need to prove myself. Make them trust me.

  And I’ve decided that maybe I do want them to trust me, too.

  “Stai attentio, mi amore. Stai attento.”

  I hear her voice, the whisperings of a ghost, as I shower, my body singing with pain. I try not to hear. I try not to pay attention, but it’s hard to turn the memory of my mother away. These memories are all I have left of her. I know how these things work. If I keep blocking the soft lilting melody of her voice from my ears, eventually I’ll stop hearing it altogether. There will come a day, maybe years from now, that I can no longer remember what she sounded like at all. I fucking dread that day’s arrival, it’s my worst nightmare, but I can’t lose myself in dark memories right now. I have no choice but to banish them from my mind. Later. There will be time for remembering later, when I’m alone, back in the trailer, when I’m grateful for the company of the dead.

  “Might as well follow us over to Harry’s, Moretti,” Cillian Dupris calls across the locker room. “We’re grabbing burgers before we head over to Leon’s.”

  Fuck. I was hoping I’d have a moment to slip away between the end of practice and the start of Leon’s party, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to escape.

  As we drive over to Harry’s diner, my head’s spinning. Connections are being made, pieces of a plan slowly coming together. In the background of my mind, images of Silver present themselves to me, one after the other, my subconscious thrusting memories of her to the forefront of my mind. These memories are recent, though. Unlike the echoes of my mother, the girl with the haunted blue eyes burns vividly in my head.

  She's there, sitting beside me in the booth as I make short work of a burger, the guys tossing fries at each other, chugging milkshakes that Jake spikes from a scuffed hipflask. She's there, silent, judging me morosely as I make a point of joking and laughing along with my teammates. On the way over to Leon's place, she's sitting next to me in the Camaro, her head resting sadly against my shoulder. I can feel a resigned sorrow pouring from her and into me as I pull down a driveway after Jake's tricked out Jeep Cherokee, and I know she thinks this is a bad idea.

  Except, Silver isn't really here. She's probably locked away in a bedroom I've spent a considerable amount of time imagining in great detail, studying, her head buried inside a textbook, hair gathered in a messy ponytail, her quick, bright eyes devouring the information on the pages before her. She's probably playing her guitar. She's probably not struggling to shove the memory of me out of her head. She probably hasn’t even thought about me at all since last night, when she told me I’d tasked myself with the impossible challenge of pulling down the moon.

  Leon's family are predictably wealthy. The driveway turns out to be a mile long. From the outside, the house is a sprawling jigsaw puzzle of a building, all odd angles and jutting overhangs; an architect designed this building to mimic the shape of the land that surrounds it, complementing the steep, unforgiving buttress of the cliff face that forms the western wall of the valley the house is nestled into. The soft, liquid lines of the sloped roof seem to open themselves to the sky. Everywhere, vast stretches of glass reflect the green of the trees that gather around the structure. The subtle grey-blue of the slate exterior blends into the landscape with artistic precision. That’s how the whole place feels actually: that it wasn’t just designed. That it emerged or was wished into existence, right out of an artist’s dream.

  “Pretty badass, right?” Jake asks, jerking his chin toward the house. “Leon’s dad’s rich as fuck. He’s a defense attorney in Seattle. He’s never here.” Jake shrugs. “Leaves Leon alone with his platinum Amex and the keys to his jag most of the time. Leon’s basically the luckiest bastard in the world.”

  “Where’s his mom?” The question comes out unbidden.

  “Dead.”

  I flinch away from the word.

  “Oh, it’s okay, man. Leon was just a kid when she offed herself. You ask me, he’s better off without her. My mom’s a major pain in the ass. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I wish she’d kill herself of anything. That’d be super fucked up. But…you can’t deny it. Leon’s got it fucking easy here. And he wouldn’t be able to throw such killer parties if he had a bored, self-medicated yoga instructor mom hovering over him, prying into his shit, right?”

  It feels like the gold chain around my neck is choking the life out of me. Thank fuck it doesn't seem like Jake actually expects an answer out of me, because I don't trust myself to speak right now. I ignore the heat rising up the back of my neck, giving Jacob a tight smile. If he were concerned with anything but his own shitty perspective, his own self-centered point of view, then he might notice the cutting edge that's crept into my voice.

  “Yeah, you’re right. He’s far better off without anyone giving him shit. It’d suck if he couldn’t throw parties anymore.”

  I would kill to have my mother back.

  I would kill to know where my father was, if only so I could throat punch the fuck for abandoning us all after Ben was born.

  Jacob’s probably never even considered the possibility that Leon might sacrifice this house and his unfettered freedom if it meant that he could have his mother back in his life. He grins at me like I’m seeing things his way, we’re cut from the same cloth, and he’s pleased that we’re so much alike. “Come on, man. Let’s get this fucker started before the others show up. Leon’s dad’s got a stash of high-end Japanese whiskey, and I know where the key to the liquor cabinet is.”

  Everywhere I look, I keep seeing her face. The place is thumping, loud, bassy music echoing around the cavernous interior of the house, but everything feels very quiet and very still inside my
head. I know she’s not here. This is the last place on earth Silver would appear, but still my eyes continue to play tricks on me, making the back of every head of long golden-brown hair look like hers. I can feel the slight buzz of alcohol jittering through my veins, but I’m far from drunk. I’m used to drinking. I’ve been knocking back stuff way harder than the pissy beer one of the guys on the football team managed to scrounge up for a very long time now. Even Leon’s dad’s whiskey didn’t have any real impact on me. I laugh and joke along with the other revelers, though, pretending to be as fucked up as them, and all the while I’m biting my tongue, hating every second of this bullshit, tasting blood in my mouth.

  Leon's not like Jake and his brainless cohorts. I'm not sure how I haven't run into him until now, but I think, under different circumstances, I'd like the guy. He’s quiet and steady, thinking a lot as he looks around, watching our school mates treat his father's pad with complete disregard. He flinches every time something breaks, but he doesn't do or say anything about it. When a large, expensive looking painting hanging over the fireplace is hit with a flying football and the canvas tears, he just walks blankly into the kitchen, his eyes glazed over. The guy looks like a teenaged ken doll in his stiff, button-down shirt and his khakis. On the outside, he and I couldn't be more unlike. But when I catch the look of open disgust on his face when he finds three guys in the hallway, gathered around a phone, rapt, talking about someone's wet pussy, I get the feeling we're pretty fucking similar on the inside.

  I spend an hour dodging both Zen and Halliday for different reasons and wind up in the kitchen, back to the wall, observing the drunken debauchery that’s taking place in every direction with a cold, unimpressed mask of indifference on my face. The mask’s a warning, a threat: come within five feet of me and expect to lose a limb. For the most part, it’s an efficient way of making sure no one bothers me, but Leon seems impervious to it. He enters the kitchen, hands empty when everyone else is holding at least two drinks, and when he sees me, he actually looks relieved. He heads straight for me, smiling tightly, and I wonder what he's going to say; he wasn't all that talkative earlier when Jake introduced me to him as his new ‘boy'—a title that I resent beyond words. Somehow makes me feel complicit with him.