by Lindsey Iler
Glass Heart Savage
Lindsey Iler
Glass Heart Savage
Copyright 2020 Lindsey Iler
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. This book or any portions thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher.
This is a word of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actions events is purely coincidental.
Editing by Katie Mac
Proofreading by Deaton Author Services
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Playlist
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Acknowledgement
Stay Connected
About the Author
Playlist
Teeth- 5 Seconds of Summer
Rabbit Hole- AViVA
Hate Me (with Juice WRLD)- Ellie Goulding
When You Loved Me Least- Michl
You- WRENN
Beautiful Hell- Adna
Paper Love- Allie X
Die Young- grandson
Blood // Water- grandson
Monster (Under My Bed)- Call Me Karizma
Die A Little- YUNGBLUD
Bitter Love- Pia Mia
Hatefuck- Cruel Youth
The Violence- Asking Alexandria
What Have I Done- Dermot Kennedy
I Think I’m OKAY (with YUNGBLUD and Travis Barker)-Machine Gun Kelly
Middle Finger- Bohnes
Follow it out on Spotify
Dedication
To my older sister, Katie...
You’ve given me permission to be a little crazy and to color outside the lines. I have zero fear of what anyone else thinks because you’ve always had my back.
I love you.
P.S. I’m sorry for everything I ever borrowed and lost.
Chapter One
Palmer
“Move it!”
A shoulder hits my back with enough force to make me stumble and fall in the middle of the quad. Before I hit the cement headfirst, I manage to catch myself. This is not how I saw the first day of my senior year going.
Campus is in full disarray. Students are milling around, whispering about the latest news. The headlines read LOCAL GIRL GOES MISSING.
Even if everyone wasn’t distracted, I’d be the least of their worries.
This isn’t anything new here at Glass Heart Academy. Since last fall, four girls have vanished into thin air. The news report on them all read the same. Rich family. No note. Community confused.
Damn straight, we’re confused. More like frightened. My sister’s disappearance started the chain of events. The second girl was our star soccer player, Molly, destined to play for Team USA. Everyone knew it wasn’t a mere coincidence, but no one wanted to say the truth out loud. By the time Sarah Englewood’s dorm was found empty with the door wide open, everyone took a pause. That happens when the missing girl is the daughter of a Supreme Court judge.
Outside of my sister, Jessica Schuster is the first victim to feel close to me. She was our very own sweetheart and my lab partner last year in biology. I’ve never bought into her, though. Although she was nice, she once offered me a bump of cocaine at a party Reed had dragged me to. It’s hard to believe the act when a girl shows you her true self. Not that her recreational habit means she deserves whatever has happened to her. None of these girls did.
Life’s a cruel son of a bitch, though. I’ve understood that since the moment I’d found Reed’s blood splattered all over her apartment. She was the only girl to leave a clue, and still, no suspects. I’ve watched enough documentaries to know that’s as unlikely as finding a shark on land.
“What are you staring at, loser?” Quinn Herrington glares at me from across the quad.
Was I staring at her? Sometimes I get lost in my own thoughts, not realizing I’m staring dead at someone. To me, it’s like they aren’t even there. Embarrassing. I turn around and push my way through the crowd.
Why does everyone seem to hate me? That’s an easy answer. Reed Weston is . . . was . . . I don’t even know which one to say now, but she’s my sister. We’re approaching the one-year mark since she’s been gone. I’ve begged and pleaded to transfer out of Glass Heart Academy, even gone so far as to offer to move out west with my aunt and uncle, but my parents refuse to consider the idea.
Only the best is allowed within these walls, and no daughter of ours will be seen as mediocre. Those words will forever play in my mind. Their fear of me running the Weston name through the mud, overrides my need for any sense of normalcy and security. Instead, I walk through the same campus, eat in the same cafeteria, knowing my sister was targeted within these coveted walls. I’m meant to be grateful for my place at this school.
When news first spread of Reed’s disappearance, everyone at Glass Heart Academy treated me with kid gloves. No one wanted to upset me or show any inkling of animosity. Sometime between her disappearance and today, well, things have changed a bit.
I’m a social pariah. It’s not because I’m ugly or an easy target—let’s be real, I’m stronger than these idiots— but simply because I share a face with their queen. Their fallen queen. Reed and I may not be twins, but we might as well have been.
Grabbing my books and loose papers makes it seem as if I have some sort of order to this chaos, when, in reality, I have anything but. It’s my senior year, and I’ve managed to survive the last three at the academy, and the eight before that at our sister prep school, and yet, this year is already proving to be different.
All attention is on me. When another girl goes missing, it tends to dredge up the past. As I finish the war path through the garden and into one of the twenty buildings on campus, I hold tight to the necklace hidden under my uniform blouse.
Glass Heart Academy is everything one would expect from a private school. Each building contains a different lecture hall dedicated to its own unique subject.
We have the usual types. Rich kids mostly, which explains the cloud of Chanel No. 5 looming through the campus. The art kids thrive because arts are deemed most important, making us a pipeline straight to Juilliard. We are also one of the only academies that has a decent athletic program. Football, soccer, and lacrosse bring talented athletes from all over the country to our fields.
We have the best because we are the best.
It’s that damn simple.
Unfortunately, with that kind of mindset drilled into us since kindergarten, there is bound to be a giant heap of assholes to go to school with.
“Hey, Reed.”
And there’s Exhibit A. Dixon Decatur is the biggest asshole to walk through these halls. He’s the sneaky kind of asshole no one is ever quite ready for, but when he strikes, he strikes where it counts. He’s also a damn genius, which is even more infuriating.
“You know my name is Pal
mer.” I shove past him. He’s gone to great lengths to call me by my sister’s name any chance he can get.
His unwarranted disdain for me has set the tone for the rest of the student body’s hatred towards me. He’s one-fourth of the Glass House Boys.
“Yeah, sure, but when the only sister that actually matters dies.” He shrugs, a cocky gleam in his eyes. “You see where I’m going with this?” He runs his hands through his hair, checking out the ass of a freshman girl who passes by.
“Fuck off! The only reason you’re even here is because your daddy bought your way in.” I hold up two middle fingers and climb the stairs. This isn’t an insult. Most of us have opportunities given to us simply from being born into the correct bloodline. Me included.
“Is that the only reason why I got this job then, Miss Weston?” Fucking Byron Decatur. Their parents should have known to stop with one asshole, but instead, chose to spawn two of them.
His face is the last one I expect to see, especially with him wearing a teacher pin on his lapel, yet, here he stands in the flesh, a cocky smile on his lips. He’s the ruler of his world, and everyone around him bows down at his feet. With that kind of power, I’m not surprised he chose to come back here.
Reed and Byron dated when she was a freshman and he was a senior. Apparently, my parents were dumb enough to trust him based off his trust fund balance alone.
Byron Decatur is quick to fool everyone. Charming and witty are quite the cocktail. Everyone drinks him right up, and he knows it.
“Don’t you still have another year of school?” The pressure my teeth are under from seeing him is enough to crack them in half. Even when he dated my sister, I never felt quite comfortable around him. Maybe that’s why he’s never been my biggest fan, either. I can see through his bullshit, and he doesn’t like feeling exposed.
“Well, Miss Weston, a teaching assistant job opened up, and now, I get to spend the year here with you, finishing off the last part of my degree.” Just like his brother, Byron is ungodly attractive. He tosses his soft brown hair, and I’m greeted by a jawline that’s been chiseled from stone.
“Lucky us.” I plop down in the second row and flip open a blank notebook, hoping to ignore the brothers’ eyes on me.
A dark shadow casts over my desk, and two veiny hands clasp around the edge of the hundred-year oak top. These are the same desks used when the academy originally opened. They’ve been painted and polished more times than can be counted, but underneath lies a rich history. I’m sure if they could talk, they’d have stories full of toxic masculinity and girls willing to bend at a boy’s will simply to be married into the right family.
“Is there a problem, Miss Weston?” Byron’s dark eyebrows perk up when I dare to glance at him. “Because if there is, we can step out into the hallway and talk about what has your panties all in a bunch.”
“Do you honestly think you can intimidate me?” I sit up straighter to not show any weakness, running my hands over my uniform skirt. “Or talk to a student that way?”
“It’s hard to consider you a student of mine when I’ve seen your body.” He licks his lips like there’s something delicious smeared across them, then pushes off the desk.
I want to argue with him, but there’s no point. He has seen my body. Not because I willingly allowed it, but because he doesn’t know how to knock.
“Already fucking Teach, huh?” Barrett ‘Breaker’ Davenport, the third boy in their crew, sits in the seat beside me. “It’s weak, girl. You should know better than that.”
“No one’s fucking anyone,” I groan. Do I have a sign on my forehead that says ‘Assholes, please speak to me today’?
“Well, that’s just simply not true.” Breaker swivels his hips from side to side, gesturing at the seats surrounding us. “We’re all fucking someone. It will never be you, though.”
Mirroring Breaker’s movements by twisting in my seat, I come face-to-face with all the Glass House Boys. It’s the name given to those who are privileged enough to live at the top of the hill. The house up there is secluded and unwatched by those in power on campus. They shuffle new students in every four years, and these ass hats are on their last lifeline.
How are these boys chosen? That shit is beyond me. Since I have a pussy under my school uniform, I’m instantly not privy to those kinds of things. It’s something I’ve never understood.
Byron lives up there, even though he isn’t a student. He’d petitioned the school board, arguing an impressive case for why he should be there to babysit his younger brother. Every member ate his words up. Charismatic cocktail and all. It also doesn’t hurt their father is a major donor to the academy.
“Oh, no!” I clasp at my chest, mocking them. “Whatever will I do without knowing what it feels like to have an overused dick pummeled into me twice before you cum all over my dorm sheets?” My hands cover my heart in pretend disappointment. “However will I live without that experience?”
Breaker stands and grabs his dick. “You couldn’t handle me.” He leans down, never dropping his stare from mine, and brings his lips right to my ear. “My dick would tear your small frame in half, baby girl.” He pulls away and walks backwards, a cocky grin on display like he’s won something.
“At this point, you three are practically a rite of passage on campus I’d gladly miss out on.” Playing with fire on a Monday morning isn’t the brightest choice. The cards have been dealt, and now I’m working with what I have.
“Don’t listen to him.” Marek Hawthorne settles in beside me. And there’s the last one, the most gorgeous of them all. “I’d drive my dick into you. That is if you wanted it. Not really into non-consensual sex like Dixon, though.” He leans into me, and I hate the way it makes my stomach do a somersault.
I stare at Marek, uncertain as to why he’s sitting next to me. We’ve had classes together since elementary school, and we’ve never breathed the same air.
Not unless Reed was close by.
“Fuck you, man.” Dixon smacks him on the back of the head as he passes. “Those charges were dropped, and she apologized. With her mouth.” He slams through the large wooden doors.
Last year, a girl claimed Dixon sexually assaulted her. Lucky for Dixon, he has a fetish for recording his conquests. All it took was him walking that footage down to the police station, and charges were dropped. Rumor has it, the sex had been rough, but she had been more than willing to lay down with him.
Marek plays with the lapels of his black jacket. The fabric fits him like a second skin, pulled tight over his shoulders. His tie is disheveled like he has just rolled out of bed. I bite my lip, trying to stop the thoughts I’m having about what’s hidden underneath his uniform.
Maybe I am weak.
His hair is a dark mess, pulling off the ‘just woke up’ look effortlessly. His eyes are what draw me in, though. Cornflower blue, soft and inviting, they’re the exact opposite of everything else about him. His presence is massive and full of self-confidence. It’s no wonder why everyone seems to gravitate to him.
It doesn’t go unnoticed that Breaker and Dixon have walked out of class before it has even begun. My guess is there will be a check mark next to their name on the attendance sheet, courtesy of Mr. Decatur.
“Can you, like, not sit right next to me?” I twist my shoulders away from Marek, hoping he’ll get the idea.
“Afraid of being seen with a hidden legacy?” His amused laughter annoys the hell out of me. “I never took you as a snob, Palmer.”
Marek is here as a hidden legacy. He’s too smart for his own damn good, at the top of our class, and on the fast track to killing the game at Harvard or any other Ivy League school he decides to grace his presence at. Unfortunately, that’s not why I don’t want to be seen next to him.
“I don’t want to be seen with someone who sold his soul to survive this place.” I stand to move seats. Marek mirrors my movements, bringing us chest-to-chest.
“Is that what you think I did?” As he stares a
t me, he runs the back of his finger down my bare arm, creating a path of heat against my skin. A shiver coils up my spine when his lips hit my ear. “Or maybe I’m just like them but hide it better.” I’m shoved down into my seat, and within the minimal space, he leans down, his breath tickling my lips. “Or maybe you’re afraid because you’re dying to play with us. Just like your sister did.”
Marek steps over the row and sits down in the chair right in front of me. All it would take is for me to remove my belt, wrap it around his neck, and tug it tight until his lungs give out on him. It would be that easy.
“Don’t think about it too hard, Palmer.” Marek doesn’t bother to address me, choosing to keep his attention on the board ahead of us. “Sinful thoughts like that will only get you into my bed.”
What is happening? This boy hasn’t so much as glanced in my direction, and all of a sudden, today, he’s choosing to mess with me.
I smack the back of his head. “Shut the fuck up!”
Marek turns, his tongue poking at the inside of his cheek. A wicked smile flashes across his face. “Oh, you’re going to pay for that.” The snarl he’s sporting tells me what I need to know. I’ve hit a nerve.
“Oh, I’m so scared.” I pretend to tremble.
“Miss Weston, please report to the dean’s office,” Byron calls out, a sternness in his tone that causes a wave of giggles from my classmates. “Now.”
I stack my books and papers, holding them close to my chest. My body pauses beside Marek’s row, and I glare down at him.
“Oh, you should really smile more, sweetheart.” His hand glides up the inside of my leg, creeping close to the apex of my thighs hidden beneath my skirt. The heat of his hand warms me.
I smack his touch away, which only makes him smile harder. “Mr. Decatur, are you going to do anything about him? He just touched me without my permission.”
“Miss Weston, quit causing trouble, and please leave my room. Some of us take our education seriously.” Byron sits down at his desk.