Hateful Bully (Bad Bullies Book Two): A Dark Step Brother Bully Romance
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Not even this deters her. She messes with her hair, and then starts adjusting her clothing as if she wishes she wore something more scandalous today. “I…uh…it’s good to see you, Josiah.”
I show her my teeth. There’s no way she could possibly mistake it for a smile, but she grins anyway.
“Can I help you?”
“Oh, yeah, uh…Is Candace home?”
“She’s sick.” Hopefully, that information will end this torturous exchange sooner rather than later.
“Oh, yeah, actually…” Marissa twists around and starts digging in her backpack.
I drum my fingers on the lintel.
Marissa doesn’t seem to notice. A moment later, she flourishes a thin stack of lined paper. “Thought she’d need some notes from Science class.” Her grin shows more teeth than a shark’s. “Can I come—”
“Thanks,” I say, snatching the papers from her and slamming the door in her face.
Candy isn’t friends with Marissa. She isn’t friends with anyone. For some reason, bubbly and affectionate little Candy Cane seems incapable of making friends at school. I’d feel sorry for her, if I gave a shit.
But I don’t.
“Asshole,” comes Marissa’s muffled voice from the other side of the door.
I smile to myself. You’d think they’d know to avoid me by now, but still, they come. I’m about to toss the stack of papers on the entrance table when something bright pink catches my eye.
!! 4 TEST !!
Fuck, there’s legit a ton of notes on these papers, and quite a lot of it’s been highlighted for the test. I’d get into a world of shit if Candy didn’t get this. After all, it’s not as if she’s actually sick. She’s detoxing from a weekend spent binging.
How can no one else notice? Especially Dad. I mean, how the fuck does she even play chess if she’s already slurring before they head to the study?
Because they don’t play chess, do they?
I push away the thought. It’s been coming back more and more lately, hanging there, all insidious like. I don’t let it bait me into spending a second longer wasting energy on Candy or my dad.
They can both go to hell.
Except, unfortunately, Dad can make my life hell. Somewhere along the line, he decided that I was Candy’s guardian. I have to take her to school; I have to bring her back. When she sneaks out of the house, I make sure she gets home okay.
When a bunch of guys drug her and do God knows what to her, I make sure no one finds out. It should be because I’m a real dapper guy…but really, it’s just so that I don’t have to suffer the consequences.
I ram open her door without knocking. She’s got her back to me, lying on her bed like she’s sleeping. Her room smells stale, and there’s an underlying hint of booze—the kind where it seeps out through your pores when your liver’s done being the body’s sponge.
“What did you tell them this time?” I ask, tossing down her notes on her bedside table and immediately going over to the window.
She groans when I yank open the curtains, and pulls the sheet over her head. I throw open the window, inhaling fresh air when it gusts into the house. Bale manor was built on a rise, so we get the brunt of the weather when it’s windy outside.
“Close it.” Her whine is muffled by the sheet.
“It stinks in here.”
“Jo…”
I stalk over to the side of her bed, blood ten degrees hotter than before. She gasps when I yank the sheets off her, and then tries to grab them back. I toss them over my shoulder. “You’re pathetic, you know that?”
She scowls at me, but doesn’t argue. Perhaps because she knows it’s the truth.
“You have a test this week.” I point the notes on her side table. “You’d best start studying.”
“Who died and made you king?” she mutters. Then she twists onto her side and pushes the notes off her bedside, hunting through the mess.
“Looking for your pills? Your water?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not doing that anymore.”
“What?” She squints at me over her shoulder. “That was you?”
“This shit’s got to stop, Candy.” I want to sit beside her, but I know I shouldn’t allow myself to get that close.
I hate Candace, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I keep angry-fucking her in my dreams even though that shit’s confusing as all hell. It sticks with me, day in and day out, the sounds she makes when I’m mounting her from behind like a rabid animal.
More often than not, my boxers are soaked with cum when I wake up.
I’m sure there’s some perfectly normal psychological explanation for it. It’s what fascinates me about the human mind. How I’m a perfectly normal kid until I go to sleep, and then I become a psycho.
What would happen if the dreams stopped one day? Would I still feel the need to experience such depravity? Would it drive me to act out those demented scenes in real life? Would I turn to making deeply debauched porn films?
“Give it up, Jo.”
“You don’t get to call me that, understand?”
She glares at me like she’s got a death wish.
“Only family get to call me Jo. You? Candy? You’re nothing to me.”
I honestly expect her to have some kind of comeback, but all she does is stare at me. Then, in a voice that barely resembles her natural one, she says, “Really? I couldn’t tell.”
My heart’s beating way too hard.
For a second, I’m almost overwhelmed by the urge to apologize to her. I mean, I get it. Life’s been shit to both of us lately. But I’m not running around killing neurons every chance I get.
She thinks she’s so special. A real-life Cinderella, waiting with bated breath for her Prince Charming.
What Candace doesn’t seem to realize is that there is no Fairy fucking Godmother. No one’s gonna turn her rags into a ball gown. And the only thing that’ll happen if she doesn’t get home by midnight?
She risks getting spiked by a bunch of adolescent boys with itchy cocks.
Again.
I’m glad my dad’s not home because when I storm out of her room, I slam the door so hard I’ll be shocked if I didn’t put a crack through it.
Chapter Fifteen
Candy
I wish I knew what other people dreamed of. Not just what they dream about, but what it feels like to them. Is it as real for them as it is for me? Do they sometimes feel like they have some control…but then pretend like they don’t?
I doubt many people even think about it as much as I do, especially lately.
My thinking is that everyone’s got a bunch of stuff they keep bottled up inside. Crazy shit that no one would want to let out. Sort of like a personal Pandora’s Box of immorality.
Dreams are like little peeps you take inside that box. Snippets escape and play havoc, but just until you wake up again.
Thing is…someone’s gone and kicked open the box, and I don’t think I’ll ever get it to close again.
Ever since the party, strange things come to me in the early hours of the morning, close to dawn.
I don’t know what triggers them.
Don’t think I want to.
I shouldn’t be complaining. I mean, they’re not nightmares. Not really. While I’m in them, I’m having the time of my life. But the images and sensations and hedonistic urges those dreams create cling to me, a spiritual oil slick that stays behind hours after I wake.
The worst part is that, more than once, I wake up with my hands down my underwear. And I’m always soaking wet down there, usually still tingling on the brink of a climax.
Again, not complaining.
I’m just wondering how normal it is. Not the dreams, but the shame that comes after.
Josiah does a double-take when I walk into the kitchen. He makes a show of looking at the large clock on the wall. “You wet the bed?”
My cheeks flame, and I hang my head so my hair will hide my embarrassment. I hadn’t thought he’d
be down here—his bedroom door was closed, so I was sure he was still asleep.
I almost did wet the bed. At least, my underwear was soaked again when I woke up this morning.
“I’m glad you’re finally figuring out how it works,” he says, seeming oblivious to the fact that I’m not in the mood for small talk.
When he doesn’t carry on talking, I’m part grateful, part curious. I pour myself a coffee, and then turn around and blow steam off the top with a big sigh. “How what works?” I mumble.
He’s sitting at the breakfast nook, going through something on his phone, and replies without looking up. “Early to bed, early to rise.”
I growl and stalk out of the kitchen. Wayne’s been away for a business thing the past two days, so I haven’t been up to his study in a while. And although I did lock myself in my room early last night, it had nothing to do with the fact that I was going to bed.
My stomach turns itself inside out.
I can’t be more grateful for my damn dreams waking me up so early today. I got some of the worst news of my life yesterday, and I’m still kinda reeling.
I failed my Science test.
Somehow, despite the notes, despite Josiah’s reminders, despite everything…
I’d walked into class on Monday without having studied a single page.
Two pages into the test, I already knew I’d failed. But I’d still managed to convince myself that I’d scrape by.
Until Mr. Roscoe handed back our tests yesterday. Mine had a big F on it in red sharpie.
He said I could do a make-up test today, but in a tone of voice that suggested I’d be wasting my time attempting a better grade.
If I don’t pass Science, they’ll hold me back a year, and I’m already a year behind after all the shit I went through with Mom. I mean, there were six months back when I was thirteen when we stayed in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. How the hell was I supposed to get to school?
I gulp down some coffee and start rummaging through my backpack for my notes.
It takes me an entire minute to realize they’re not there.
No. Shit. I must have left them in my goddamn locker!
Josiah’s munching on a bowl of cereal when I hurtle into the kitchen a minute later. “You need to get me to school, now!”
I regret those words the instant they leave my mouth.
Josiah slowly puts down his spoon. He dabs at his mouth—he’s literally the only person I’ve ever seen eat cereal with a napkin nearby—and then sits back on his stool as he cocks his head. “I need to get you to school?”
Surprisingly calm.
Which means, I could probably have salvaged the situation. But no. Candy Fur—Candace Bale is a dumb fuck.
“Yeah. Unless you want your dad to find out about all that porn you’ve been watching after school.” My face heats up, but I glare at him, willing him to back down.
“Sure you want to play this game?” he asks quietly as he gets to his feet.
When did he get so tall? So broad? I do my best to stand my ground as he walks up to me, but, and I won’t lie, I’m about ready to pee myself.
“I need to get to school.”
“Why today of all days? Did the past week you’ve barely made it on time, not mean anything?”
I blink, mouth opening and closing as I scramble for coherent thought. “I—have a test.”
“Which subject?”
“Science.”
“No, you don’t.” He cocks his head the other way like he’s studying a caterpillar that’s having a really hard time getting out of its cocoon. “That was Monday.”
My chest grows tight. What the hell am I supposed to say to that?
“I have another one today. And I need my notes.” I grit my teeth. “Which I left in my locker.”
“So now all of a sudden, your problem is my problem?” His eyes narrow. “I’m not your fucking driver.”
“If you don’t get me to school early enough so I can study, then—”
“I’ll ask again. Are you sure—” he pauses, takes a step closer, forcing me to back up “—you want to play this game?”
Why does he keep—?
“Last chance.”
“Get. Me. To. School.”
If the heat in his eyes was anger, then the sudden coldness that replaces it must be hate. “Sure thing, darlin’. Let me just take a quick leak.”
I guess I ran out of psychic mojo back at Bale Manor, because I really should have seen this coming when I couldn’t find my cellphone. But I was in such a hurry to leave home, I didn’t bother looking for it.
Nothing would have changed if I had.
We get to school an hour before homeroom. There’s a siren going off, and kids are standing around the front entrance in small clutches, all looking grim.
My heart’s in my throat as I fumble with the handle to get out of the car.
Josiah could have been stoned for all the emotion in his voice when he says, “Shit. Wonder what’s happened?”
Maybe he didn’t know what had happened, but he definitely knew why.
He’d given me several chances to back out, but I’d decided to play the game. I didn’t know the rules, the stakes, or anything…And how in the hell had I thought I could ever win out against someone like him?
I make a run for the side passage where a handful of kids are exiting the building.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he calls after me. “What if it’s not safe?”
I turn the corner and stop. The main hallway where everyone’s lockers are is empty but for a few older kids and a bunch of teachers congregating further up the hall.
One of them has a fire extinguisher. The other is busy scraping burnt things out of my locker.
I know it’s my locker, because that’s the only thing that makes sense.
Candace needed her notes.
Candace forced Josiah to bring her here to fetch them.
Candace regrets.
I’m so caught up in the woe-is-me rhetoric playing through my mind, I don’t even register the bunch of guys walking up to me until they’re close enough to recognize.
And by then it’s too late.
Sean’s grin turns my insides to stone.
I’ve been avoiding them like the plague ever since the party—easy enough, seeing as they’re a grade ahead.
“Got your message,” Sean says, a dimple forming in his cheek as his smile goes a little lopsided. He waves out behind him, taking in the smoke and the bits of charred paper and the concerned expressions of the teachers clustered around my burned-out locker. “Hope you get mine, cunt.”
He pushes past me so hard that I stumble to the side and bounce off the wall. My backpack thumps to the ground, but I leave it there, too shocked to do anything but stare after Sean and his posse as they leave the way I came in.
My…message?
“Shit…”
I turn my head. Josiah ambles up to me, wearing a faint grimace. His eyes harden as he faces me and reaches into his pocket. “What will Dad think when he finds out you’ve destroyed school property?”
It’s the first time he’s called Wayne my father.
Honest to God, I hope it’s the last.
He hands me my phone. “You dropped this.” It’s warm from being in his pocket.
I already know what I’m going to find when I unlock it.
To: Sean
You’re not getting away with this. I’m telling the principal — Candy
Chapter Sixteen
Candy
My body goes ice cold when I hear tires crunching over gravel. Wayne and my mom are home. Despite my hands being in fists, they still feel like they’re trembling when the front door opens. I’m standing on the landing, too nervous to wait inside my room for the sentence about to be handed down.
Wayne glances up as if he can sense me, and his mouth thins into a grim line. He beckons me with a flick of his fingers, and Mom follows him into the kitchen without looking up at
me.
My insides quiver like jelly as I take the stairs. If my jaw hadn’t been clenched so hard, my teeth would be chattering.
Soon as I round the corner and catch sight of my mom, my eyes start filling with hot tears. “I didn’t do it!”
She doesn’t look at me. Instead, she goes to the wine cooler and grabs a random bottle by the neck. I flinch when she puts it down with a loud clack, fully expecting it to explode from the impact.
“Sit.” Wayne’s voice makes my heart thump too hard against my chest.
I creep closer, head down and eyes on the floor as I slide into a bar stool opposite my stepfather. “I didn’t do it,” I whisper. “Please, you have to—”
“They sent me a quote for the repairs,” he says. “I’ll be taking every cent from your allowance until you’ve fully reimbursed me.”
A tear races down my cheek, but not because I’m terrified. I’m pissed off as all hell.
I guess it didn’t help that I’d started yelling at the principal after they’d herded me into his office and accused me of setting fire to my own locker.
“Why would I do it?” I ask quietly, trying to sound calm and reasonable, not at all like the kind of person who likes to set things on fire. “All my stuff was in there. Stuff I liked. Doesn’t it make more sense that someone else—?”
“Don’t try and point the finger.” My gaze darts up to my mom. She’s nursing a wine glass to her chest, her eyes narrowed. “You’ve barely been in that school a month. Why on earth would someone want to burn your stuff?”
And this is what it all comes down to.
To defend myself, I’ll have to tell them it was Sean.
Then they’d want to know why he’d want to destroy my stuff.
So I’d have to tell them about the party.
Detention, expulsion, perhaps being grounded for the rest of my life might actually be easier and less humiliating. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to be punished for this.
My voice is thick when I finally manage to speak. “I know who did it. And I know why.”