Hateful Bully (Bad Bullies Book Two): A Dark Step Brother Bully Romance

by Logan Fox

  This is met with silence. I look at my mom, and then at Wayne. Not a sympathetic face in sight.

  “Well?” Mom snaps. “Tell us then.”

  “It’s a boy that…he hates me.”

  “Hate is a strong word,” Wayne says, and my mom starts speaking before he’s even done. “What did you do to him?”

  I’m on my feet. “Why are you blaming me?” I yell.

  “You say he hates you. You must have done something to upset him.”

  Good God, I can’t stand how patronizing Mr. Bale is being right now. Talking to me like I’m a psycho. Like I’m losing my freaking mind. I pound my fists into the granite counter and snarl at both of them.

  “He tried to—” I cut off, choking on the word. “He wanted to…sleep with me.” My cheeks are blood red, my chest so tight it feels like I can’t breathe. I look at the table rather than trying to look at either of them. I wave a hand. “This is what happens when you say no.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the principal this?” Mr. Bale stands and comes around the table to me.

  “They wouldn’t listen.” As soon as he lays an arm over my shoulder, the walls I’d built up inside collapse. I let out a sob, and turn into his chest. “I swear, Mr. Bale, I didn’t do it.”

  “Shh.” A warm hand strokes my head.

  “Do you have proof?” I turn my head a little, and blink away my tears so I can focus on my mom.

  “What?”

  She waves a hand, eyebrows cocking up. “Do you expect us just to take your word?”

  “Enough of that,” my stepdad says, his voice low in warning. “Go fetch Josiah.”

  A vicious hand squeezes my heart. I tilt my head up. “What for?”

  “He’s been with you the whole morning, hasn’t he? He can clear this up.”

  I push away from Mr. Bale. “You don’t believe me?”

  “I believe in getting both sides of the story,” he says, shrugging a little.

  I’m still gaping at him when Josiah steps into the kitchen. My mother’s behind him, eyes slit like she’s ready for a fight.

  What the actual fuck is going on here?

  Why will no one believe me?

  “Son, Candy says she didn’t set the fire in her locker.”

  Josiah watches his dad for a second before turning those dead eyes on me. “You honestly believe you’re gonna get away with this?”

  My jaw hangs loose. “Liar!” I surge forward, shoving Josiah hard against his chest. “You tell them what happened!” My head swings around to face Wayne. “I was with him the whole morning.”

  Josiah’s quiet.

  Wayne’s just watching.

  My mom starts shaking her head.

  “I was with—” I point at Josiah, but a sob cuts me off with brutal efficiency.

  “Next time you want attention, just die your hair pink or something,” Josiah says, tutting me with his eyes. “Someone could’ve gotten hurt.”

  I let out a wordless scream and race out of the kitchen. I know I should stay, should get my story out and shit all over Josiah’s lies…but how can I, when I can barely breathe?

  I slam my door closed. My fingers brush the metal around the keyhole, and then my arm falls at my side.

  They took away my key.

  I kick the door, wincing at the stab of pain that shoots through my foot, and throw myself on the bed.

  A decade’s worth of tears flood out of me. Then I just lie there with a sore head and aching eyes until I can’t stay awake anymore.

  Sometime later, someone comes into my room. I don’t bother turning around to see who it is.

  They don’t stay.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Candy

  I knock on the pool house’s door.

  “What?”

  Not exactly an invitation. If I wasn’t so desperate to get to the bottom of this, I’d have left. But fuck it—I want answers.

  I deserve answers.

  As soon as my mother spots me, her face falls. “What are you doing out of your room?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  She shrugs, pursing her lips as she turns her back on me. I stand in the doorway, my guts growing cold. But then I see she’s topping up her glass of wine, and it just happened to be standing behind her.

  When she faces me again, it’s with a hard frown. “So talk,” she says, gesturing with her brimming wine glass.

  “Can I have a glass?”

  We’ve never had a drink together. I guess it says a lot for our relationship that at seventeen, I’ve had more to drink with my stepfather than my real mom.

  “That would be illegal.”

  I blink a few times and then shake my head. “Illegal,” I parrot.

  “You’re under twenty-one.” Mom cocks her head. “Do I need to explain it to you? No wonder your grades are so shit.”

  My heart’s in my throat. Even my fingertips have gone cold.

  I wasn’t expecting a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek or anything, but this? It’s as if I’ve become my mother’s own worst enemy.

  “What is your problem?” The words slip out before I can stop them, but then I’m glad I said them because my mother’s chin moves back and her stare hardens.

  “You gonna talk to your mother like that?”

  “I’m not even sure I am talking to my mom.” I wave a hand in her direction. “You’re like, some alien clone or something. What the hell did I do to piss you off?”

  She takes a big sip of wine, and her throat moves as she swallows it. “It’s always about you, isn’t it?”

  I take a step back as if I can somehow gain clarity by taking in more of this moment.

  Always about me?

  “Me?” I say through a laugh, touching fingertips to my chest. “I’m not the one who can’t keep a man long enough for her own daughter to finish out a grade.”

  I expected her to flip out at that.

  Instead, her mouth curls into an unfriendly smile. “You think we kept moving because they dumped me?”

  They included more guys than I can count on both hands. And those were just the ones she actually had a relationship longer than a few hours with. I was convinced she was a prostitute at one stage, except I never saw money exchange hands. No folded bills left on the dressers, and the client turnover was a bit pathetic for her to be earning enough to keep us alive by selling off her pussy.

  Mom comes around the bar, her wine sloshing left to right but never spilling. “Remember Harry?”

  I shake my head. Who the hell could keep track of all the guys Mom’s boned? Not I. Oh no, not I.

  “He’s the sweetheart that let us live in his trailer for those few months after I lost the gig at the diner. We had to leave after I hit him over the head with a frying pan.”

  My mouth falls open. I shake my head.

  She’s delusional. She’s gone and lost her goddamn mind. “I—that didn’t happen. It couldn’t—”

  “Oh, you didn’t see it,” she says glibly, giving me another cold smile from behind her glass. “I made sure you were in bed already.”

  “Why the hell would you—?”

  “I’d had enough of him staring at you through the crack in the door while you were showering.”

  “What?” I laugh. “He never…”

  Is that why I’d always felt eyes on me? Not just when I showered. He didn’t live in the trailer with us, but he was around an awful lot. I thought it was just because he and Mom were boning, but he’d been there a lot when she was at work, too.

  School was too far, so I spent the whole day in the trailer. I’d play outside sometimes, but Mom had told me it would be dangerous if I went too far. That’s why I was grateful for the big, meaty guy who always hung around. I knew he and Mom were friends, because she was always so friendly around him.

  Always around.

  Watching me through the cracks.

  “I…didn’t know.” It sounds like the most pathetic excuse in the world, but I wa
s a naive little girl back then.

  She was supposed to protect me.

  “Then there was dear old Gerald. Remember him?”

  I freeze. Him, I remember. He was the white-haired man who Mom dated a few years after she’d started working as a receptionist at the sawmill. He owned the farm a few miles away where we rented a room.

  “What did he…?”

  “Oh, him?” She purses her lips and waves a limp hand. “He was a sweetie pie. Treated us like fucking gold.”

  There’s a fire in my chest.

  “We’d probably still be staying there, if it wasn’t for his son.”

  His son. I try and bring up a memory. Dark hair, green eyes. Attractive, in a rugged way. He worked at the sawmill with Mom. He’d drive her home sometimes if she missed the bus.

  On those nights, she’d always come home pissed and reeking of beer.

  “The one you used to go to the bar with?”

  She glances away as she lets out a dry laugh. Not a stitch of humor there.

  “You mean the one who offered me a hundred bucks so he could fuck you? And then threatened to kick us out every time I said no?”

  “What?” I give her a confused smile. “That doesn’t—”

  “The only way I could keep him happy, keep us there until I had enough money in my pocket to rent a place, was to let him fuck me whenever the mood struck him.” She cocks her head. “Better than letting him have you, right?”

  The ground goes soggy under my feet.

  “You’re making this up.” I look away, shaking my head. I feel like crying, but I think I’m all used up. There’s nothing left in Dam Candace—no tears, no emotions, no trust. “I don’t know why, but you have to be making this—”

  Her acrylic nails bite into my arm. I flinch and try pulling out of my mom’s grip. But she yanks me so I’m facing her, turning the barstool and my body in one go.

  “Your dad said you were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen,” she whispers.

  Hot prickles dance over my skin.

  Mom never—never—talks about Dad. All I know is he left us a few years after I’d been born. To this day, I don’t know why. I’d always thought my mom had picked a fight with him. As I got older, the reason became more obvious—Mom was a slut, and Dad couldn’t take it anymore. She slept around so much that it didn’t matter that he had a daughter of his own—he left us both and never looked back.

  I’m convinced he thought I’d turn out just like her. Nothing but a slut. And who can love someone like that?

  Mom leans in even closer. Like a car wreck, I can’t look away from her red-veined eyes or her trembling, clumpy eyelashes.

  “Nothing ever pleased your dad. I certainly couldn’t, that’s for sure.” Her bitter laugh paints my face with a warm, wine-tainted breath. “Should’ve known it was a curse. So fucking pretty, no one could keep their hands off you.”

  “Mom…”

  She ignores my broken voice, my desperate plea.

  Don’t take away my last vestige of a normal life. I’d grown up thinking everything had been fine until Dad had left…If that’s wrong…what the hell is left for me to believe?

  “I’ve been watching grown-ass men stare at you like a piece of meat my whole fucking life.”

  No.

  “Mom, please—”

  “You know what, Candy? I’m done.” She pushes back her shoulders and lifts her chin. “The next time a boy burns up your shit because you wouldn’t screw him?”

  I already know what she’s going to say.

  Everything inside me dies.

  “Ask him what the fuck makes you so special.” She gives me a cruel, condescending once-over that leaves me feeling shriveled. “Because I sure as hell can’t see it.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Josiah

  I smile when I walk into the dining room and see it’s just me, Emma and Dad. And fuck, why shouldn’t I be happy?

  I won.

  Candy lost.

  She’s off sulking in her room, and I guess her mother’s picking up on those vibes, because even Diana’s not at the table tonight.

  Fuck it, I’m full out grinning like an idiot.

  I grab a slice of pizza from the box.

  Dad’s busy on his phone. He glances up at me over the top of his glasses. He’s been wearing them a lot more lately—are his eyes getting weaker, or is he just too lazy to put in his contacts? Guess he doesn’t have to look all that sharp anymore—he’s got Diana bagged for the long haul. Now he can go and get all fat and shit, and she’d have to stay married. Unless they got a prenup that said something about her getting out of the marriage if he picks up too many pounds.

  Fucking hilarious.

  “Good day?” he asks in his usual monotone.

  I nod, taking a big bite of pizza. There’s a beer on the coaster where my wine glass normally stands, and I chug at it like I’m trying to win a bet. “Couldn’t be better.”

  “Don’t talk with food in your mouth,” Dad says, but it sounds halfhearted.

  Shit. I guess Dad would be a bit upset, having finally discovered that his new golden child isn’t all she’s chalked up to be. I’d cut him some slack…but he’s the one that brought them into our home. He’s responsible for the desecration of this special place.

  “Yeah, so, wow. Didn’t expect that kind of shit from Candy, huh, Dad?”

  His slice of pizza slaps down onto his plate. “What was that?”

  He’s giving me a chance to cop-out, but I won’t take it. I want him to admit to me that he made a mistake. I want an apology from him.

  I need him to throw the Fureys out of this house so my life, my mind, my world can reset back to normal. No more psychotic dreams about Candy. No more panic attacks when she’s ten minutes late to my car in the afternoons. No more suppressing the resentment, I feel every time she heads upstairs with my father for the kind of quality time I’ve never, ever gotten from him.

  What the fuck makes her so special?

  “Is grounding her enough? I mean, she literally set her locker on fire.” I take a bite of pizza, and swallow it down before I add, “If you ask me, I’d think she’s better off in a boarding school or something.” I shrug as I sip at my beer. “Let someone else take care of that.”

  He watches me for the longest time. “Boarding school, huh?”

  “She’d be out of your hair. Trained therapists and stuff to sort out her, you know—” I flick my fingers toward my head “—issues.”

  “Hmm…” Dad looks back at his phone. “I thought you liked her.”

  I almost choke, but thank God my beer is still nearby because I cover the tightening of my throat with a fake sip from my can.

  Jesus, what a loaded statement.

  “But, see, if you liked her, you wouldn’t stand idly by while she destroyed school property, would you?”

  My smile slides off my face like butter off a hot knife. “I didn’t—”

  “According to the principal, you didn’t say a word. You didn’t try and stop her. You just watched.” Dad cocks his head before resting his chin on his steepled fingertips. “Makes me wonder about you son. I mean, you could have stopped her. So why didn’t you?”

  I’m such a fucking idiot. I drop my gaze and take a sip from my beer to try and disguise the fact that my brain’s scrambling for an answer here.

  It’s impossible.

  Definitely illogical.

  But, somehow, I’m getting blamed for this.

  Yeah, fine, I was the instigator…but Candy is—and always will be—the catalyst. I don’t know why Sean did what he did. Why he felt such a strong urge to have her. I mean, honestly, I’m sure she’d have given it up if he’d romanced her a little. Maybe taken her on a date. She’d definitely have put out for him.

  But he had to take, instead.

  Just how you like it, Jo.

  Another sip of beer, a grimace. “I mean, I tried.” I let out a laugh that doesn’t have nearly enough cred
ibility, and hurriedly cut it off. “But that bitch is crazy.”

  “You disappoint me, Josiah.”

  It shouldn’t, but that statement closes my chest up tighter than a fucking mummy’s wraps. My hand clenches around my beer can, and the soft aluminum crumples between my fingers.

  “You could have done something, but you didn’t. She’s your sister, not your enemy.”

  I almost laugh, but manage to control myself. I look up. But even after staring at my father for a few seconds, I can’t read the expression on his face.

  “You could have stopped this.”

  My jaw tightens. I shake my head, but Dad carries on.

  “You might as well have held the match, son.” He gives me a sympathetic smile, and that’s when I realize he’s goading me. He wants me to admit that I wasn’t there, that I don’t know if she’s responsible. Saving my own ass along with hers.

  But then she’d have free reign of this house again. Her nightly trysts with my father would continue. Our close-knit family would keep growing apart.

  So I don’t say anything.

  I drink the rest of my beer in silence and toy with my slice of pizza.

  I’ve done what I needed; the seed has been planted. No need to go piss on it too.

  It should sprout all on its own.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Candy

  I’m in the kitchen, snipping up a slimy pork fillet with a pair of kitchen shears when Wayne and my mother walk past. He used the pressure from the tips of his fingers on her lower back to herd her toward the front door.

  I pause, peeking at them from under my lashes.

  As part of my punishment for setting fire to my locker, I have to cook all our meals, starting with lunch.

  It’s Saturday. I should be watching TV, or reading a book, or hanging out at the mall with my friends.

  Yeah, okay, so I don’t have any friends, but I could have gone and watched a movie or something.

  Instead, I’m stuck here answering mundane question after mundane question from the incorrigible Emma Bale while everyone else just does whatever they want to.