He doesn't stop to see if I'm absorbing information, just takes a sip of brandy and continues on like I'm a socialite or client and not his son who has just been informed his brother is dead.
Gone.
My heart clamps painfully, allowing me nothing but pain. Pain isn't allowed to be felt; it's meant to be given. Nothing I do or say can change it, so, I swallow my sorrow and pretend my heart has somehow hardened in the years I've been gone.
"You're now the Emeralds Vice President," he explains.
I stop him. "How? I'm not of age. I'm not even the domineering bloodline."
"Cassidy Hudson is the current President. He's the leading bloodline. The Kranes are no more." My heart hurts. It physically twinges with pain. The twins are dead? The need to ask questions, demand answers, and sob for those gone is there underneath my rib cage, but these words and desires cannot come to fruition. To survive, I must harden. To find answers, I must seek. To win, I must fight silently.
My mouth feels drier now than when he told about Maxim, but I swallow the questions back just like my fear and nausea, soldiering on. It's all I have.
"You'll be watching after Colton Hudson. She's been initiated into the Student Gov. It's a testament for Cassidy's strength as a leader. He may lead because his blood says so, but he's weak. I can tell." Father shuffles papers, going through them like business contracts, and the sickness welling inside me feels more potent than ever.
Colton Hudson. My heart beats faster at her name.
"You will be hidden. This is your most important place. The shadows are your friends. The darkness is your cover, and the lies you wield are most important. Don't disappoint me, Jordan. I've lost one son to stupidity. Your mother couldn't bear to lose the other."
Keywords being Mother.
He would be fine. A mistress could easily birth another, and he would have another go at it in eighteen years. Father is only forty. He could still produce more children.
One thing is certain. I feel sick. There's not enough marijuana in the world to ease the disgust inside me.
Father sets down the papers, peering over at me. His eyes dissect like he's taking me in for the first time.
"You've grown. Good. Means you'll be able to produce an heir as soon as you graduate."
I do everything in my power not to flare my nostrils, to not show weakness, anger, or the depths of my despair that cloud my every thought.
"Anything you say, sir," I respond finally.
He hands me a folder, his hand brushing mine for a slight moment. "Make me proud, Jordan."
With that, I walk away, up the stairs, and when the door shuts, I hit the shower to cry. Everyone and everything I've ever known has changed.
How can I do this?
Who's left for me to depend on?
Chapter Ten
Present
Colt
Disappointment shouldn't be an emotion I'm used to, but I can tell you exactly how it tastes, looks, and feels like. Its color is dull, mellow, and dissatisfying, but it's so present I know its shade by heart.
Knowing the twins hide things hurts me.
Knowing the rest of the guys are involved makes me sick.
Knowing Mel could also have pretended to be my friend is the absolute worst thing on my mind.
I told Just that I would be at Mel's, but in reality, I'm hiding in my bunker with two joints, smoking my life away. After my first one is gone, I'm feeling lightheaded and airy in a good way. I'm not thinking about the fact that my best friend is dead, my boyfriends are a part of the fray, and the rest are also suspects. Where my mind lives right now is with Cass. With our spot here. Hidden. Safe. A haven.
I close my eyes, only for a moment, a second probably, suspended in time. I'm running on Monsters and depression, my two most toxic traits.
Leaning back against the wall, I let the pain set in as it's ebbed away with weed and the crispness it offers.
"I miss you, Cass," I tell the open space, letting it hear the words my brother can no longer hear or offer back. "You warned me to stay away from them. You told me they were bad." The tears gather in my eyes, my chest pinching with discomfort. "Why didn't I listen?"
Stiffness makes a home in the hollow of my throat. Instead of drinking from the water I brought, I take another drag and hope for the best.
"I think you were with me last night." I can't help my coping, speaking to the world as if Cass is now a part of its grain. "You're why she was killed and not me. It's me who dug, Cass. It's my fault she's gone."
Sad sobs break freely from me, needing to let go of the things that hold me prisoner. I look inside our bunker, searching for Stella, my stiletto blade. After Cass bought her for me, she became my companion, the one who never betrayed me, not even after he left.
She brought me tears.
She soothed my pain.
She kissed my skin like a lover then bled me like our own secret promise.
My hands wrap around her smooth metal casing. It's neon green. Before my hair became toxic, matching me entirely, it was my favorite color.
Still is, it's just different now.
Cass had Stella laser engraved with CH + CH = Family. Most days, we only had each other, the support we could offer one another, and the love only we had. We were close, twins almost, inseparable until Student Gov became our side sibling.
Flicking the blade up with a simple press of a button, I watch in amazement as the silver greets my eyes.
"It's been a while," I whisper to it, tantalizing it as it does me.
The last time I used it, I washed it free of my life's essence.
"Treat me good, girl."
An indent is the first pressure I see on the skin of my wrist. It's hard to tell with the black ink covering almost every inch. The first prick of pain makes me very aware of how gentle I'm being.
It's true. It's been a while.
Bleed for pain.
Bleed for sins.
Bleed for closure.
Blood is my coping mechanism. It's how I convey how I'm feeling, what I'm doing to breathe, and offering myself the only solitude I know.
With my joint pinched between my fingers in the hand that's being colored with crimson, I use the other to add more weight to the drag of the blade.
The first skim against my skin brings a pinch, but it's the endorphin release that makes me feel like I can breathe again.
Thank you for reminding me what razorblades beneath my skin feels like, Corpse.
The sobs come with those words. The snake-like trails of blood spill from me. They slither across my skin, marring the paleness. Razorblades aren't my utensils for my bloody medium. Knives are my tool of choice, my lovers of artistry.
My body heaves with my agony. It weeps red with my despair, and god, does it leak salt for my betrayals. I've allowed each of them passage to my heart. They've danced upon the grave of my heartbeat and sabotaged the flow of my livelihood.
After my third line, my arm is more crimson than black, more blood than ink, more outside of my veins than in.
"I'm sorry I didn't save you, Cass. I'm so fucking sorry," I cry, dropping my blade with a clank. My heart feels slower. My eyelids are heavier. The cuts, while cosmetic and ugly to sight, are not deep enough for life-threatening damage.
I close my eyes, my blunt burning my fingers with dispelled ash, and when I let the darkness take me to a safer place, a smile breaks free.
Time passes, I'm not sure how much, but I hear his voice like the safety net he used to feel like. "Col, you've got to get up, baby sis. You've got to fight this. Don't bleed out on me."
Peeking at the speaking form, I see a tall figure. His locks are longer, sharp, but still chaotic, just like he always was.
"Colton," Bridger utters, breaking some reverie.
My eyes blink heavily. He's not looking at Cassidy's imaginative figure. Why would he? I'm delusional.
"Colty," Bridger bites angrily.
There's almost a sense of dread m
ixed with worry in his voice. I've never heard either from him before.
"Please, be okay."
It's as if he needs those words to make it a reality.
"Fuck, I'm such a head case." I slur.
I lift up, or, rather, he lifts me, and I try opening my eyes. They flutter, and he's still cursing, carrying me out of my bunker.
"Cass," I cry out, looking at a fuzzy visual of my brother. His eyes lock with mine, tears present in his hopeless gaze and the sobs come sooner. "I'm sorry," I whimper after him, losing sight of his muddled figure
"It's going to be okay, Colt. I've got you. I've got you," Bridger reassures.
But I don't stop sobbing. Yang is gone. Cass is gone. My hope, my happiness, and everything left in me that wants to survive is dwindling.
Everyone uses me.
And I let them.
Break me apart, and you'll find there's nothing left inside.
Bones of my corpse. Blood of my life. Skin of my lies.
Nothing is left.
Nothing but pain.
Nothing but trauma.
My vision blurs more as I try to open my eyes. It's darker now, desolate, empty like my burdensome heart. How much can one take? Is it measured in pain? The likelihood of wanting to survive?
Tell me, mind, am I worth living for?
Bridger carries me all the way to the cabin as my vision blurs in and out. My stomach feels queasy but overall, I feel numb.
"She sliced herself up." Bridger's muffled voice sends me skittering in my own skin. It's there again, the tone of care. "Most seem artificial, but I think the lack of sleep, Yang's death, and the emotional turmoil we all cause her is taking its toll."
"Why was no one watching her?" Ten hisses.
God, I've avoided him so much. How would Cass feel? Knowing both his closest friends are hurting because my heart decided to want them all?
"The twins were with her," Lux snaps.
"Look at how well that worked. Tongue-fucking him wasn't enough?" Jordan's brutal voice fills my ears.
Did he just insinuate that Lux kissed one of them?
My mind must be foggy. There's no fucking way Lennox DeLeon kissed another boy. No way. It takes every ounce of energy to keep myself from giggling.
Damn. Too much weed, purging, and energy drinks have all made me groggy as fuck.
"Is she going to be okay?" Ross asks, his troubled voice making me hurt for him. My sad boy. Bridger sets me down on a bed, or at least, it’s soft like one.
I don't hear the response to Ross, but I feel someone touching me what feels like moments later. Finally cracking my eyes open, I see Prudence. He's sad too. His eyes seem ghostly, like he feared the worst.
I don't want that.
For him.
Them.
Pain is a finicky bitch, always hitting when you're at your lowest, sweeping in to coerce you into giving in. It's why cutting has always been my outlet and not drugs. While weed is something I use often for my anxiety and depression, hardcore drugs have never appealed to me. People overdose too often, get bad batches, risk everything for a simple high.
Escapism through pain is my high, but to feel it, I need to be alive... sort of.
"Princess," Pru whispers, barely loud enough for me to hear. "Want to talk?"
I shake my head, or at least, I think I do.
He moves behind me, big spooning me. "You scared me so goddamn bad."
His words have me squeezing my eyes with a whimper. Dancing fingers trail up my upper arm, and I remember my cuts. Peering down at my own arm, I see the bandages. That's all that's left of the carnage I've derisively carved into myself. When did they bandage me? Shit, I must’ve really done a number on myself to be this foggy-brained.
Self-love—that's what commercials and musicians preach.
Self-hate—that's what reality offers, and it's a much crueler bitch.
"I'm sorry we let him touch you," he offers.
I want to shake my head. He acts as if that's the worst they've done, that their consciences are clear because they don't believe I know they're horrible beneath their pretty faces.
"Can I be alone?" I ask, my voice sounding half-drunk.
Warmth spreads through me as his kiss brushes the nape of my neck. The bed sinks and rises with the adjustment of him and the bereftness his weight has left.
"Don't hate me forever, princess. I can't imagine going home like this."
With his parting words, the tears come again, but also, so does a new body. It's scorching hot, and anger radiates from it like a furnace in the coldest of winters.
"Don't ever fucking do something like that again." Bridger's voice hits somewhere inside me, the deepest part, the one lost, searching to be found. She’s the fighter, the angry warrior, the beast within the beauty.
"You're dating Melissa. You have zero say, Ridge," I provide, making sure to lay his nickname on thick. That's all it takes for him to force me onto my back as he hovers.
"Whether I'm fucking your friend or some random chick, Colton," he growls scornfully, "you won't risk your life over some dumb bitch who doesn't ever have your best interests at heart."
Mockingly, I roll my eyes at him.
He takes that as a decree of war. His palm grips my jaw, and he forces me to look directly at him. "Stop fighting me."
"Make me," I bark, my voice shaky and forlorn. The sadness battles with my sanity. Bridger has always been mine, but he's with her, and that makes me rage on the inside more than it should.
Bridger bends down, our faces barely apart. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, freak?"
My lips warbles at the word. I hate it. Despise it. Want it eradicated from his personal dictionary.
"I bet you'd even slide these sweats down, expose yourself to a monster like me, beg me to devour you, and then ask for seconds," he taunts.
His sneering isn't any less brutal than his indifference, but at least with this, there's passion. He's pissed, and he's expressing more than nothing, and to me, it's worth the constant pang of melancholy.
"Guess we'll see who wins, Ridge, because I'm fucking done playing your games."
With that, I push at him, and he jumps back and leaves.
I feel worse than before somehow, but the itching for Stella isn't there. Too bad for me, the sedation didn't last, and the desire to bring the haze back for more Cassidy visions is tempting me, waiting on bated breath for my next weak moment.
Chapter Eleven
Lennox
"Do you just defy rules for the fuck all of it?" Jordan gripes.
We're all here now in the fucking cabin. Colt's asleep in the bed. Seeing her covered in blood set us all off, but unlike them, I'm used to the destruction. My own blood knows oxygen well.
"Do you guys always jerk off to me fucking other people, or is that special for Colt?" I return, balling my fists.
Earlier when I came back, Ross told me that my fucking Colt was hot and he offered Jordan a blowie. He wasn't surprised when I punched him in the arm.
Apparently, they watched live as I fucked Colt.
"Definitely wouldn't want to watch you fucking someone else," he titters, his face amused, "but watching your ass as you went to pound town into our girl was a bonus." Our girl.
I let out a huff, and the rest of the guys watch us in amusement.
"Where did you find her?" I ask Ridge.
He's stiff as a skeleton, dead to the world, and it's the way he disconnects that always bothers me. It's as if the world around him doesn't exist. Like nothing is a state of mind and not a forceful abandonment of feelings.
With no response, I turn to the others, and they're a mix of shrugs and worry. Ten has been quiet. Ross seems overly chipper, which means he's masking, and Jordan is just a dick.
The twins are here. Just is in the directory room. Pru, on the other hand, is with her. Being near. Watching.
My cell rings, and my gut clenches uncomfortably. Father Dearest, the caller ID specifies. Can you hear
the pounce of dread on my tired body? It’s there, suffocating me as a pillow in the night.
If only my life would end before I had to answer.
Wouldn’t that be ironic.
“Dad,” I say minutely.
“Lennox, my boy.”
My boy. He only says that when he wants something.
“Yeah?” It comes out awkwardly, and I can't resist the need to grip the back of my neck. Everyone watches me, Jordan more intently than the others. I rise from my seat on the couch, leaving them all behind to find my room. Dealing with their expressive stares while I’m nowhere near prepared for pity isn’t what I’d call desirable.
“I heard about the Milton girl,” he expresses, his tone not even slightly upset. It's one of those social cues. He knows he should apologize, so he gives half-assed care. “Tragic.”
“Murdered,” I correct.
“Is that what they're calling insolence nowadays?” There he is. Dear ol' dad. Psychopath in twenty-thousand-dollar suits.
“What did you need?” I try, wanting to take the talk away from the girl he most likely had a hand in murdering. They all somehow dip their fingers into the bloody pot. It wouldn't be a surprise.
"News is going to hit about the Miltons’ daughter taking her life."
Of fucking course.
"As I said, such a tragedy."
The scoff crawls up my throat, begging for release, but that tiny sound always results in a broken finger, a black eye, or, something far worse, retaliation served to my brothers.
"I'll handle it," I offer, wanting to sound secure but sweating bullets thinking of the result.
"No need. I'll be at your school in hours. Tomorrow is the Winter Assembly. Have you forgotten already?"
"Of course not," I nearly stutter. It's hard not to stumble over them. Forgetting the Winter Assembly is equivalent to missing the biggest day of your life. The founding families have plans, too, scary ones. It’s the same every year.
"Good." He clears his throat. "I hope you've notified the Tower where myself, Ashton, and the others will be staying."
Ashton.
Here Lies a Saint: A Dark Bully Academy Romance Page 8