Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School Book 3)

by Thandiwe Mpofu

  “Sure, Boss J,” he mock-salutes but the heaviness of this moment is too much to even crack a smile.

  I watch as Liam walks off, as soon as he hits the sidewalk with some people, he starts sauntering, an easygoing mask falling over him like an armor to war.

  “You lied to him, didn’t you?” Cole mutters silently beside me.

  “One day he’ll get over it.”

  Grabbing the keys from the SUV, I walk back and use the smallest one on the chain to unlock the hidden hatch on the floor of the van.

  “Oh shit,” Cole whispers. “They kept that shit.”

  “Yes,” I say, grabbing my gloves on, trying not to make a face. “I knew one day it would come in fucking handy.”

  “And this is the day?”

  “This is the beginning of that day.”

  I feel Cole’s gaze on me as he puts on his pair of leather gloves. “You knew he wouldn’t be here with her.”

  I look at Cole, holding his gaze. In this moment, we understand each other. We see the playing field the same way, as a warzone. And that’s enough for what’s to come. I pull down my ski-mask, and so does he, then I pull up my hoodie, effectively covering my identity.

  “This is nothing but a game to that animal,” I grit out. “Unfortunately, he’s playing with the wrong fucking predator.”

  And with, we pick up the package and go deliver it where it will stay as bait.

  It doesn’t take that long seeing as I had this planned right after my car blew up at that cursed race. When we get back to the SUV, we get in and leave.

  “And Liam?”

  “He’ll find his way.”

  He has to.

  13

  Mia

  “Let me go!” Kristine cries, her voice shrill and full of fear.

  “Shut up, bitch,” Sean snaps, still dragging her across the floor as they come closer. “I fucking warned you, didn’t I?”

  “But I… I didn’t do anything—” Kristine stutters and my stomach twists up.

  “You think I’m stupid?” Sean snarls. I see him tighten his grip on Kristine’s hair, her wince only confirms the obvious.

  “Let her go!” I cry, immediately flinching at the hoarseness and the sound of fear in my own voice. “Let her go, you sonofabitch!”

  “You shut the fuck up!” Sean seethes, pointing at me. “I’ll deal with you next.”

  “Sean, please,” Kristine begs. “I just wanted to check—” her words are cruelly cut off when he slaps her right across the face, and I gasp.

  “Let go of her, you filthy pig!” I cry, horrified as I see blood running from Kristine’s nose, the slap obviously opening old wounds. This is how they’ve been treating her. Hurting her over and over again and she’s pregnant for God’s sake! Sean only looks at me, a full-on jerk smirk on his ugly face making him look like an unhinged sociopath. “I said leave her alone!”

  For my shout, he slaps her again. This time, on the other cheek and harder, I scream.

  “Your fucking screams don’t fucking matter in here,” Sean says, laughing above Kristine’s cries and thrashing around. “This is Julian Fitzgerald’s nightmare, and you are the fucking star, but don’t fucking think you can tell me what to do.”

  I try to ignore the way he says Julian’s name and the obvious intent for violence he has for me just to get to Julian and instead, focus on Kristine. One thing at a time.

  “But you don’t have to hurt her, to do that.” I say in a rush. “Let her be.”

  “Aww isn’t that cute. Girls sticking together,” he tsks, then I see him tighten his hold on Kristine hair then violently, he quickly strides away from her, ripping clamps of her hair. The sound Kristine makes is sickening, mixed with snort, screaming and sobs.

  “Ah, shut the fuck up,” Sean seethes. “This is all your fucking fault you pathetic, good for nothing bitch. Didn’t I tell you not to fucking approach Fitz’s whore or talk to her?”

  Kristine almost withers under his stare, his words breaking her bit by bit. It’s obvious that she not only sustained physical abuse from this scoundrel, but verbal and mental abuse, my heart breaks for her even more.

  “But you have to believe me,” she cries. “I… I didn’t talk to her at all.”

  I rush to agree, hoping that it will save her, gripped by the need to protect Kristine from this… monster.

  “She didn’t talk to me, you asshole! I threatened here!” I shout, clutching the sheets to my body, painfully aware that I’m having to confront this asshole at a severe disadvantage. But I refuse to let that show. “Leave her alone! Can’t you see she’s pregnant?”

  Sean stares at me like I’m the crazy one, then he runs a tongue over his lower lip, staring at me like I’m a fucking piece of meat.

  A shudder rolls through me as I try to scoot back on the bed, ignoring the squeaking sound that somehow makes the pain in my head more intense and acute.

  “Look at you, the Ice Queen of Clintwood Academy, Mia Montague,” he starts, leaving Kristine sobbing on the floor as he stalks forward, evil mirth clear in his eyes. “I never saw you as the defender of the helpless before, but then again, you were the last fucking person I thought would betray her school, spreading your fucking legs for those imbeciles. But her, tonight, you’ll fucking learn the error of your ways.”

  Oh God. I can see the evil mirth glinting in his reptilian eyes. My heart is now beating so fast, I feel like I’m going to pass out even as I struggle to breathe and keep my composure.

  “He’ll kill you,” I threaten, putting as much venom in my words as I can to mask the note of doubt that’s shredding me from within. “If you touch me, Julian will kill you.”

  He laughs at that. Like genuinely laughs. “You have no idea how I fucking hope that’s the case.” Wait, what? Who says something as fucked up like that? “But you know what? Until your Romeo shows up, I think you’ll find your betrayal was not worth it because, Mia what I’m going to do to you….” He whistles.

  “You wouldn’t dare!” I whisper. “Whatever you think you’re going to achieve here, you’ll fail!”

  If I can’t save myself, I at least have to try and make him feel like a fool who can’t achieve anything. It’s not that hard to do anyway since he decided to pin the explosion on me.

  “Shut up!” he seethes, taking a step closer to me. “You have no idea what you’re talking about!”

  I snap my jaw shut, feeling relieved that he finally stepped away from Kristine. So long as his focus is on me, she might be safe and hopefully she’s found a way out. After all, maybe she was close to finding an escape when Sean just barged in.

  “Look at you, pathetic and at my mercy,” Sean says. “Let’s see if I fail in breaking you and that foul mouth. That defender-of-the-hopeless-pregnant-whore color doesn’t suit. Cold-ass bitch is much better.”

  I really want to keep my mouth shut. I really want to, but I’m me. I can’t hold my tongue on the best of day but now, I’m scared out of mind with what might happen to me in this warehouse.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say, keeping my voice low and cutting. “But that nasty, disgusting shade of horse shit mixed with vomit asshole is just right for you.”

  “You have a fucking mouth on you,” he snaps, anger lighting in his eyes. “I can’t wait to fuck it.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” I fire back. “Everyone knows you can’t do anything without your brother. Where is he by the way?” I taunt, dropping my voice to mock him as I look around the warehouse., knowing damn well that he came in alone but just in case, I was hoping maybe I can reach out to Shane, appeal to his moronic, egocentric side.

  But just in case it’s just this asshole alone, maybe Kristine and I can take him by surprise, beat his fucking ass up—though that plan is already flawed as I can hardly move without an acute pain zapping through my system, threatening to take me out. I wouldn’t be much use to give the right ass-kicking and escape and so, it seems, is Kristine.

  “Where is that better
brother of yours, huh?”

  “I said shut the fuck up! I can do anything without my fucking brother!” he blows up, this time, the anger so clear and apparent that I almost gasp, but instead, I smile, locking in on the obvious insecurities. Who would’ve fucking thought?

  “Oh really?” I taunt. “I bet he was the one who orchestrated this, after all, between the two of you there isn’t much of a brain but hey, everyone knows he’s much better than you in every way.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Shane is a better football player.” No, he wasn’t. “He’s more popular.” That’s subjective. “And more than that, you already know that you’re nothing without your brother. That plan you had to blow up Julian, I bet that was your brother’s plan and you and your pea brain just went along with it because you’re—”

  I see the blow headed my way before I feel it’s sting. My head whips to the right by impact and immediately, I can taste the blood flooding in my mouth as tears sting my eyes at the pain that immediately morphs into rippling waves of agony.

  “I told you to fucking shut up!” Sean shouts over me. He takes out some cable ties from the back of his pocket and waves them in my face. “You think you can just say anything in here, that you can do anything and incite disobedience because you’re Fitzgerald’s whore? Just you fucking wait and see how I’m going to fuck you up.”

  Before I can move away, jump off the bed and run, he has both my legs in his hands. A shudder rolls through me and I feel like retching. I start kicking and fighting like a banshee from hell. He growls in anger, but I don’t stop but it’s pointless.

  He holds down my legs and then ties them to the legs of the rusty, iron bed. He moves and the next thing I know, he has both my hands in a tight vice grip and immediately ties them. This time, I feel the bite of the cable ties, as I had regained some semblance of feeling in my arms and hands.

  “You animal, you won’t get away with this.”

  “With the support I have in doing this, you have no fucking clue,” he leers, then, he rips both sheets Kristine had covered me with off, revealing my very naked body back and he smirks. In almost a surreal, slow motion moment, I see him reach down and tug at my breast. “Hmm, your little body is making me fucking hard. I like that you keep your bits hairless, Ice Queen.”

  In that moment, I just want to die.

  The shame, the embarrassment, the fear… it all just slams into me and in a sudden moment without warning, I roll to my side and immediately vomit. It feels like my insides are being pulled out of me, my stomach pressing, the anguish intense and impossible to handle and above all that, I hear him laughing. Hard.

  “How the mighty have fallen,” he says. From the corner of my eye, I see him pointing his phone at me, taking pictures or recording, I don’t know but I know he’s going to send that to Julian. I try to roll over to my stomach, but I can’t, the cable ties biting into my skin. “I need a warm-up before I get to you. It’s going to be all night.”

  And with that, he sets his hungry sights on Kristine.

  Helpless, I watch as he stalks over to Kristine and grabs her by her hair.

  “Sean please, don’t hurt me,” Kristine cries, but he ignores her completely, looking at me instead as he smirks.

  “You think I don’t know what was happening in here?” he says, his voice ugly and low. “Which is idiotic to me since you told me you hate this bitch and that she deserves everything she’s going to get and now, you make plans to what? Escape?”

  “No, nothing happened between her and I. I ignored her—”

  “You think I don’t know not fucking hard to see you made some pretty cute promises to a so-called friend you discarded while you rose to the top,” he snarls, the evil in his eyes making my heart race anew. “I bet you promised her you’d escape, didn’t you?”

  Kristine cries out. “There’s no need to hurt her if you want to prove some kind of point to me.”

  He laughs then. “Oh, I don’t fucking think so,” he says. “You won’t twist my mind with your stupid foolish words.”

  As he says that, he drags Kristine up by her hair. She struggles to stand as she cries, begging for Sean to let her go, but he backhands her so hard and she cries out.

  “Let her go, your issue is with me obviously, just let her go.”

  “No, I think you need a lesson and a show of what’s to come for you.”

  And with that, he rips the flimsy dress Kristine is wears, shredding it into two, revealing a body riddled with bruises and wounds, then he pushes her down to the floor where she lands hard on her knees.

  “Please, don’t, Sean,” she begs in a high-pitched voice. “I can’t take it anymore.”

  Anymore?

  “Shut up, Kristine and stop pretending like this is something new when you were begging me to make you feel good,” Sean sneers in her ears, unzipping his jeans, as he does, but even then, he’s still looking at me.

  “No, Sean please. I don’t feel so good.”

  He ignores her of course. “Let’s show your little friend that you told me you hate with every fiber of your fucking used body how she’s going to beg for my dick as that prick, Fitzgerald listens as I break his bitch into two.”

  I think my jaw is somewhere on the floor as I watch him drop down on top of Kristine who’s screaming and crying, trying to push him off.

  “No!” I scream. “Leave her alone!”

  He spreads her legs and rams into her like she’s a fucking rag doll!

  “No!” I scream, tears falling down my face as I watch helplessly, tied to this fucking bed as Kristine gets abused, the little light of hope she had before fading right before my eyes. And to think just now I had to convince her that she doesn’t deserve this, that there’s a way out and now, this? “Please stop.”

  He doesn’t stop.

  He growls above Kristine screams.

  I feel the bile rising up my throat.

  Kristine’s scream pierces the warehouse and J watch in horror as water pools on the floor where she is, and I know immediately.

  “My water!” she cries. “My water just broke, please stop!”

  But Sean doesn’t stop! In fact, he throws his head back and growls, sickening me to the stomach. I start screaming at him, louder than before, feeling like I’m about to lose consciousness.

  “Get off her!” I scream on the top of my lungs! “Her water just broke, she needs help!”

  He doesn’t stop. In fact, I think Kristine cries and the way she’s fighting, combined with my screams spurs the fucker on. Shane is recording it all, a fucking smirk on his face. Then he glances at me.

  “I want to make you squirt,” he says above Kristine’s screams

  “My baby!” Kristine sobs, pushing at Sean’s chest, trying to get him off her but he pins her down, animalistic look in his face. “My baby is coming, please stop.”

  Her cries break something in me. The distress on her face, the pain in my chest, it’s all too much to bear. I can feel the tears streaming down my face, but I can’t stop shouting at Sean to get off her.

  “I’m coming!” Sean roars disgustingly. “Yes!”

  I can’t hold it in anymore. Quickly flipping onto my side as best as I can, I angle for the floor but don’t really quite make is as I retch my insides out.

  14

  Mia

  Just then, his brother, the asshole I supposedly liked since middle school, walks in with a black bag.

  His gaze immediately lands on me. The asshole has the audacity to smirk at me and I just know he heard every word I said about him and I fucking wish I had not said a thing. Blood is gushing from the side of my head and pain throbbing from where I’ve just been struck.

  “Will you look at that,” Sean says, getting up from where Kristine is howling in pain like he didn’t just rape her. “She just grew pale when she saw you bro. Is seeing your forever crush too much for you?”

  “He’s not my crush you sonofabitch!” I seethe. “There’s nothing abo
ut your fucking stupid brother that’s worth a second thought, let alone a glance. Kristine, are you okay?”

  She cries in response, none of these assholes even give her a second glance, like what just happened isn’t new to either of them. It’s pretty clear they’re used to abusing girls, including their own sister who then committed suicide in front of Julian and Cole by plunging two knives into her neck, right into the jugular, killing her within minutes.

  “She needs to get to a hospital,” I cry, looking at her, ignoring the lewd looks Shane is giving me as he looks at my naked body.

  “Nah, she’s not going anywhere and neither are you,” Shane says. “Because we have a little movie to shoot and that little pool of vomit would be great for the visuals.”

  “I’m not doing anything with you!” I spit. “And as far as I’m concerned, you can drown in this vomit, you ugly piece of shit!”

  Shane is a vain jerk. He only cares about his appearance and the way he always fishes for compliments, so I don’t miss when this smirk vanishes as anger and embarrassment make a puffy entrance. He looks like a fucking over heated tomato about to explode.

  “Do you think I’m beneath you?” Shane snaps, his anger cutting through Kristine’s cries and my pounding heart. “You think just because you’ve been strutting your stuff like the cold bitch you are around my school, that you’re at the top and no one is good for you?” he shouts. “You think you’re so untouchable, and above me, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” I say, taunting him even further. “You’re beneath me with your pencil sized dick.”

  Shut up, Mia. Shut up and stop antagonizing them. You have no idea what they have planned for you.

  Kinda too late for that now.

  I see the blow before I feel it or hear the sound it makes ringing through my ears.

  “How dare you talk about my brother that way, you bitch?” Sean shouts. I can taste blood on my tongue, maybe even a loose tooth or two, but I know better than to let the tears of pain fall down my cheeks. I won’t give that satisfaction.