by Vi Lily
“We’re better than that, after all,” Devon reminded me with all the snobbery he’d been born into poured all over every syllable like sticky caramel.
It wasn’t hard to keep up appearances, not at first anyway. Mom and Dad weren’t well-liked — even the rich drew the line at my parents’ level of snobbery — so they didn’t have any friends we’d have to answer questions for. The mansion we lived in had been paid for in full, just like our education at Athole. We had our parents’ cars, also paid for. Thanks to my father sucking at hiding things — like the combination to the safe — we even had access to their money. The safe contained cash, credit cards, bank cards and the passwords to everything.
Devon and I lived high on the hog with no supervision for a good seven months. But about a year and a half ago, things changed. Devon, recently graduated from high school, got hooked on drugs. Cocaine, I think. The rich’s drug of choice.
He became moody, broody. I started going out of my way to avoid him. He was too aggressive, too temperamental… and bruises are hard to hide.
My brother became the favorite friend of every drugged-out creep for a hundred miles. He was the life of the party. Hell, he was the party. Our mansion was always filled to brimming with people I would have crossed the street to avoid.
Devon liked showing off too. He bought plane tickets for him and twenty of his closest “friends” to go to Amsterdam on vacation, where they must have lived like doped-up kings for over a month, because while they were gone the electricity to the mansion was shut off when there was no money left in the account to pay the bill. Then the gas went. Then the water.
When Devon finally came dragging back home, looking like a strung-out hippie from the sixties, I hadn’t had any food for three days. That was when Devon started dealing as well as using.
That was when I started seriously fearing for my life.
Beaten, book 2 in the Athole Academy Series, is available exclusively through Amazon October 11, 2019
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