Lost Boys: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Crazy Vicious Love Book 1)

by Eva Ashwood

  I tossed the garbage away, having no intention of staying outside longer than necessary—especially not with one of the Lost Boys living across the street. I didn’t even let my eyes linger on the house across from ours; it felt as though if I even dared to think about him, Bishop would emerge through the front door of the dilapidated house like he’d been called from the shadows.

  What did catch my eyes, however, was something much different.

  The car that rolled slowly down the street stood out among the rusted, dented, scrap-metal junkers that were common in this area. A shiny black Bentley with darkly tinted windows. It clearly didn’t belong to anyone on this block, let alone this neighborhood. It looked like—

  My heart jumped. Maybe it was someone from my old life, coming to take Mom and me away from this place. Maybe it was Dad, somehow released from jail already, coming to surprise us.

  A dozen hopeful thoughts raced through my mind, and I wanted to believe that every one of them was true. That my horrific first day was the only day I’d have to suffer through at Slateview High. Quick as the hope came, however, it was dashed against the sidewalk pavement just as fast. The car drove right past me, the fading sunlight glinting off one of its mirrors like it was mocking me for daring to dream that I might be pulled out of this hell I hadn’t asked to be put in.

  I watched it, my shoulders slumping, as it drove a few doors down. It stopped in front of a two-story house and idled softly. Something in me felt like I shouldn’t be watching this, but I was rooted to the spot as I watched a figure emerge from the front door of the house.

  One of the Lost Boys.

  The big one—Kace, with the light blond hair and muscles that looked like they belonged on a professional fighter more than they did a high school boy—strode down the walkway to the car. He was shirtless; even in the waning light, I could see the dark, colorful marks of his tattoo. Bold. Beautiful.

  Dangerous.

  The passenger side window rolled down, and Kace leaned over and spoke into the car. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but there was a smirk on his face. He said something else, nodded, and then reached into the car, pocketing something that was given to him.

  Then, he looked my way.

  It was a split second of eye contact. A split second that had my face heating as his gaze burned into mine. The way he looked at me—the way all the Lost Boys looked at me—was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It felt like he was looking through my outer layers, past every mask and defense I had, into the very heart of me.

  I shivered, tearing my gaze away from his and abandoning all pretense of poise as I sprinted into the house.

  A soft noise filtered through the door as I slammed it shut, and I swore it was the sound of Kace laughing.

  The next morning, I spoke to my father for the first time since he’d been taken away. He and Mom both insisted that we not make visits. Neither of them wanted me at a prison—didn’t think it was proper. I suspected, to a degree, that Mom simply didn’t want to face the idea of people seeing her going into a prison, being in a place with actual, dangerous criminals. A place that her husband certainly didn’t belong; it was undignified.

  That, I could understand. But not hearing from him was hell.

  He called early in the morning before I left for school. We put the phone on speaker and sat in Mom’s bedroom, our heads slightly bent together. It was the closest I’d felt to my mother, both physically and emotionally, in a long time.

  “Elizabeth, Cordelia. It’s good to hear your voices.” Dad’s words were thick as they came through the speaker. He sounded tired. Mom remained quiet, blinking rapidly, so I immediately spoke to fill the silence.

  “Hey, Dad. How are you? Is everything alright there? I’ve been so worried—”

  “Cordelia, please. It’s early, and I haven’t got a lot of time to speak. They dole out phone time like it’s more precious than gold.”

  I visibly shrank back. Not that he could see my reaction, I realized with a strange, weighted sadness.

  “Sorry.”

  “Anyway. I called to check up on the two of you. According to Isaac, you’ve been settled in a rental home?”

  Isaac was my father’s attorney, and I’d bet the little money we still had that he and my father had spoken every day since Dad’s arrest.

  “Yeah… it’s different,” I said softly when Mom still didn’t speak up. “It’s nothing like home—”

  “I’m aware. But it’s what we’re working with until I get out of this place and clear everything up. It shouldn’t take long.” God, I wished I had his confidence. “The whole thing is just a misunderstanding. Isaac is looking into it. He thinks it’s a political maneuver to smear my name and undermine both me and my business associates.”

  Who would do something like that?

  “Does it—I mean, is that why the people at school are saying some… awful things about why you were arrested?” I asked, hoping that unlike my mother, Dad would actually give me a proper answer.

  “Things?” he asked. His tone shifted. Was that… worry? “What things?”

  “Stuff about you buying out properties, making people lose their homes… their businesses—”

  “Complete lunacy,” he said immediately. “People always need someone to blame for their bad decision making—”

  He cut off. Garbled speaking in the background came through, but I couldn’t actually make out much of it.

  “I have to go. I’ll call you again when I can. Keep your heads up, both of you. I’ll be out of this place soon.”

  “Dad—”

  The call disconnected. Mom never even said a word.

  Seven

  The call with my father had lasted less than five minutes, but I found myself turning every word over and over in my mind as I drove to school.

  What was I supposed to make of any of it? Aside from Dad’s confidence, his blunt reassurance, I had no real answers. His excuse about people just making things up because their choices had been bad didn’t make sense to me. Why would they target a man they didn’t even know if the loss of their homes was their own fault? And how could they have targeted my dad anyway? Who did he think had set him up?

  Maybe Dad had gotten involved in some shady deals accidentally. He was ambitious, working twelve or sixteen-hour days for much of my childhood, but I’d always thought he was fair. Whatever aspersions people wanted to cast on men like my father, I believed he was a good man.

  Still, questions and doubts plagued my thoughts as I pulled into Slateview’s parking lot.

  Like yesterday, all eyes were on me as I stepped out of my car. And like yesterday, I felt anxious and awkward, uncomfortable in my own skin. This time, however, it was partly because of the way I was dressed. I’d chosen one of the ripped pairs of jeans I’d distressed and a cropped top. It felt odd, being so exposed, but I hoped the effect was more chameleon than peacock.

  That hope was dashed before I even reached the front doors of the school.

  Maybe—maybe—if I’d shown up on my first day dressed like this, driving a different car or no car at all, I might’ve been able to blend in unnoticed. But I should’ve known it was too late to try to change anyone’s mind about me. Everyone at this school had already decided who I was and what I was.

  The taunts from yesterday didn’t dissipate. In fact, they got worse. Snide remarks about me attempting to “slum it” mingled with thinly veiled threats about cutting up my body the same way I’d cut up my clothes, taunts and catcalls following me throughout the day. The only good thing was that the redheaded girl, Serena, wasn’t in classes today. She’d apparently chosen to skip and spend the day with her boyfriend, who went to a different school. I didn’t pay much more attention than that; I didn’t need to know the sordid details of her extracurricular activities.

  I also didn’t see much of the Lost Boys—at least, not directly. I saw them in the halls between classes. Now that I was hyper-aware of each of the three
boys, I realized I shared a couple classes with one or two of the trio. But they never approached me, never bothered me.

  I made sure not to bother them either, and I ate my lunch in a corner of the cafeteria so I couldn’t get trapped outside with them again. But almost against my will, I found my gaze gravitating toward them whenever I was in a classroom or hallway with them—observing them, drawn by the dangerous energy and charisma they all exuded.

  And what I saw made me feel certain they hadn’t been lying. They really did own this school.

  It was more the little things than the big things that convinced me. It wasn’t like they paraded down the halls on red velvet carpets or anything. But everyone—students and teachers alike—moved out of the way when they walked past. When the three of them walked into a room, everyone shifted toward them unconsciously, as if every single person in this school existed in their orbit.

  Whether that was true or just in my mind, I decided the best thing I could do was keep my head down and hope the novelty of the “poor little rich bitch” wore off quickly.

  I was actually feeling pretty good when I pushed through the school doors at three o’clock. With Serena gone, her posse had mostly left me alone, and I was getting better at ignoring the taunts and cruel names.

  Maybe I can do this. Just until Dad gets—

  I stopped dead.

  Ice flooded my veins, making me feel numb all over, as I stared at the spot where’d I’d parked my mother’s car in the morning.

  The car was still there. But it was totaled.

  My stomach clenched, the granola bar I’d brought for lunch sitting like a lump of cement in my gut. The car was old, something my mom wouldn’t have been caught dead driving in our old life—but it had been well taken care of. There hadn’t been a scratch on the sleek black paint when I drove into the parking lot this morning. Now, it was riddled with dents, the glass of almost every window was broken, and the windshield was cracked in a spiderweb pattern. The tires had been slashed, and the entire car had been rolled onto its side.

  This hadn’t been just one person with a misplaced grudge; this had been a group effort to beat the life out of my car. And as a finishing touch, someone had spray-painted “rich cunt” across the undercarriage.

  There were more tags on the car, more heartless works of art, but I didn’t bother to read them.

  Something in me broke. I felt the pang in my chest, like a knife through my heart.

  It shouldn’t matter. It was just a car. But it had been the last real, untouched thing from my old life—my normal life—and now it was barely fit to serve as scrap in a junkyard. A lump in my throat choked me, tears threatening to well over.

  I didn’t let them.

  Clenching my hands so hard my nails cut into my palms, I gritted my teeth and blinked hard a few times. People were watching me, laughing and shouting, filming my reaction and my car on their phones.

  I’d only been going to this school for two days, but I already knew one thing with absolute certainty: I couldn’t afford to look weak in front of the students at Slateview. It would make everything I was already going through so much worse, would make them see that they could get to me, that their cruelty affected me. And I couldn’t let that happen. Next time, it might not be my car that got trashed. It could be me.

  Let them have the car. Just let them have the damn thing. We can get a new one… someday.

  At least, that’s what I told myself. It was what I clung to as I turned and walked stiffly along the sidewalk leading from the school into the neighborhood, clutching my books in my arms.

  The school buses had already left, and even if they hadn’t, I didn’t have a bus pass since I was supposed to be a driver. I wondered, somewhat bitterly, if I should just get used to walking. I couldn’t imagine having to spend any amount of time on a bus with people that were willing to vandalize my car in broad daylight, let alone knowing that it would give more people a direct confirmation of where I lived.

  Holy shit. I’m starting to sound so paranoid. It’s ridiculous.

  Regardless, I kept my head down as I walked, intent on avoiding contact with anyone from the school. I pushed through some loitering crowds of kids here and there at the edge of school grounds, but blissfully, thankfully, they didn’t bother me, too wrapped up in their own overtly jovial entertainment to care that I was even there.

  Mom and I lived several miles away from Slateview. It was a quick drive in the morning, but it would take me at least an hour to walk home now.

  A few kids yelled out the windows of their cars as they drove away from school, but once I’d walked for about thirty minutes, the streets grew mostly empty and quiet. It was a hot fall day, and humidity made tendrils of my blonde hair stick to the back of my neck. A drop of sweat tickled my back as it dripped down my spine.

  I’d made it to the street our rental house was on when the back of my neck prickled for a new reason. My footsteps slowed, and my heart beat faster as I turned my head just slightly, unable to ignore the sudden uncomfortable feeling that I was being followed.

  I was.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw a car creep up alongside me. A beat-up convertible, just a little nicer than the cars that I was used to seeing, but not by much. My stomach dropped when I saw who was inside.

  The Lost Boys.

  I kept my face trained straight ahead, hugging my books close to my chest. If they thought I hadn’t noticed them, maybe they’d leave me alone, thinking I just wasn’t interested or particularly aware of them enough to care—

  “Hey. You ignoring us, Princess?”

  I took in a deep breath and turned to face them. Bishop was behind the wheel, Misael in the passenger seat, and Kace in the back. Misael typed away on his phone, looking up to me with a raised brow and a smirk when our eyes met. I pulled my gaze from him and shifted it to Bishop before continuing my walk.

  “I’m just going home,” I said flatly. “So if you’ll excuse me—”

  “What’s with that get up?” Misael spoke up, jerking his chin toward my shredded clothes. “You look like you’re trying to be somethin’ you ain’t, Princess.”

  “Stop calling me princess.”

  “Ain’t that what you are? A princess?”

  “No. It’s not.”

  The trio laughed, amused at my indignation.

  “Ain’t what we hear, but that’s fine. Can’t hide what you are, anyway. You don’t blend in well.”

  “Is there a reason you’re telling me all this? A reason you’re even talking to me?” I threw an annoyed look back at the car, faltering at the intensity of Kace’s stare. I swallowed.

  “You think you should be strollin’ around on your own?” he asked. “Uptown girl like you… You don’t really know the lay of the land around here yet.”

  I scoffed.

  “I can walk from the school to my house by myself just fine, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, but it ain’t a matter of if you can walk, but more about if you should.”

  My fists clenched. “Well, if you’re so worried, you could always offer me a ride.”

  “No can do,” Bishop spoke up. “Car’s full up.”

  I looked at them incredulously, staring at the back where there was a perfectly empty seat beside Kace.

  You know what, on second thought, I don’t need that ride. I wouldn’t take it even if they offered.

  I turned away, nose up. “You’re such assholes.”

  “Oh-ho.” Misael laughed, grinning broadly and ducking down a little so he could meet my gaze through the driver’s side window. “She swears! Your mama didn’t teach you how to do that, I bet. See, Bish? She is starting to fit in.”

  I stiffened. The nerve of this—

  Clenching my jaw, I drew in a deep breath through my nose. Misael wasn’t exactly wrong. I almost never heard my mom swear, although I’d heard my dad let loose with plenty of colorful language—usually through his closed office door when some business deal
hadn’t been going how he’d wanted. And maybe I’d started to curse a little more often in the past couple weeks, but I’d die before I admitted that to the boys in that car.

  So I said nothing, holding onto my resolve to ignore them all. I didn’t have much farther to walk anyway, so I could put up with them for the last few blocks. I thought they might get bored and drive away, but they didn’t—the car rolled along at a snail’s pace beside me as they started joking among themselves about school and chicks. I rolled my eyes and left them to it. I was sure they were doing this just to annoy me, and even though it was working, I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me snap.

  When we got to the house, I paused at the end of the walkway, looking furtively back at the trio. Misael winked at me.

  “Have a nice evening, Princess.”

  All three of them laughed, and Bishop peeled away in the car, zooming off down the street—seemingly just for show, since they screeched to a stop again in front of the house I’d seen Kace coming out of the other day. I watched them pile out, unable to stop myself, until Kace turned and looked back at me. We stood there a moment, gazes locked, but I refused to be the first one to turn away.

  I wasn’t quite sure why I insisted on doing it. Maybe just to show them that I wasn’t some little flower they could trample on.

  Kace’s lips tipped up in an almost feral grin, and he finally broke eye contact when he walked up into the house with Bishop and Misael.

  He’d broken first… but something in my gut told me that wasn’t exactly a win for me.

  Eight

  Mom said nothing about the loss of the car.

  I think, somewhere inside, she cared. But these days she was so listless, so non-reactive, I could have told her that a meteor had decimated half of Baltimore, and she probably wouldn’t have said a thing.

  It was becoming unnerving; Mom wasn’t the most talkative woman, but she’d never been so completely non-emotive as she was now. Worry and resentment grew side by side, battling for dominance in my mind. I was afraid that I’d lose my mother entirely to whatever depression or darkness she was sinking into, but I was also angry that she wasn’t even fighting to make the best of our situation. Dad would know what to do to make her feel better; he’d always handled her perfectly, always knowing the perfect thing to say. I’d have to ask him to give me some pointers the next time he thought to call us.