Tormented: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Elginvale High Book 1)

by Esme Devlin

  Unless it was Rosheen?

  I park the car at school, this time avoiding the red X5, the black Evoque, and Shaun’s new gray Q5. I text Stevie while I cross the car park and ask her to meet me at the wall for lunch. I need to tell her what’s happened and ask her opinion on whether it’s likely Rosheen could be the one behind it. If not, then that proves this goes further than just some game he’s playing with Liam. This is a personal attack against me. What I don’t understand is why?

  I walk down the hall and notice that it’s not as quiet as the day before. Maybe I’m already yesterday’s news, just like Stevie had said? But that turns out to be wishful thinking on my part when I get near my locker and realize there is no fucking door on it. Someone has taken the door clean off, and now it sticks out like a sore thumb next to the bright yellow ones that surround it. Jesus, how mature!

  I consider just walking straight past it and acting like it’s not even mine. That seems like a better idea than going over to it and drawing to everyone’s attention that the person with the doorless locker is me. They’ll all want to see my reaction and I don’t think I have it in me to keep my cool anymore. I stop walking while I weigh up my options and notice a group of boys pointing at it and sniggering and then looking at me. Seems like everyone already knows whose locker it is.

  I pull myself together and walk straight over to it, thinking I’ll just grab my timetable and get the hell out of the hall. But as I get closer, I peer in and see a framed photo of me on holiday last year, wearing nothing but a bikini.

  My heart sinks.

  Heat washes all over me.

  I use my body to cover the picture and slam it down against the floor of the locker. I stand there for a moment not doing anything, not ready yet to turn around and show everyone my beaming red face.

  “You’ve got a body like a fucking theme park, princess.” I hear from behind me. I don’t even need to look, I’d recognize his voice anywhere. My stomach hollows.

  I turn around to see Shaun Keagan standing just inches from me, a smirk pasted across his fucking handsome face. He leans his arm on the locker beside me, effectively trapping me in. I take a step back, trying to put as much distance between us as possible but the hard wall of metal behind me makes my attempt futile.

  “You did this,” I accuse him.

  “I just got here,” he deadpans.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Did you see my car when you arrived? Walk outside right now, and you’ll see two Audis parked side by side. I told you, his and hers. I just got here.”

  “Maybe it was one of your little thugs then, but either way, you made it happen.”

  He chuckles and reaches into the locker behind my back. He’s so close that his body pushes up against me and I feel his hard chest crush me into the wall. He has to be at least a foot taller than me, so my face collides with muscle and I start to panic. We’re in public! We’re in school! I lift my arm up and try to push him off me, and he finally backs off but his hand isn’t empty. He has my photo.

  “I was wondering where this got to. Noticed this morning it was missing from the bedside table. My morning wank wasn’t half as fun without it,” he says with a wink.

  “You’re fucking disgusting. Give me it back!” I demand.

  “No.”

  I try to snatch it out of his hand but he puts it high up in the air and I know there is no chance I can reach it. He’s causing a scene. He’s drawing attention to us. I look around, wary that everyone is going to be staring but to my surprise there isn’t anyone. No one is paying us any attention. In fact, people are actively avoiding looking at us.

  “Give it back,” I say it again, this time more firmly.

  “You really are a rude little girl, aren’t you? Manners cost you nothing, Lace.”

  “Please.” I huff.

  He grins. “See? That was beautiful. I’m still keeping it, though.”

  “Fuck you,” I push passed him and head in the direction of what I think is my first class. Can’t be sure since I don’t have my timetable, but I’m confident it’s Spanish. I won’t let him see just how much he’s bothering me. The look in his eye tells me he loves watching me squirm. This has gone way further than getting back at Liam. This is about me now. Me, and him.

  ❖

  I get to class, and since the bell has only just gone, I’m one of the first people there. I take a seat on the far side of the room next to the window. We had Cantonese at my last school, not Spanish, so I’m already expecting to fail. To be honest, I’d rather just skip it, but a language is mandatory here and Spanish seemed like the most useful of the offerings. At least I might learn how to order a drink on holiday or something. And I can look out of the window if it gets too heavy.

  Students are piling in now and the class is about to start. Since I now have no locker, I reach under the table and set my heavy pile of books down on the floor.

  Someone takes the seat next to me and I get back up from under the desk to see Shaun fucking Keagan. I hold my breath while I wait for a snide remark, but it doesn’t come. He doesn’t even look at me; his eyes are fixed on the teacher at the front of the class.

  Miss Gomez. She has on a white blouse and black pencil skirt that accentuates her hour-glass figure. Long caramel waves, skin the color of honey and she can’t be more than ten years older than us. She’s beautiful. And Shaun must think so too, because his gaze hasn’t moved from her since he sat down.

  She sets the class a task of translating a passage of text, and I get a worksheet meant for seven-year-olds with phrases like “good morning” and “my name is”. Brilliant. I make a mental note to see about getting shifted into another class at break-time. I thought this would be okay, it’s mandatory but I’m not expected to pass since I’ve missed the first five years. But that was before Shaun turned up and took the seat next to me.

  We’re not even ten minutes into the lesson when Shaun raises his hand and Miss Gomez approaches.

  “Here you go, Miss,” he says as he hands her his passage. I’d like to say he uses a sickly sweet voice and flutters his long dark lashes at her, but he doesn’t. I don’t think Shaun is capable of that. What Shaun does is worse. He talks to her with a voice like gravel, in a way that makes it clear to everyone listening, including her, that she is beneath him. That she is inconsequential. That he could take her, or he could leave her, and she’d just have to deal with it.

  Miss Gomez smiles sweetly, and she does flutter her eyelashes. I watch her aghast. She thanks him and tells him to amuse himself for the rest of the lesson before she turns on her heels and struts back down to her desk.

  I watch him in my peripheral while he pulls out his book and starts writing quickly in Spanish, meanwhile I’m still stuck on fucking ‘por favor’.

  I didn’t have him down as being academically gifted, and a part of me feels bad for that. I judged him before I knew him. I underestimated him.

  The lesson goes by without incident, although the whole time I feel uneasy. I don’t know if it was the events of the morning, or just the proximity to him, but I’m a bag of nerves by the time the bell rings. I couldn’t concentrate at all. It was like a delicate tension between us and I was hanging on the edge of it. Shaun didn’t seem to notice though, he just got on with his work.

  The bell rings for morning break and I put my bag on the table and bend down to pick up my heavy pile of books. I had intended to go to the office and try to switch classes, but now I think I’ll text Stevie and see if I can borrow her locker for the day.

  I meet her outside at the wall like normal.

  “I can’t believe what he did,” she says as she sits down beside me.

  “That’s not even the worst of it,” I tell her. “I woke up this morning to various forms of the word slut spray-painted all over my house.” I was going to ask her if she thought he could have been responsible for that, but after this morning there is absolutely no doubt in my mind. It was him. “He’s out to get me.”
<
br />   “Aww, Lace… I don’t even know what to say. Have you cut all contact with Liam?”

  “Yeah, he’s not text me once since Friday night. I haven’t even seen him.”

  “He’s here. He was in my biology class this morning,” she tells me. “Shaun will catch wind that neither of you are even interested in each other, and when he does, he’ll get bored with tormenting you.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I say as I open my bag to find my breakfast. “What the fuck is this?”

  I pull out a folded up piece of paper and open it up so that both of us can see it. It’s a handwritten note, except it’s not written in English. It’s written in Spanish.

  “Do you read Spanish?” I ask Stevie.

  She shakes her head at me and takes the paper from my hands, running her eyes over the page. “Shaun?”

  I nod. “He must have slipped it in my bag. He sat next to me in Spanish.”

  “You need to translate it,” she says, pulling out her phone.

  “I don’t think I even want to know.”

  “Maybe you don’t, but I sure as hell do. I bet it’s kinky as fuck,” she laughs, until she sees my face. “Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood a little.”

  “No, it’s okay. I know. It’s all just becoming a bit too much. I’ve barely even processed Friday and now the video, the car thing, my house, the locker. Did I tell you I woke up to a text from him this morning? And now he’s writing me death threats in a fucking foreign language! Where will it end?”

  “He’s just trying to get a reaction, Lace. I mean, most people would have crumbled after the video. You didn’t. He won’t like that. He’s playing a game with you. You just need to hope that he gets bored.”

  “Should I crumble? Should I just tell him he wins? I’ve had enough of it. I can’t take a full year of this, I’ve barely even survived a week!” I say.

  “It won’t come to that,” she assures me.

  All I can do is hope she’s right.

  Chapter 10

  Shaun

  “Gritaras mi nombre, Princesa.”

  I hit send and shove my phone back in my pocket. It’s lunchtime and the usual ruckus is kicking off in the halls as people scurry around trying to find their friends and claim their table before anyone else does. My table sits empty, like it always does, but I’m not heading there right now.

  I’m looking for someone specific.

  I stand in the middle of the entrance hallway, the one that connects the canteen to the common area, and has the double doors leading to the stairs and classrooms at the back. No matter where he goes, he will have to pass through this area at some point this lunchtime, and I intend to be right here waiting for him.

  I’ve told the rest of them to go on without me. They don’t need to be here for this. The more people who know, the worse it is for my sister. I know that all too well, considering I’ve just done exactly the same thing to Lacey. At least he wasn’t smart of enough to think of videoing it, like I was.

  This stays between Liam, Heather, and I.

  I catch his golden head sticking up above a group of first years, and they all jump out of the way when I walk through them. Clever laddies, these first years. I grab Liam by the shoulder and stop him in his tracks. He turns his head towards me and smiles, and I want to rip it right off his face.

  “Get the fuck outside, now,” I tell him.

  His smile gets bigger and now he’s grinning like a fucking half-wit. “Gladly.”

  We walk through the hall and people see us coming and make space. They want to look, but the scowl on my face means they look anywhere but directly at us. Liam follows me outside and around the back of the school, out of sight and out of earshot.

  “Explain to me what the fuck you’re playing at?” I push him and he stumbles back into the wall.

  “Leviticus.” He smiles at me and shrugs. “Fracture for fracture. Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. Not that you would know anything of sacred scripture.”

  “Did you stop reading at the part that tells you to turn the other cheek? Or does the thought of my fist going through it excite you?”

  He chuckles and I clench my fist to stop me from hitting him. “You wouldn't dare.”

  “You’ve gone too fucking far, Liam,” I warn him.

  “You think? See, the ache in my balls is begging me to go further.”

  “Lay a finger on my sister again and I swear, I will kill you. I will strangle you in your sleep.”

  “And risk the wrath of your father? I’m going to hedge my bets on that being unlikely. And by the way, Heather has the sweetest pussy I’ve ever tasted.”

  I draw back my fist and crack him in the jaw. He stumbles backwards and catches the wall for balance while he recovers. It takes him a moment but when he straightens, he laughs. “She wasn’t the most responsive and it’s a shame because I hear she’s usually an animal between the sheets. Not like Lacey, all blushing virgin and timid. You’ll have to break her in for me.” He pauses and puts his fingers on his chin. I let him continue because I want him to get it all out of his system before I land the next punch. “That’s not actually a bad idea… I’ll break your sister for you, and I’ll allow you to break my future wife? A gentleman's agreement if ever I heard one.” He smirks and watches my reaction.

  I keep my face straight, even though my fist is still clenched. “Future wife? Fucking wishful thinking. She’ll be gone by the end of the month.”

  “Negative. Already spoken to my father. I’ll have her hand in marriage, and in return her father will receive a generous share in the company. Luckily for you, I don't much like virgins anyway.”

  I laugh at him, not in disbelief because it's probably fucking true. I laugh because this is so fucking typical of Liam I feel stupid for not anticipating it.

  “The whole town knows what I did to your ‘future wife’ on Friday night, and you're going to marry her anyway?”

  Liam shrugs. “Not ideal, obviously. You attempted to publicly take her from me, and now I’m going to publicly take her from you.”

  “Then do it,” I challenge, raising my eyebrows and cornering him against the wall. I never got that second hit and now I’m dying to do it. If he says one more thing about Heather or Lacey, it’s game over for him.

  “Speak of the timid virgin,” Liam says, nodding his head behind me. I turn around and see Lacey and Stevie approach the wall that runs around the building.

  “Get the fuck out of my sight,” I tell him.

  He doesn't need to be told twice. Liam slips past me and strolls casually along the side of the building towards the doors.

  I glance back at the girls and see their gaze drift from Liam towards me. I flash Lacey a smile and she looks away, her face like thunder.

  So this is where they sit for lunch, I had been wondering why I never see her in the canteen or the halls. Good luck hiding out here come September when the rain and the winds come. She’ll probably want to go and sit in the bathrooms with the losers.

  Or maybe she’ll sit in the canteen with Liam. Not a fucking chance if I get my way. I can't deny that his revelation complicates matters, though. If her father takes shares in the company in exchange for her hand, then aside from being a fucking cunt, he’s also not going to leave town because of some spray-paint and revenge-porn. I can terrorize her all I want to, but what the fuck is it going to achieve?

  I walk back up to the school while I try to plan my next move. Dad did tell me to use my imagination, after all. Making her life here a misery seemed like the easiest and fastest way to get her out of town, but now I’m not so sure.

  Now it feels as if Liam is doing everything in his power to keep her and Laurence Tyler in town. I need to stop him. I need to guarantee that she doesn't fall for Liam’s pathetic game.

  I pull my phone out of my pocket as I walk into the canteen, and I see a message from Lacey.

  “Gritaré tu nombre sobre tu tamba, cabrón.”

  I chuckle as I read her m
essage: I will scream your name over your grave, bastard. Good old Google-translate, eh? Spanish will be interesting on Thursday.

  I take my seat in the canteen next to Doeboy and Calvin.

  “We were just talking about plans for the weekend,” Tony says, shoving a fry in his mouth.

  “Fuck the weekend.” I tell the group, pulling Calvins tray of fries over to me since I didn't get the chance to get my own. “Organize something for tonight.” I turn to Calvin. “And make sure Stevie’s with you.”

  Chapter 11

  Lacey

  I arrive home and breathe a sigh of relief when I see that the spray-paint on the walls is now mostly illegible. The walls, once white and void of any imperfection are now tainted with smears of black, but at least they’re not an advertisement for my loose morals. At least the whole street can’t see that I’m a slut, or at the very least, a target.

  The house is empty, and I assume that Alice has gone home for the day. She’s left a pot of stew on the stove with a note beside it that reads “Reheat on the stove (or if you’re feeling lazy - four minutes in the microwave should do it) there’s a butter roll in the bread bin.” Signed with a kiss.

  I smile to myself. I never knew my mother, and my father's parents passed away when I was too small to remember them. We’ve had housekeepers before, and Alice seems the type who understands that this house needs something more than a housekeeper. Not that I think I need mothering, but it gets lonely coming home to an empty house most nights. My dad has always been so consumed with work that even when he is here, I get very little of his attention. I deal with most things on my own and have always felt like this should make me a ‘strong’ person. But the reality of it is, I’m not. Sometimes when you’ve had the worst day, all you want is to come home to a pot of home-made stew and a handwritten note, signed with a kiss.