by Vi Lily
Devon drags me over to the coffee table. I glance down and see a mirror with white powder dusted across the surface. Cocaine. Another thing that hasn’t been in the house for a while, not since my brother had to switch to the cheaper stuff for his high.
He moves the mirror to the side, then picks me up and places me on the low coffee table. I frown at Devon, who is now at eye level with me, but I know better than to speak a single syllable. It would just lead to my blood getting spilled.
I despise being so small. So damned helpless.
From experience, I know that none of Devon’s friends will help me when he rages. The time that I snuck into the kitchen during one of his parties and pulled the pizza box out of the trash so that I could eat the thrown-away crusts, he’d caught me and had yanked me by the hair across the kitchen before slamming me into the wall.
The last thing I remember before I woke up on the tiled kitchen floor the next day was Devon kicking me and his friends laughing.
“We’re waiting for a few more to show up,” Devon told the room, “but I’ll just leave Ariel here for you to examine in the meantime.”
Examine?
Devon laughed. “I know she’s not much to look at, but that can be remedied by a hose and a bucket of soap.”
I feel myself color. Humiliation washes over me, not only at being on display, but also from my brother’s harsh words.
Regardless of what Devon said, from the appraising looks I’m getting, whatever he has planned is not good. Not good at all.
I hear a knock on the front door and Devon mutters, “Finally,” then leaves me there alone in a room full of strangers. One of the men gets up and moves toward me. He’s older, maybe late forties, fat and ugly. Well-dressed. Smells like nasty cigars.
He’s shorter than me as I’m standing on the table, but not by much. He would still tower over me if I were on the floor. He cocks his head to the side as he looks at me.
“Beautiful eyes,” he mutters. I blink in surprise. I never thought much of my eyes; they’re a weird color, a sort of light green. My mom called the color “seafoam.” But then the man reaches out and grabs my right butt cheek. I shriek in shock and step back… right off the coffee table.
I hit the floor with one leg and since I’m already off-balance, I end up falling backwards — right into the laps of the men still sitting on the sofa. I scramble to right myself, but am subjected to groping hands before I can get away.
Rushing to the fireplace, I put my back to the wall and stare in shock at the men who’d just felt me up. Men old enough to be my father, some even older than that. Only two look like they’re less than forty. They’re all leering at me.
“Too skinny,” one mutters.
“She’ll fatten up with some proper food,” another argues. “I doubt the boy feeds her much.”
If I wasn’t in such shock, I’d snort. That’s the understatement of the year. I bristle at being talked about like I’m not there.
I hear Devon’s voice then and I glance up to see the new additions to his freaky party that I’ve somehow become the focus of. A guy I’ve seen before walks in, one of Devon’s usual partiers. I’ve always thought that he was really good looking for an addict. But the blood drains from my face when I see who’s behind him.
Alex Johansen.
HE
Chapter 1
W HEN HIS BROTHER wanted to go to a “party,” Alex thought he had an idea what he meant. He figured it would involve drugs, since Steve was a cokehead, something which Alex could never understand. He never did drugs himself and rarely even drank, but a lot of that was due to the fact that he didn’t want to get kicked off the wrestling team.
Steve was another story. He’d graduated three years before and got kicked out of two colleges already. Alex wondered what his brother was going to do with his life, besides party and waste it. Steve was all about one high after another, whether it was drugs, booze, chicks, or adrenaline rushes.
Alex hated his brother’s friends and usually avoided them. But tonight Steve had asked him to go along because he said there were going to be “new people.” The Johansen brothers were walking mountains, but size didn’t mean much when you were dealing with druggies. Some of the scrawniest guys — and chicks — were known to have superhuman strength when they were high.
But when they walked in this house and Alex surveyed the room, he had a sinking suspicion this wasn’t a normal party.
“What the hell…?” Alex murmured when he noticed the middle-aged and well-dressed men. It was obvious that this wasn’t the usual party his brother dragged him to. In fact, it looked more like these were drug buyers, not users. The kind that resold their crap to street corner dealers. The middlemen.
For some reason, they were all staring at some chick cowering against the fireplace. She looked vaguely familiar, but Alex couldn’t place her. Of course, Bearing was a small town, so he’d probably seen her around.
Stupid crack whore, Alex thought to himself. She was likely there as the “entertainment” after the drug deals went down.
Going to a party was one thing; going to a drug deal was a whole other adventure Alex would rather not get himself involved in. If something happened, if cops were called or — God forbid — one of the suits in the room was an undercover of some kind, Alex would be going to jail. And any hope he had of taking State in wrestling this year would be locked up behind bars of steel and concrete.
Every drop of what little patience he had was used up in that moment keeping him from beating the crap out of his brother for getting him involved. Alex carried his anger around with him like body armor to keep everyone the hell away from him. But whenever he got seriously angry or was caught off-guard by something, he was unpredictable.
The problem was, Steve was almost as bad. They were both a product of their father’s particular brand of bad parenting.
“Let’s get the hell outta here,” he hissed to Steve. “What are you thinking?”
Steve just shook his head and glanced back at him. “Come here a lot and thought this was one of Dev’s regular parties.” He shrugged and turned to stare at the coffee table where a mirror was placed with what looked like white powder on the surface.
“Might still be able to get some blow though.”
Alex gritted his teeth at that and reluctantly followed his brother into the room. The girl noticed them then and it looked like she was staring right at him. Her hair was in her face, so he couldn’t get a good look at her, but it seemed like she was horrified, shocked even. Alex scowled. She acted like she knew him too.
And then it dawned on him where he’d seen her. At Athole, of all places. She was even in one of his classes, but he’d be damned if he could remember her name. All he knew was that everyone referred to the chick as “skank,” mostly because she was so smelly. Why in the world a rich girl would choose to be so dirty was beyond him.
Maybe it was how she kept people away, which he could appreciate.
“So,” the guy who opened the door — Dev Steve had called him — said to the room in general, “as most of you know, we’re here tonight for an auction.” Murmurs rippled through the men.
Alex frowned; an auction… for drugs? What the hell?
But when the Dev guy walked over to the girl and yanked her over to the coffee table, then lifted her skinny butt up on it with a reprimand to “stay still and keep your mouth shut,” Alex wondered if this was an entirely different type of auction.
Dev looked around the room and Alex noticed he had a wild look in his eyes. The dude was higher than a kite and judging by his appearance, Alex would bet his right nut that he was on crack.
What the druggie said next shocked the air right out of him. “Tonight, I’ll be taking bids on Ariel’s virginity.”
Virgin? Alex’s eyes flew back to the girl who looked as shocked as he felt, from what he could tell. He almost wished she’d push the hair out of her face so he could see her better. He didn’t remember ever get
ting a good look at her.
“Devon, no—” the chick started, but her protests were stopped when the druggie spun around and backhanded her right across the face. Hard. Her head whipped to the side from the impact and she cried out as she put a trembling hand to her face.
Alex took a step forward. While he had a horrible temper himself and was ashamed to admit he’d almost hit a girl a few months back, for some reason watching that dude smack that skinny, itty bitty chick made his blood boil.
Steve put his hand on his chest and glared at him. “Not the time, bro,” he growled.
Unfortunately, Steve was right. There were too many other guys here, and honestly, a few of them looked like they were packing. Even though he knew he could easily take any one of them — and even several at a time — in a fight, Alex stood down. Fists versus guns — no doubt who the winner would be in that one.
Devon turned back to the room, obviously pleased with himself for gaining the girl’s cooperation. Alex watched as tears streaked down her face. She was shaking like a leaf too and he noticed that her hair was wet.
Alex shook his head. Why girls were attracted to such scum-sucking men was beyond him. Even though she obviously didn’t want to be a part of the sick auction her boyfriend had going on, it served her right for picking such a piece of trash.
But even so, if the girl wasn’t willing to go along with selling her body — which seemed to be the case, judging by her reaction to Devon’s announcement — then this auction was nothing more than human trafficking.
And that was something Alex was not going to have any part in.
Chapter 2
A LEX TURNED TO LEAVE after telling Steve that he was going with or without him. His brother made the mistake of putting his hand on him to stop him and Alex gave him a look that apparently said all that he was thinking. Steve removed his hand.
“Fine,” he said with disgust. “I’ll find somewhere else to score some blow.”
Alex was already to the door of the room when the Ariel chick shrieked. He turned around to see what had caused it and was shocked to see Devon had yanked the girl’s shirt over her head and she had her arms crossed over her chest, trying to cover herself. As far as he could see, she didn’t have too much to hide. The chick was skin and bones; her ribs were sticking out, she was so skinny.
“I know my sister isn’t much to look at right now,” Devon laughed.
Alex frowned at that. Sister? He had figured she was the creep’s girlfriend. A pang of something unfamiliar went through him then. He wondered if it was sympathy. Maybe. He definitely knew what it was like to be treated like crap by your own family.
Like he had been so many times until he’d grown big enough to defend himself, she was helpless at the hand of an abuser. He could empathize, at least. The girl hadn’t asked for this. She was a victim of her brother… both his cruel words and his intentions.
Devon went on. “But with a shower and a meal or two, she’ll be very doable.” He laughed at his dumb joke, then turned back and grabbed the girl’s jeans, obviously planning to remove them too.
Alex had seen enough and while he really wanted to pound Devon — and Steve — into the fireplace mantle, instead, he pulled out his phone.
He stood right where he was in the doorway to the front room as his call “went through.” He hadn’t actually dialed anyone, but the others didn’t know that.
“Yeah, I wanna report a case of human trafficking,” Alex said, maybe a little too loudly. He had never been much of an actor.
“No, it’s an auction or something. Some underage girl. No, at a house. Yeah. The address? Um, I don’t know, but I can give you license plates if you want. Yeah, hold on.”
He made a move to go outside and almost smiled when he heard all the commotion behind him. He slowly made his way to the driveway where the cars were, but he was beaten there by the men rushing by him, hurrying to get to their cars before they were reported.
“Dumbasses,” he muttered to himself. It wasn’t much, but a least he saved that Ariel chick from losing her virginity to some creepy old guy.
He shook his head at that, shocked that there even was a virgin attending Athole Academy. All the chicks there were so slutty, he’d figured that cherry-popping was a prerequisite to attending the snobby school.
But he knew that Ariel wasn’t like the others. For one, she kept to herself. She was an outcast, an outsider. Like him in a way. He wondered again if she intentionally stayed dirty, smelly, to keep everyone away.
Like he did with his anger.
He’d been to over a dozen schools since fourth grade. He’d been expelled from all but two of those schools, always for fighting. And almost always because some snobbish rich jerk decided he was better than Alex… or someone else who couldn’t defend themselves, so Alex had.
But then there had been the teacher at his last boarding school. The one who had tried to join him in bed one night.
Alex had nearly killed the guy.
And that’s how he ended up at Athole. His mother had bought a house in Bearing that she let him move into and she’d paid his tuition for the year so he could finish school. She’d told him after that, he was on his own. No more chances, no more money. Not even for college.
Considering his father had pretty much turned his back on all of them, his mother’s threat was no joke.
His future was all on him now. Alex had to do whatever it took to do something with his life and he’d be damned if he’d screw that up. And while every fiber of his being wanted to beat the crap out of the psycho pervs running for their cars like mice leaving a sinking ship, there was no way he’d do that over some chick he didn’t even know.
Not even when she looked so helpless… and hopeless.
He’d done what he could. After that, he wouldn’t think about her again.
Chapter 3
A LEX DIDN’T SLEEP that night. He tossed and turned, his thoughts a jumble of worries and, though he was unwilling to admit it, fears.
School wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped. His grades sucked and he was on the cusp of losing wrestling privileges. Another half point off his GPA, he’d be off the team and wrestling was the only outlet he had for his anger.
There was a reason why Athole was considered one of the top prep schools in the nation — it was tough as hell. While he was no dummy, Alex wasn’t great with anything having to do with English.
Anything to do with reading, actually.
His mom had wanted him to be tested for a learning disorder when he was younger. His dad had refused, insisting “There’s nothing wrong with my son.” Not that he would actually know, since he never paid any attention to Alex or Steve, unless it involved a fist or a belt. Or a tire iron.
Edward Johansen was a proud man. An angry man. A brutal man.
Thankfully, his dad was long gone. Had been since Alex was fourteen, when he up and left the family for his secretary. It was the classic romantic tragedy and the last Alex heard, his dad and Tom were happily living out their lives in Barbados.
Alex wondered if Tom could take a hit as well as the Johansen boys.
Too late, he now needed help for school but he didn’t know how to get it. He was eighteen fricking years old and a senior. It was a little late to take special education classes for his sub-par reading. Just admitting he had a problem and needed help was the biggest pill to swallow though. He wasn’t sure if he could do it.
Apparently, the Johansen pride ran through the blood.
Despite his resolve not to think of her again, his stubborn mind had also strayed over and over again to that girl at the party. The one he knew from school. He had never given her much thought before, just a glance here and there because she was such an oddity.
Like him.
But where he was a big behemoth — thanks to his Scandinavian blood — she was a tiny thing. He doubted the top of her head even came to his armpit. It wasn’t really her size that made her odd, though. There were plenty
of other short girls in the Academy. It wasn’t the lack of meat on her bones either. Too many of the rich chicks dieted themselves down to what they called “heroin chic.”
What made her… Ariel, he reminded himself… different was her clothes. And griminess. When he’d first seen her, Alex thought she was just into the grunge look. Not his thing and he never really gave her a second glance. But now… now he wondered if her appearance was due to her circumstances.
He assumed that mansion in Oak Place was where she and that jackass Devon lived. Steve had said they were going to a guy’s house for a party and he’d been given the code to the gate for the ultra-rich community. It was a huge mansion, looked like the biggest on the block, but it was shabby, like it hadn’t been cared for. The inside was even worse. Even though they hadn’t been there long and Alex hadn’t looked around much, he could tell it was sparsely furnished.
Another oddity.
He shook his thoughts aside and got out of bed. It was Saturday and he needed get to the gym since he wouldn’t be working out at school.
“Damn, even colder today,” he muttered as he ran outside to start his classic Ram Charger.
It was a seventy-eight, completely restored. Alex had worked on most of it himself and he was damned proud of it. Plus, it was perfect for the northeast weather. When he’d come back from the UK, he’d been happy to see that his mother hadn’t gotten rid of it. His dad had bought it on a whim and his mom had been slightly vengeful when he’d taken off with Tom, and she’d gone on a “selling all Edward’s crap” spree.
She’d saved the Charger for Alex and had given the BMW convertible to Steve, since his brother had been living in California at the time. Of course, Steve had since sold the BMW for way less than it was worth and had moved in with Alex in Bearing, which their mom didn’t know about. She’d be pissed. Steve had also been given his last chance with her a long time ago.