by Jo Raven
Table of Contents
BAD SON | (A prequel to BAD WOLF) | by Jo Raven
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BAD SON
(A prequel to BAD WOLF)
by Jo Raven
Once a met a boy and gave him my heart
But what if he never gives it back?
He’s our neighbors’ adopted son.
He’s quiet, brooding, hot.
We walk together down the street after school,
And we talk.
I want him a lot.
But he thinks he’s bad luck, a bad son,
And misunderstandings will tear us apart...
*** This is a prequel to BAD WOLF—a short Novella ***
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BAD SON (Prequel to BAD WOLF)
Jo Raven
Copyright Jo Raven 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, events, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover art: RBA Designs | Romantic Book Affairs (http://www.rbadesigns.com)
Chapter One
Jarett
I’m walking home from the school bus stop, my backpack torn, hanging from one strap over my shoulder, my ribs aching dully from the beating I took—and gave—after classes ended. A joint hangs from my lips, taking the edge off the pain, off reality.
It’s not enough, though.
I’m late, and I’m not even sure my new foster parents will care. I’m not even sure where this home is that I’m heading toward. What it means. The house down the street is new to me, the people in it strangers. I arrived here almost a year ago, but I still haven’t yet unpacked most of my stuff.
Not that I have all that much. Clothes. Some books. A tablet.
Always ready to move to another foster home, another town. Always ready to leave. When you’re eighteen and can barely remember having a family—though the memory is there just to tease you with what-ifs and smashed hopes—then you know it’s not in the cards. Is there an expiry date to happiness?
I guess I feel that way, that I’ve hit rock bottom with my luck. There’s no getting better, no finding what I’ve lost. It’s over, and I want to punch everything and everyone, make room for my anger. I want to keep punching and hitting and screaming until the rage runs out of me like blood and leaves me empty.
At peace.
Another word that has no meaning anymore.
Taking a long drag on the end of my joint, drawing the last of the smoke into my lungs, I flick it into the gutter and finally notice that someone’s following me.
It’s an old reflex, checking my surroundings. Growing up in the system isn’t easy, or safe. You learn to protect yourself, to look out for danger.
But it’s just a girl. Blond, tall, curvy, in a tiny skirt, knee-high socks and combat boots. Her shirt is tight, her cleavage drawing my gaze.
She’s followed me before. Yeah, I noticed, and damn, she’s too pretty to forget.
But this time she smiles at me, big and wide.
It distracts me enough that she skips across the street and catches up with me. She falls in step beside me as if that’s the most natural thing in the world, and grins sideways at me.
“Hi,’ she says. “I’m Augusta, but you can call me Gigi. Augusta Watson, your neighbor? What’s your name?”
***
Gigi, as it turns out, is one persistent chick. I ignore her questions, ignore her presence by my side as I continue down the street.
Or try to.
She keeps talking, about this and that, school and the neighbors and the classes and the weather, and at first, it’s all white noise. Will her mouth never stop running? Jesus fuck. After all the hours slouched at the back of the class, trying to follow subjects I never really understood—trying my best because during the past few years I just fought and smoked and hated the world—my head is pounding.
The years since Connor died. Foster families that hosted me never really cared about what I did when I wasn’t in their line of sight, not since Connor passed. Connor cared enough to adopt me, but he died five years ago, and since then I’ve been drifting.
Until the Lowes took me in. Will I stay here? That’s the million buck question.
Nah. I’ll probably drift away again soon. Nothing’s permanent in this life. People, places, promises. They change. They fade.
They die.
Gigi is still talking, about someone called Merc and about music. Yeah, she’s persistent, but as we approach the Lowes’ house, my destination, I find I don’t mind. That my heart has stopped racing for the first time in I don’t know how long, and that I wish she’d stay and talk to me some more.
The fuck, right?
She stops, realizing I’m staring at her, and tucks a strand of white-blond hair behind her ear. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“So you can speak. I was starting to wonder.”
I smirk. “I wonder about lots of things.”
“Such as?”
About her, for starters. But I just shake my head.
Girls’ hot. Her lips are soft, shiny with red lip gloss, her blue eyes wide. I wonder how they’d taste, how they’d feel wrapped around my dick.
I wouldn’t mind pushing her against a wall and taking my pleasure from her. Most girls at school would beg for it. Have begged for it, on occasion.
Fuck. Adjusting the straps of my backpack hanging from one shoulder, I turn to go.
“We’re neighbors, remember?” she says brightly at my back. “I’ll be seeing you around.”
And the prospect, somehow, doesn’t annoy me as much as I thought it would.
***
Sitting in my attic room, at the window, I gaze down at the quiet, darkening street, at the trees down its far side, the old houses and cars parked outside. Two kids are running in circles, chasing after a ball.
I tilt my head back and let out a breath.
The Lowes are nice people, and their house is clean and quiet. Sebastian, their son, is a little shit, arrogant as fuck and clearly unhappy to be sharing his breathing space with me.
But that’s nothing new. If he thinks he’ll scare me off...
I snort. Scare me off. As if I’d leave. Where would I go? I just turned eighteen, but I own nothing in this world except for my few things. I don’t have savings deposited in the bank, or hidden under my mattress. And I should really finish school, while I’m here, while things are easy and life peaceful.
Before it all goes tits-up once more and I find myself in a new place, with new people to please and a new world order to adjust to.
When Connor adopted me, I thought I’d reached my destination, the end of the line. A cop, tall and strong, he vaguely reminded me of my father. I have faint memories of my real parents, before the accident that killed them. Bearded, burly, gruff, Connor could have been my uncle.
And he wanted to be my family. He signed the adoption papers right away, even though I was a surly, annoying kid. I’d been only ten but I’d been passed around a lot already, and had found that I had in me a huge, deep fucking rage directed at the world.
This world that didn’t seem to want me.
And then the world killed him, and left me to my own devices once again. I doubt I’ll ever find anyone to stay with. A family. It’s
over now, no matter what the Lowes seem to think. They won’t keep me. Why would they? Sebastian would have a fit, and I’m not good at school, or at anything else—except for the things that mattered to Connor, like shooting a gun and getting the upper hand in a fight.
What fucking use am I to the Lowes?
Someone is walking down the street and I lean forward to see better through the dusty glass, not sure what caught my attention.
It’s her. Augusta. Gigi. She’s walking together with a tall, skinny boy, his pale hair catching the low afternoon light.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter and open the window, lean out, my heart hammering in my chest. “Who the fuck are you, asshole?”
Why is she talking to him? With such familiarity. She looks at ease by his side. Comfortable. Too comfortable.
He’s taller than her, and she tilts her face up to look at him. The way she laughs at something he said... it makes my breath catch.
Jesus. I honestly have no fucking idea why I’m so pissed. No idea what I’m doing.
I sit back, open my pack of smokes and pull one out. I tap it against my palm, still looking at the two of them strolling, their heads bent together in conversation.
Why should I be surprised she has someone? She’s pretty. So damn pretty. I bet she’s doing great in school, too. A golden girl.
And I’m a black sheep. A sheep in wolf’s clothing. Marked by death. Bad to the bone. Someone who’s stolen, and lied, and lost his way.
God knows, I was lost from the start.
Chapter Two
Gigi
Going to school here is horrible, as things often are these days. Leaving all my friends back in Destiny still stings. Plus, back there I knew the bullies. There was Ross and his buddies, and I knew how to avoid them. Not that he picked so much on me as on my sister, but still.
I know about bullies.
But here they’re not content with calling you names and tripping you up in hallways, not just stalking you on social media and posting insults, but tearing your locker open and filling it with used condoms, ripping your backpack to shreds, cornering you and lifting your skirt, just short of raping you right in front of everyone.
The latter only happened once in Destiny, and it still haunts me.
Sydney, my bestie, has suffered from them as much as I have, or so she says. But she has three boys protecting her, and she says I should do the same. Find a protector.
Easier said than done.
There is this one boy, though. I’ve been following him from a distance all the way from the school bus stop. I started doing that at the beginning of the school year, but I don’t think he noticed until recently.
The strategy is simple: choose a tall, muscular, mean-looking boy walking in the direction of my house and stick close to him. Pretend I know him, that we’re walking home together.
Keep the bullies at bay.
If the boy is alone, bonus points. It means he won’t show off to his buddies by picking on me, won’t gang up on me.
This boy seemed perfect. New to the school, a loner—I’d noticed him during break—and obviously living in my neighborhood.
And not bad looking, either.
Okay, so that’s an understatement. He’s frigging hot. Which makes it all the weirder that he doesn’t have a following as he hoofs it home from the bus. Buddies chatting with him. Girls fawning over him.
Well, except for me. I’m his most loyal following.
I watched him first, of course. A lot. Took loads of mental notes—on how he limps sometimes, how his eyes track everything, how his lip curls when someone stands in his way.
Just... hot.
And here I am again, following him.
Just then he flicks the cigarette he’s been smoking—well the joint, I can smell weed as well as the next person—and turns to look at me.
I freeze and do my best not to show it, barely slowing down. I smile instead.
His expression does something weird. It stills, though his eyes seem to darken. He stumbles a little, almost coming to a stop.
Taking advantage, moving before I can think about it too hard, I cross the street and join him.
“Hi,” I say, “I’m Augusta, but you can call me Gigi. Augusta Watson, your neighbor? What’s your name?”
He doesn’t say anything for a long while, until we’re almost at my house, his hooded eyes flicking sideways at me all the way.
And right before I skip away to the promise of a warm lunch and an afternoon listening to music and doodling in my notebook, he talks to me in his deep, warm voice and I’m gone.
Crushing on him so hard.
He doesn’t tell me his name, but I know it. Jarett. Jarett Lowe.
I wanted him to say it. To offer it to me, a pledge, an understanding. I think I’d fallen for him already, from a distance, but that one word, his name, seals it.
I didn’t know it then, didn’t know this was the boy who would one day break my heart.
***
At school, I look for him but rarely see him. Once I catch him during break, right outside the school fence. He’s alone, one booted foot braced on the fence, head tilted back in the watery sunshine, smoking. The watery sunlight gilds his cheekbones, his lashes.
Beautiful.
Another time I see him from the classroom window during math. He’s smoking again, slouched against the water fountain, the smoke curling up in the air in fantastical shapes. He seems to be in deep thought, his brows drawn together, his gaze distant.
I really shouldn’t stare, but I can’t help it. Boy’s gorgeous.
He should be in class, like me, but he’s obviously cutting school. His dark hair looks wet, as if he’s just stepped out of the shower, or as if he’s been running. The thought of him all sweaty makes my little heart go pitty-pat.
God. What’s happening to me? I never got this hung up on a boy before.
I glance at him again out of the corner of my eye, while pretending to be checking something out in my math book. He’s still there. He has shoved a hand through his hair, and has closed his eyes. The bulge of his thick biceps mesmerizes me. He’s so strong, his shoulders so wide, he’s just...
Sexy.
Dangerous.
Unlike any other boy I’ve ever known.
In fact, he’s exactly the kind of boy Mom has always warned me about. A slacker. A flake. A punk. A delinquent. A troublemaker. And I have no business wondering what it would feel like, being held in his arms.
“Miss Watson!” the teacher snaps, and I jerk my gaze back to the whiteboard, heart pounding. “Pay attention. We have a test coming up.”
I nod, and try to regulate my breathing into the semblance of something normal. I force my mind back to the calculus written on the board and the problems to be solved.
When I look outside once more sometime later, he’s gone.
***
“You say he lives here?” Merc asks, glancing sideways at the Lowes’ house. “This Jarett guy?”
“Yeah. Stop looking! What if he sees you?”
“Nah. I’m stealthy like a ninja.”
“Shut up.” I snicker and elbow my brother. “He usually sits at the attic window, looking at the street. I think that’s his bedroom. Just don’t look that way.”
“Gotcha.” Merc shoves his hands into his pockets, kicks at a pebble on the street. The golden afternoon light catches on his hair, turning it bright like flaming crown. “You’re in love with him?”
“What?” My heart starts its pounding again. “Of course not. Who said that?”
“No one. You just can’t stop talking about him.”
I lift my chin. “Whatever. I only said he’s at our school, and our neighbor, and Mom says he was adopted—”
“—and he’s awesome, and he wears Metallica T-shirts, and has some tattoos that are so cool, and generally you can’t shut up about him.”
I fall silent, stung, and kick at a plastic wrapper.
“Hey.” Merc nudg
es me with his elbow and stops walking, his back to the house of the Lowes. “I’ve just never heard you talking so much about someone, that’s all.”
“Yeah?” I steal a glance at Jarett’s window and I think I see his silhouette behind the glass. I look away quickly. “I’m sure I have. Your memory is clearly going together with your looks.”
He snickers.
I just walk down the street every afternoon in the hope of catching a glimpse of Jarett. Is that normal?
Or pathetic?
Merc is shaking his head. “My memory and my looks are just fine. You, in the contrary...”
“What?”
Was that movement at his window?
Stop staring, Gigi!
Merc grabs my arm and steers me away. “You’ve got it bad, sis. Let’s go and get some ice cream. Come on, before the Lowes come out and ask why we loiter in front of their house. Unless you wanted to go in and ask for Jarett?”
“No. Merc, wait...”
But I let him draw me away, because he’s right. I’m not going to ask for Jarett, or risk him seeing me standing about. Acting interested. Acting like a girl with a crush on him.
No way.
Chapter Three
Jarett
School sucks balls.
And I’m not only talking about being behind in classes, or about the dumbass teachers who look at me and judge me instantly for being older, tattooed and pissed at the world, thinking that means I’m stupid.
One look at me and they decide I won’t make the cut, I won’t pass the exams, I won’t have the right answer when they ask a question.
And know what? I don’t give a shit. Let them think whatever they want. They don’t know jack about me. They don’t know how bad I really am. About the company I kept until the Lowes took me in, how I stole and broke stuff, how I spent time in Juvie.
Yeah, I’m as bad as they think. No, worse. Besides, what use is school anyway? I just hang out in class until the Lowes realize the mistake they made by taking me in and kick me to the curb.
Today I’ve skipped the last class. I’m outside, leaning against a tree in the school yard and counting the smokes left in my last pack, when I see Gigi.
Fuck, look at her. Just... look at her.
Something in my chest twists, and I go still, watching her. The girl is a stickler for the rules. She never skips class, never smokes, never deviates from her path between school and home.