Cruel Academy: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Princes of Ravenlake Academy Book 2)

by Nicole Fox

  The voices stop. And when I round the corner, two sets of eyes land on me.

  Mom is leaning against the dishwasher, arms crossed, and an apologetic crease between her brows.

  Across from her is my dad.

  He stands tall, takes a deep breath, and tips his head in greeting. “Caleb.”

  I look between them both, the sight of them standing so close both familiar and foreign, and suck in a hissing breath.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  35

  Caleb

  I look like my dad.

  Anyone who knows him and then sees me guesses the connection before they even hear my name. We have the same build, the same coloring.

  And the same damn temper.

  My mom is the one who often points out our hotheaded similarities. “Just like your dad,” she’ll mumble under her breath whenever I lose my shit.

  Before she left us alone, my mom whispered in my ear for me to keep my temper.

  But seeing as how I’m already near boiling, I don’t see how that will be possible.

  “Does your mom let you speak to her like that?” Dad asks, folding his hands in front of him on the table. A thin attempt at diplomacy.

  “Mom is here all the time, so I’m never surprised enough at the sight of her to warrant cursing.”

  His jaw flexes. “You wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d answer your phone once in a while.”

  “I also wouldn’t have been surprised if you knew how to take a hint.” I arch a brow, driving home my point—that he’s not fucking welcome in this house.

  He holds my gaze for a minute before he sighs and slouches down in his chair, throwing his hands up in surrender. “I give up. I’ve tried to reach out to you, to keep some kind of relationship, but you won’t give me a chance.”

  “I want a dad, not a pen pal.”

  He asked me if I was okay with it when he wanted to leave town. He sat me down at this kitchen table, explained his plans, and asked if I would be okay.

  I told him no.

  Later, I realized he didn’t want my permission. He wanted my approval. And it turns out, even that wasn’t a dealbreaker. He was fine moving without either.

  If he didn’t care what I thought then, why should I care what he thinks now?

  “That’s not fair,” he says, jabbing a finger in the air between us. “You are shutting me out. How are we supposed to be close if you don’t call or visit or make any effort?”

  “I’m the kid!” I yell, hating how immature it makes me sound. “I’m not supposed to make the effort. You are.”

  He throws his arms wide. “And here I am.”

  I roll my eyes. “Good on you, Dad. You managed to show up after my football game. Well done.”

  His hand flexes on the table, itching to curl into a fist. I recognize the desire because it is one I fight constantly. A slow breath blows out of his nose as he tries to stay calm. “Maybe if you’d call me for anything other than money, I’d know when your games are.”

  “I haven’t called you for money in over a year,” I growl.

  “I know!” he yells. “Which is why we haven’t actually talked in almost a year. And your insulting ‘fine’ texts don’t count. I’m trying, Caleb, but you don’t care about me unless I’m giving you money.”

  I snort. “That’s funny because there doesn’t seem to be much money to go around, either. I’ve been taking care of myself for years.”

  “That attitude right there is what I’m talking about. You’re ungrateful, Caleb. You refuse to acknowledge or be grateful for any of the things I do for you.”

  “You don’t do shit for me,” I spit, jaw clenched.

  Mom would warn me to calm down. She’d tell me to take a breath or take a walk.

  My anger towards Dad has always been upsetting to her. She feels responsible for ruining her marriage and my relationship with my dad, but Dad ruined our relationship himself.

  If he doesn’t want to face the fallout of that, then he should stop coming back.

  Real men face the consequences of their actions. They don’t run from them.

  His jaw flexes and clenches, his nostrils flare, and I can see that the hold he’s had on his self-control is growing weak. “Maybe, from now on, I actually won’t do shit for you.”

  I shrug.

  “Maybe,” he continues, crossing his arms and leaning back, “I’ll stop paying for your truck and your phone bill and school. I’ll stop paying for your health insurance and your car insurance. I’ll stop paying for everything I’ve been covering for the last few years and let you experience what it would be like if you didn’t have a dad.”

  We glare at each other for a few heavy seconds, and I keep waiting for the anger to rise up in me.

  But it doesn’t.

  And the empty feeling left in its stead is almost worse than rage. It feels like the last tether I had connecting me to my dad has snapped.

  “Thanks to you, I already know what it’s like to not have a dad.”

  I push away from the table, my chair scraping across the floor, and grab my keys from the counter.

  “You can’t just walk away from me!” he hollers at my back.

  I open the door and call over my shoulder. “Yes, I can. You showed me how.”

  36

  Caleb

  I’m watching sitcom reruns at Finn’s and halfway through a plastic bottle of shitty vodka when I remember my phone in my back pocket.

  My mom and dad probably took turns calling me, trying to get me to come back and talk, but I’m sure they’ve given up by now. They usually do.

  I power the phone up, toss it on the cushion next to me, and take another long swig from the bottle.

  Thirty seconds later, my phone buzzes. Then, it buzzes again. And again.

  Vibration after vibration comes through, my phone catching up on all of the messages I missed while I was away, but it is even more than I expected. Certainly more than a few phone calls and some texts.

  Curiosity gets the better of me, and I unlock my phone.

  The calls from my parents are there, like I expected, but there are also four missed calls from Haley.

  And a text.

  The Hell Princes attacked me.

  I’m on my feet and calling Haley before my foggy, vodka-soaked brain can even fully process the message or the implications. The fact that she texted me means she is okay, but I am still surprised and relieved when she answers her phone.

  “Hey.”

  “Are you okay?” I ask, pacing a wobbly line across the living room. “What happened? When?”

  “I’m okay. I’m fine. It was hours ago.”

  Guilt twists in my stomach. I should have checked in on her. If I’d turned my phone on, I could have—what? I can’t be with her all the time. I can’t protect her from everything.

  The thought feels like a stone sinking through my center.

  The only thing I wanted to do was protect Haley. Even when I didn’t understand anything else, I understood that … and I failed.

  “Caleb?” Her voice is soft and shaky. She may say she is fine, but I can hear that she isn’t.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  I stand perfectly still, listening as she explains going for her run, the text from Estefania, and the attack. Two men attacked her, one of them Levi.

  With every word, the rage I longed to feel for my father appears and grows. It unfurls inside of me, filling the empty spaces.

  It feels like purpose.

  Even after I called Levi out at the last fight, he came for Haley again. I should have known. Levi is just a symptom, not the root cause of all this shit.

  The root cause is Bumper.

  He is the reason Levi cares about Haley at all. Bumper is the one running that show. If Levi attacked Haley, it was on Bumper’s orders. I’m almost sure of it.

  I’ll kill him.

  I don’t realize I’ve spoken out loud until Haley gasps. “No, C
aleb. Don’t. Levi isn’t worth it.”

  “Bumper.”

  “He isn’t worth it, either. It’s just a few bruises,” she says. “With some makeup, they won’t even be that noticeable.”

  Injuries. They fucking dared. They touched her. They hurt her.

  I’ll kill them all.

  “I actually fought them off … because of you,” she says. “I heard your voice in my head during the fight, telling me what to do. Because of you, Caleb, I’m fine.”

  “Where are you? I want to see you.”

  My keys are lying on the coffee table. I snag them, drop them, growl in frustration.

  “I’m at home.”

  Perfect. I won’t even need to drive. “I’m at Finn’s. I’ll be over in a minute.”

  “Caleb. No.”

  I frown. “What do you mean? Why not?”

  “Number one, my parents are asleep in the room next to mine. Number two, you’re drunk.”

  I have no idea how she can tell I’m drunk through the phone. I thought I was hiding it relatively well. Apparently not.

  “I’m not that drunk.”

  “Even if you were stone-cold sober, my dad would kill you for coming to my house this late at night,” she says. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  I grind my teeth together. It’s too late to go back and fix what happened—I know that—but the idea of sitting here and doing nothing is unbearable. I want to fix this. I want to make it right.

  “Go to sleep,” she adds. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  I don’t remember hanging up or going to sleep, but I must have. Because when I wake up in the morning, I’m sleeping on top of the guest bed in my clothes and shoes.

  And my head is in agony.

  A little hair from the dog that bit you hardly feels sufficient to battle the hangover laying claim to my brain.

  I’m going to have to skin the fucking dog.

  37

  Haley

  Caleb won’t answer his phone. Or the front door.

  I know he’s still at Finn’s because his car is parked in the driveway, but there is no sign of life inside the house. No lights on or movement.

  After knocking on every door and calling him five times, I go back home to wait. Likely, he is sleeping off his hangover from the night before.

  I never asked him why he was drunk and alone. In retrospect, I wish I had, but I was still focused on my own drama.

  The bruise on my cheek is the worst.

  There is also a bruise in the middle of my back that no one will ever see and one around my upper arm from being grabbed, but I can wear long sleeves. My cheek, however, is puffy and tender and discolored.

  I spend a long time in front of the mirror, layering makeup over the spot and then scrubbing it away with a wet washcloth when it looks too cakey. If I try too hard to hide it, my parents will be suspicious.

  So, in the end, I decide to put a bit of powder over the spot and depend upon my ability to lie.

  “What in God’s name happened to your face?” My mom notices the spot the second I walk into the kitchen. She rounds the island and presses a hand to my cheek, grabbing my chin and tilting the bruise into the light.

  “What?” Dad asks from the table, looking up from his plate of eggs.

  “A bruise.” Mom jerks my face around to show my dad, seeming to forget that the bruise is connected to her living, breathing daughter. “On her face.”

  I push her hands away and roll my eyes. “I’m fine. It’s no big deal.”

  She snorts. “It looks like a big deal. What happened?”

  “A branch had it out for me on my run yesterday,” I say easily, pouring myself some orange juice. “I went for a run in the park, and I took the dirt trail through the trees, and a low-hanging branch surprised me. I ran into it so hard I fell backwards.”

  I feel slimy lying to them—the same way I used to the few times John left bruises where other people could see—but I can’t tell them the truth. They’d never let me leave the house again if they knew members of a biker gang were after me.

  Dad turns around in his chair, arm draped over the back of the seat. “I don’t like you running those trails by yourself. They aren’t safe.”

  “Your dad’s right. You need to stick to main roads and sidewalks,” Mom says, running her thumb over my cheek again. “Crazy people could be hiding in those trees.”

  I laugh, and Mom thinks I’m laughing at her worrying, but it’s because she hit the nail on the head without even realizing it.

  Her worst nightmare came true, and she has no idea.

  Throughout the day, I call Caleb and venture over to Finn’s a few more times, but after my third trip out for “some air,” my parents are suspicious, and I stick to calling and texting.

  Finally, just after I finish eating dinner, Caleb texts.

  Come over.

  I lace up my sneakers and head out for a run, promising my parents I’ll give all trees a wide berth, and practically sprint over to Finn’s. The front door is unlocked when I get there, and Caleb is inside, lying on the couch.

  “It’s dark in here.” All of the blinds are pulled and there is only one lamp letting off any light. The usually bright space is like a dungeon. “How much did you drink last night?”

  “Less than I drank this afternoon.” His words are slurred and sloppy, and when he sits up, he sways back and forth like a rocking horse searching for equilibrium.

  “Are you still drunk?”

  Caleb points a finger gun at me and attempts to click his tongue and wink, but the movements are all out of sync.

  I’ve never seen his body so out of sorts before. Caleb is always in control. Always graceful and purposeful.

  Now, he looks like a sheet hanging out to dry in a hurricane.

  I walk around the couch to sit next to him and have to wade through an ankle-high pile of beer cans. An empty plastic bottle that once held vodka is on the table. I hope to God it wasn’t full when he started.

  “You’re judging me.” He narrows his eyes, brows furrowed in the middle, his lips sticking out in an exaggerated pout.

  When he first reaches out to touch my face, he misses. Then, he course-corrects and brushes his thumb over the bruise on my cheek. “I can see it written all over your bruised face. You’re disappointed.”

  I pull my face away and let his hand fall. “I’m not disappointed—I’m confused. What’s this about?”

  Caleb ignores my question and reaches around the side of the couch for his tennis shoes. He is in a pair of gray athletic shorts with a white T-shirt. Despite the overwhelming scent of liquor, I can smell his bodywash.

  “Did Levi do that one?”

  “Yeah, but it was a weak punch. His form was terrible, and he just skimmed my face. It’s really not as bad as—”

  “Did he say who sent them after you?” Caleb’s words are still slurred, but there’s a sharpness to them that wasn’t there before. A determination.

  I know he wants me to confirm it was John, but I can’t. Because Caleb is drunk enough and stubborn enough to do something stupid. I don’t want to contribute to that.

  “Levi just told me I was stupid for coming. And I was stupid. I shouldn’t have trusted Estefania after she told John about the camping trip. I shouldn’t have—”

  Suddenly, Caleb turns towards me and grabs my face, his fingers curling behind my ears.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, Haley. Those bastards tricked you and hurt you, and they are the ones who should pay. He is the one who should pay. Not you. I don’t want you to feel one ounce of guilt or embarrassment.”

  The word comes out sounding more like “embrasent,” but I can guess what he is trying to say.

  “I’m going to make sure he gets what he deserves.” Caleb pushes himself up off the couch and holds his arms out slightly to get his balance.

  I follow, grabbing his arm to help steady him. “What does that mean? Where are you going?”

  He tips
his head towards the clock on the wall, the movement sending his entire body tipping sideways. His knee hits the coffee table and he curses.

  “The fights start soon. I’m going to call him out.”

  Caleb just struggled to stand up from the couch, so the idea that he is going to go fight is so ridiculous it is laughable.

  In fact, at first, I laugh.

  Then, when Caleb grabs his wallet and keys from the end table and starts making his way to the door, the laughter stops.

  I jump over the back of the couch and land in front of him. “You’re shitting me, right?”

  He frowns. “Why would I be—”

  “Because you’re hammered drunk, Caleb! You can barely stand up, let alone fight someone.”

  He rolls his eyes and waves a dismissive hand at me. “I’ll sober up by the time I get there. Plus, it’s Bumper. I could take him in my sleep.”

  The hand he waves is the one holding his keys. I snatch them out of his hand. The fact I’m able to do that just proves how out of it he is.

  Sober Caleb would have caught my hand in midair.

  “You aren’t driving anywhere.”

  “Of course not. I’m not an idiot.” He swipes his hand out for the keys and misses by six inches. “I ordered a …” His face screws up in concentration before he shakes his head and shrugs. “I don’t remember what it’s called, but the app says the car will be here in a couple minutes. I need to go wait by the curb.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere. You’re being ridiculous.”

  He steps into my personal space and smooths a hand down my hair. “You’re being ridiculous if you think I’m going to let anyone get away with hurting my girl.”

  When he turns away, I’m left standing there, stunned. But about the time he opens the door, my wits return to me.

  “No!”

  Caleb doesn’t turn around when I yell, but I run after him and grab the back of his shirt. He keeps walking down the driveway, dragging me along behind.

  “No, no, no. You have never called me your girl before, and I’m not going to let the first time be because of some Hell Prince assholes, okay? If you want to go fight Bumper, you’re doing it for you. Not for me. I got away from my attackers yesterday. I saved myself.”