Trust Him: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Rebels of Sterling Prep Book 4)

by Caitlyn Dare

  The nurse pales before rushing out, probably about to demand that someone else deals with the psycho in whatever room I’m in.

  I see Hadley’s lips part out of the corner of my eye, and I know that she’s about to rip me a new one.

  “I need a drink,” I tell her, cutting her off before she even starts.

  If she were anyone else, she’d refuse to do anything for me right now, but that’s not who she is. The second I ask, she jumps up and grabs me a cup of water with a straw.

  The moment she places it to my lips, I greedily swallow down the lot. My throat fucking kills, my stomach too. Everything, actually.

  I have so many questions. I might remember the alcohol and the little packet of pills in the back of my drawer, but how did I end up here? Who found me? How close was I to succeeding?

  Did I really want to die? That question is the loudest as I try to get my head around my impulsive decision to fill my body with that much poison.

  Hadley’s stare drills into me after she places the empty cup back down. She doesn’t offer me anything else, and I can’t say I’m surprised. I don’t really want to be nice to me right now, so she sure has no reason to.

  I’m shocked she’s even here after the way I treated her. After what she’s already been through.

  “You can leave, you know. I don’t expect you to be my nurse or anything.” I keep my eyes closed as I say the words, but that doesn’t mean I miss her gasp.

  “You really are fucking clueless, you know that?” she snaps, but I don’t have it in me to reply. Instead, I allow the darkness to consume me once more.

  When I come back to, however long later, I wonder if the whole thing was just a really bad nightmare, but then I hear voices, their words flowing through me, and I know it was very much real.

  “What was he like, when he woke?” Remi asks.

  Hadley blows out a breath. “A prick.”

  “He should be groveling at our fucking feet after putting us all through that,” Ace mutters, the anger in his voice clear.

  I clench my fists, but unlike last time, there’s no hand in mine, no support from the girl I know is sitting beside me.

  Why didn’t she leave? I gave her permission to.

  Dragging my eyes open once more, the electric light from above burns into them and makes me wince.

  “Cole, you’re awake,” Remi says, pushing to a stand and racing over.

  Her eyes are soft and full of tears as she takes my hand in hers.

  My muscles tense, my need to pull away from her strong, but I know I need to suck it up. I’ll only be here a short time and then I can lock myself away in my room, away from all their attention and sympathetic, concerned eyes.

  Ace comes to stand beside her, his arm wrapping around her waist, but he makes no move to comfort me.

  His cold, angry eyes find mine. He might be holding it together, but I see the storm brewing inside. “If you weren’t in the hospital right now, I’d have a go at trying to kill you myself,” he growls.

  “Ace,” Remi gasps, placing her hand on his chest. “Take it easy, he’s been through hell.”

  “I’ll show him fucking hell,” he mutters to himself before falling back down on the chair and refusing to look at me.

  The tension in the room grows thick, to the point that I’m on the verge of kicking them all out, when the door opens once more and Conner walks in.

  Our eyes hold, an understanding passing between the two of us.

  “Could you… uh… give us a few?” he asks the others. Ace and Remi get up almost instantly, but Hadley is a little less keen to leave my side. “It’s okay, Hadley baby. We just need to talk.”

  I keep my eyes on my brother as she finds her sneakers and walks up to him.

  Conner’s arms instantly wrap around her before he whispers something in her ear.

  Jealousy swirls around in my gut as I watch the two of them together.

  She’d be so much better off with Conner. He’d treat her right, make her laugh. Do all the normal things that boyfriends do. He certainly wouldn’t carve his initial into her chest and fuck her so hard she miscarries their child.

  The darkness that landed me here in the first place descends over me. I try to fight it, but it’s getting harder and harder to keep at bay.

  Conner kisses Hadley’s head, and my fists clench around the sheets beneath me, desperate to rip his hands from her.

  It’s my fault things are so familiar between the two of them. Hell, she kissed him first. Maybe she should have been his all along.

  Eventually she follows Ace and Remi from the room, leaving the two of us and a fuck load of tension.

  “You want her,” I state.

  “Cole,” he breathes, shaking his head and coming to sit beside me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “T-tell you w-what?” I stutter, really hoping he’s not about to bring up the one thing I really don’t want to talk about.

  “That Hadley was pregnant.”

  All the air whooshes from my lungs as I stare down at the IV in my hand. “What good would it have done?”

  “I don’t know. Just… got it off your chest. I know you’re hurting, Cole. But what happened, it’s really not your fault. Hadley doesn’t blame you, so you need to find a way to—”

  “Did she tell you what I did to her?”

  “She didn’t tell me, but…” He hesitates, and it makes me look over at him.

  He’s pale, really fucking pale, and it makes me wonder what the hell he’s about to admit.

  “I saw… fuck,” he barks, standing and pacing the small room. “We both slept in here last night… on there.” He nods to the cot that’s been pushed against the wall. “That wound on her chest… tell me you didn’t…”

  “You saw her naked while I was lying here, half dead?” I fume.

  “What? No, of course not. She was wearing a tank, and when she turned over… that’s not the point. It was a C, wasn’t it? And you put it there.”

  If I could disappear into the mattress then I would, but while I’m attached to machines, I can’t exactly hide from this.

  “Yes, okay.” My jaw clenches, “I did. Things got… out of hand. I told you that on the phone.”

  “I thought you had an argument, Cole. Not that you carved her up like a fucking butcher.”

  “I… shit. I lost control. I found out she’d been texting her ex and things just…”

  “Got out of control. Yeah, I fucking got that. You need some fucking help, bro. All this anger, this hate. I don’t fucking get it.”

  “Why would you? You weren’t there. Neither of you were.”

  “What do you mean?”

  My heart begins to race, and my palms sweat. Why the fuck did I say that?

  Blowing out a breath, I look away from Conner’s probing eyes. “What do you think happened while you and Ace were at school all day?”

  “Uh… you hung out at home, slept, watched TV. I don’t know. I never really thought about it.”

  “Exactly. You never really thought about it. You have no fucking clue what it was like for me while the two of you goofed off and enjoyed school life. No fucking idea.”

  “So tell me. Make me understand.”

  My chest heaves as I fight to drag in the air I need. The room begins to grow hazy, and my head starts to ache.

  I blink, once, twice, then the third time I swear I drift off.

  “I need you to leave,” I manage to force out before the darkness returns. “I need all of you to leave. Especially her.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Hadley

  “What do you mean, he doesn’t want to see me?” I can barely get the words out.

  “I’m sorry,” Conner says, reaching for me, but I dodge his advances.

  “He doesn’t know what he wants. I’m going.” I try to move around him, but Conner tackles me, hugging me close to his body. “He was pretty clear, Hads. He doesn’t want to see any of us.”

  “B
-but—” A garbled sob spills from my lips, but it isn’t hurt I feel, it’s frustration.

  I knew... just knew Cole would do this.

  My cell vibrates, and I pull it out of my pocket.

  “Who is it?” Conner leans over, but I can’t respond. Tim’s name taunts me, sending chills down my spine.

  “Is that him?”

  “I’m done. I’m so fucking done.” My fingers claw at the back cover of my cell, tearing it off. I rip out the battery and then the SIM card.

  “Whoa, Hads, what are you—”

  I drop them on the floor and begin stamping. In my flats, it’s a futile attempt, but I’m so angry I can hardly think straight.

  “You could have just blocked him.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’ll always find me.” It’s what people like Tim and my father did. “I should have done this a long time ago.” I bend down and retrieve the badly damaged components and stuff them in the nearest trash can, along with my cell.

  “Better?” Conner eyes me carefully.

  “Much.” I nod. “Although I might need you to take me to buy a new cell phone.”

  “Come on,” he chuckles. “I know just the place.”

  Two hours later, I’m the owner of a shiny new cell phone complete with a brand new number my parents and Tim will never know.

  It feels liberating. Scary, but liberating.

  My father will cut me off after this, but I don’t care. I’m done still being his puppet.

  They banished me here with little thought to my feelings. Now, it’s my turn to cut them off.

  “You okay?” Conner asks, noticing my frown.

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you worried about what your dad will say?”

  I let out a bitter laugh. “I have no one, Conner.”

  “Not true,” he says as we sit eating a batch of Ellen’s cookies at the breakfast counter in the Jagger house. “You have me and Ace and Remi, and my stubbornly stupid brother. We’ve got you, Hadley, baby.”

  “Thanks,” I mumble, stuffing another cookie into my mouth.

  Putting my cell in the trash had felt amazing, but I’d been high on adrenaline and anger. The reality was, though, that without my parent’s money, I have nothing.

  Dread snakes through me. What the hell am I going to do? I can’t rely on getting a scholarship, and even if I do, I’ll still need money.

  “I need a plan,” I say.

  “A plan?”

  “Yeah. It’s almost the holidays, and I still haven’t applied for college. I was waiting to see if Co—” I stop myself. I’d been putting off applying because I didn’t want to be the dutiful, docile daughter my parents expected me to be. And then when Cole had mentioned Colton U, I had looked up their admissions.

  But now, I was adrift again.

  Lost in a sea of uncertainty.

  “What are your plans?” I ask Conner, realizing we’ve never once talked about it.

  In fact, we’ve never really just talked.

  Guilt hits me. He’s been such a good friend to me and I’ve been... so self-absorbed.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurt out, and his brow furrows.

  “You’re going to have to be a little more specific.” He grins.

  “You’ve been a good friend to me, Conner. And I don’t even know what your plans for after graduation are.”

  “It’s no big deal.” Conner shrugs. “You’ve had a lot going on.”

  “Yeah, but I should have—”

  “We’re not doing this. I don’t give to receive.” A smirk tugs at his mouth. “Besides, the pleasure of your company is reward enough.”

  My cheeks pink, and I feel it again, the lingering connection between us. It doesn’t burn as bright as what Cole and I share, but it is there.

  “I know you’re his, Hadley,” he says, as if he can hear my thoughts again.

  “How do you do that?” I gawk at him, ignoring the insinuation behind his words. “You always know what I’m thinking.”

  “Your eyes give you away, every damn time.” He gives me a sad smile. “Does it cross my mind that you could’ve been mine... sure it does. But you and Cole share something I’m not sure I’ll ever understand. I know there’s more to your story, Hads. I just wish he was...” Conner trails off, averting his gaze.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “You know, he said some things earlier. Things that maybe, deep down, I always knew but didn’t want to believe.”

  “About when he was younger?” I ask, my heart breaking all over again.

  “Yeah.” Conner runs a hand down his face. “Fuck, what if... he should hate us. We left him there, with our junkie mother and her revolving door of deadbeat Johns.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Isn’t it?” Pain etches into every line of his face. “If something did happen, and fuck, I think it did, then we left him there... we....”

  “You were only kids, Conner.” I reach across the counter and cover his hand with mine.

  “I’m his twin. I should’ve known. But Cole was this sickly, quiet kid, I just thought...” He blanches.

  “You need to talk. All of you. When Cole is better and out of the hospital, you need to sit down as a family and talk.”

  “Yeah... you’re right. But what if he—”

  The desperation in his voice makes my heart clench. “Cole loves you, Conner,” I say. “But he’s in pain. It’s why he needs control.”

  “I’ll fix this.” His jaw clenches, and I offer him a sad smile.

  “I don’t think it works like that, Con. Cole doesn’t need you to fix anything, he just needs you to be there when he’s ready to fix himself.”

  Realization dawns in his eyes. “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “Good.”

  Because something tells me Cole is going to need all the help he can get.

  Whether he wants it or not.

  The next day, I go back to school. I can’t sit in my dorm room dwelling on everything, and I know I need to respect Cole’s wishes to stay away from the hospital. No matter how much it hurts.

  People stare as I move through the halls and sit in class, trying to focus on anything but their curious gazes and incessant whispering. I don’t know what James told Principal Vager, but I catch the words “accident” and “recovering” in more than one hushed conversation.

  At lunch, a couple of the girls from the squad try and ask me what happened, but I murmur some incoherent response and hurry away. I’ll never give up Cole’s secrets. Not to these people. People who are interested in scandal and gossip. They don’t care about Cole and his brothers. All they care about is what juicy story they can get their hands on next.

  I’m heading to fourth period when Miss Jones collars me in the hall.

  “Hadley, my office,” she says with a neutral expression. My heart sinks as I reluctantly follow her. If I don’t, she’ll only haul me in front of Vager, and I can do without that.

  The second I enter the room, my worst fear is confirmed.

  “Your father would like to talk to you.” She motions to the phone on her desk.

  “I...”

  “He’s concerned. We both are. Take the call, Hadley.” She gives me a pointed look, one that tells me I’m not escaping her office without at least hearing my father out.

  “I’ll give you some privacy.”

  “No,” I say. “You should stay.” She needs to hear this too.

  Her brows knit together, but she stays, lingering by the door as I pick up the receiver. “Father,” I say.

  “Is there something you’d like to tell me, Hadley?” His tone reflects the lack of emotion in mine.

  “Actually, there is.” I inhale a deep breath. “I’m cutting myself free.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, Father. I’m done. I absolve you of your parenthood.”

  “Don’t be such a drama queen, young lady. This is ridiculous. Now tell me why you’ve been ignoring my calls.”


  “I’m done,” I repeat. “You made it perfectly clear that I was no longer a part of your family when you made me murder my baby and banished me here.” Pain threatens to overwhelm me as I dredge up all the emotion I’ve kept locked away for so long.

  Miss Jones sucks in a harsh breath, but I don’t meet her eyes. I can’t, not yet. Not until I’ve got the rest of the words out.

  “You broke me, Father. You turned me into a girl I barely recognize. A girl with pain in her eyes and darkness in her heart. And I will never forgive you for that. Ever. So I think it’s best we part ways now, before you hurt me again.”

  “Oh for goodness’ sake, Hadley, you were just a child. You had no right thinking you could raise a baby. Besides, Tim couldn’t stand by you, you know that. I made a choice any sane father would.”

  “It was not your choice to make,” I shriek, shaking violently. “It was my body, my baby. And you took it from me. But I will never allow you to take anything else away from me. I. Am. Done.”

  “Are you forgetting who pays your tuition? Who will pay your college tuition?” he seethes. “You need me, Hadley. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

  My stomach knots, because I know he’s right. Without him, I have nothing. But I’d rather have nothing than have everything at a price I’m unwilling to pay for a second longer.

  “I’ll figure it out. Goodbye, Father.” I hang up without waiting to hear his reply.

  Pressing my hands against Miss Jones’ desk, I drag in a ragged breath.

  “H-Hadley?” she says, and I wince, forgetting for a second that she was in the room with me.

  Turning slowly, I meet her glossy eyes.

  “Is it true?”

  “Every word.”

  “I had no idea. I mean, I knew you and Tim were... but your parents didn’t tell me.”

  “Of course they didn’t.” I let out a resigned sigh. “They didn’t want to taint the family name.”

  “You’ve carried this all by yourself?”

  I nod, smothering a whimper. I can’t let it in. If I do, it will consume me.

  “I’m so sorry, Hadley. I thought I was doing the right thing, I thought I was... helping. They were worried and I... I’m sorry.”