Reckless Karma
Book 2 of Sinners & Saints
Chelsea Ballinger
Reckless Karma © 2016 Chelsea Ballinger
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written approval of the author except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Published by Chelsea Ballinger
Cover created by Chelsea Ballinger
This is a work of fiction. Names, titles, places, characters, and events are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any trademarks,
service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied
endorsement.
Playlist
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” –Plato
MS MR – All The Things Lost
Frank Ocean – Wise Man
Post Malone – Too Young
Aquilo – Waiting
Ruelle – Take It All
Zella Day - Shadow Preachers
Adele – I Miss You
Adele – Love in the Dark
Halsey – Young God
Sleeping At Last – Already Gone
Vaults – Poison
Sarah McLachlan – Answer
Florence and the Machine – Various Storms & Saints
Paper Route – Dance On Our Graves
Birdy – Without A Word
Real Life – The Weeknd
Lykke Li – No Rest For The Wicked
Somo – Slowdancing in a Burning Room (Cover)
Sam Smith – Nirvana
HAIM - Falling
MS MR – Fantasy
Ruelle – Up in Flames
FOR THE DREAMERS AND INSPIRERS
Part 1
“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you… I could walk through my garden forever.”
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
1
GABRIEL
“Gabriel!!!!!!!!!” I hear my little brother’s lungs shatter like glass as he calls out my name.
“Hugo!” I yell back, running down the hall. I almost run into my other little brother, August, who comes out of his room scared.
“Go back in your room,” I tell him.
I get to my parents’ room and I see the white curtains that lead to the balcony getting beaten by the wind and my little brother Hugo staring at them. His one green, one blue eye both filled with horror. I look around.
“Hugo?” I reach him. “Where’s Mom?” He doesn’t look up at me or say anything. He just continues staring at the curtains. One tear falls down his pale cheek and his bottom lip trembles and I know. I know where she is. I slowly walk through the curtains and Hugo follows me. I should keep him from seeing this. I’m his big brother. I’m supposed to protect him, but it’s too late. He saw it before it happened. What’s the point of stopping him from seeing the aftermath? I push the curtains out of our way and head to the stone rail of the balcony. I hear the cars honking and people screaming. I hear everyone outside our building wondering what happened. I hear Hugo’s breathing getting louder, and I feel my heart beating out of my chest. My stomach doesn’t feel good either. Hugo grabs my hand and his small feet push up to see over the rail. I’m tall enough to see clearly. I’m old enough to understand clearly while he’s not. I’m thirteen. He’s eight. The first thing I see is the white gown surrounded by blood.
HUGO
I don’t know why I’m thinking about my mother’s death. Thinking about the time Gabriel held my hand just as we looked over the rail and saw her lying on the ground. Death is a funny thing. I’m realizing that I’ve never really been afraid to die. People die – that is what we do. It’s all just a ticking timer on our souls waiting to run out. Some end it early like my mother and my brother—or so I thought my brother.
“So how are we gonna do it?” Poppy asks. “How are we gonna kill her? Are we gonna make it look like an accident? I don’t know if this is the right thing to do, guys.”
We look at her confused. “Poppy,” Jordana says rubbing her temple, “no one is killing anyone.”
“But Juliet said, ‘Let’s kill the bitch.’” Poppy mimics Juliet’s British accent in very terrible form.
“Poppy, that was metaphorically speaking,” Juliet answers.
“So you’re okay with this?” I ask Juliet. My friend. My girlfriend now. The woman I love. I’m not a man that needed someone to love me, but she made me into a man that wanted someone to love me. Well, not someone. Just her. I was gonna take her on our first date yesterday, but the plans changed when I was arrested for alleged rape of a minor. A very sloppy plan, I must say, created by Scarlett Brayson.
“I am,” Juliet answers. “She has no right to do this, and…” she looks at our new guest, “if what you are saying is true—that Hugo’s brother didn’t kill himself—then we have to stop her.”
Karlie Fairchild, formerly known as Karlie Dale. She said she loved my brother and that Scarlett destroyed that love. She even says that Scarlett killed him. She was raped. Apparently Scarlett likes to get girls raped. Something else I never knew about her, but at the same time I’m not shocked.
“Scarlett is literally insane,” Karlie says.
“So we’ve noticed,” Jordana says.
“But she does have a weakness,” Karlie continues. “You.” She focuses her eyes on me.
“How am I her weakness?” I ask. “Unless you’ve already forgotten, she is framing me for the rape of Rebecca Townsend.”
“Yes, she is… just like she used me to get to Gabriel, she used your love for your girlfriend against you. No offense.” She turns her head towards Juliet. “But you’ve weakened him.”
“Excuse me? What?” Juliet’s head cocks back.
“She’s right,” I say without thinking. Juliet looks at me in disbelief. “I don’t mean it in a derogative way, but she is right. My guard went down, Juliet. I don’t regret us, but it did. Scarlett took me out with ease like she does everyone else. That should not have happened that way. I should’ve seen it. Scarlett never gives up that easy.”
“And now that you know just how far Scarlett is willing to go, nothing can stand in your way. You know almost everything. I know the past. You and I… we can take her down.” Karlie smirks proudly, and it’s as nerve-wracking as Scarlett’s.
“Well, whatever you guys decide to do…” Cody announces, “I’ll help.”
He turns around, but Anika—the girl Cody just lost his virginity to and Karlie’s little sister—grabs his arm. He snatches it away before turning around and facing her with a fury I have never seen in the little punk.
“Cody, just let me explain,” Anika pleads.
“Explain what? How much of a liar you are?” Anika can’t respond. “Nah, I’m good.”
JULIET
I feel bad for Cody. He finally meets a girl who likes him for him, and unfortunately in the beginning her intentions were deceptive.
He stomps off and heads to his room. Anika starts to head after him.
“Anika,” I stop her. “Just let him be for the day.”
Anika looks at me, and after careful consideration nods her head and glares at her sister Karlie, and I see the resemblance. Anika is a few shades lighter than Karlie, but they both are the same. Same round dark brown eyes, same
long jet-black hair, small noses, and voluptuous lips. It’s obvious Anika is upset with her sister’s actions with outing the truth, and I truly believe she has feelings for Cody. Personally, Karlie is a mystery that I’m nervous of. It’s obvious that what happened to her when she was just a young girl affected her to the extreme. They said she was kind and good, but now she is a woman on a path of clear vengeance. Also that statement about me weakening Hugo? Worse—he agreed. I get it—I did something to his smug I-hate-the-world armor, but weaken him? I never meant to do that, and I don’t want him to see me as something that relates to weakness.
“Hugo!” Ms. Eleanor comes running in her silk, red robe and yellow headscarf and hugs him. Tears fall from her face and Hugo, who is not into intimate contact with most, reluctantly wraps his arms around her. “Are you alright?”
“I will be,” he answers.
August comes in next, but before he can reach his twin brother, he sees Karlie. He quickly looks down at his feet and scratches his head.
A sad smile appears on Karlie’s face once she sets eyes on him. “Hi, August. It’s good to see you again.”
August says nothing back. He does move closer to me and grabs my arm.
“You know her, August?” Hugo asks.
August just nods and continues scratching.
“We met once,” Karlie adds. “Damn, you guys really do look exactly alike.” She’s referring to Hugo and August’s uncanny resemblance, given that they are identical twins. They have the exact same brown hair, height, shape of their hands, and the contrast in their eyes. One blue eye. One green eye. Except August is autistic. The fact that August never mentioned Karlie bothers Hugo.
Karlie continues staring at August in an odd way. She licks her lips, her eyes fluttering as if she’s trying to stop herself from crying. “I better get going. Anika, lets go.”
Before she leaves, she moves closer to Hugo and gently places her hand on his arm.
“We’ll talk more about this tomorrow. I promise you we will end this.”
He nods.
“And Happy Birthday.”
She leaves and Anika, who is still furious, follows her out while I gape at Hugo.
“It’s you’re birthday?” I ask.
“My dear, we forgot,” Ms. Eleanor says.
“It’s alright.” Hugo raises his hand. “We have more problems in hand.”
“I don’t like birthdays anyway,” August nervously says shaking his head.
“What all is going on?” Ms. Eleanor asks.
“Ms. Eleanor, you do not want to know, trust me,” Jordana says and leaves, Poppy close behind her.
“Hugo,” I say, but he just holds his hands up higher, closing his eyes in frustration.
“I just need to be alone for a second.” He leaves us and that cliché girly insecurity that I vowed to never possess crawls up in me. Am I losing Hugo just when I have him? Or maybe I never had him to begin with.
“She’s bad.” August’s confession snaps me out of my insecurities.
“What? Karlie? She’s bad, August?”
He doesn’t respond, only runs off to his room.
Why would he say that?
KARLIE
I don’t want anyone to think I’m some sort of savior. I’m not. I am a long way from the girl I used to be. Seeing August sort of reminded me of that girl. Hugo reminds me of Gabriel. I sort of found him comforting, and I don’t find a lot of people comforting.
“I can’t believe you.” I was wondering when my little sister would talk to me. She’s been pouting since we got in the car.
“I had to.”
“Well, you could’ve left me out of it.”
“You’re the one who caved in once I walked in the room, Anika.”
“I never even wanted to do this in the beginning. You sent me to college so I could spy on your dead boyfriend’s brother.”
“No, you wanted to go to Columbia. You got into Columbia all on your own, Anika. I just took the opportunity to take advantage.”
“Some advantage. All I did was keep an eye on Hugo Mandrake and then I got the job at the restaurant not knowing that Cody would be there and… and he returned over and over again… for me.” Her voice calms down and I can hear the hurt. “I couldn’t just tell him the truth out of my loyalty for you.”
“Exactly.” I face her and she’s beginning to cry. “Out of loyalty to your sister, your family. Anika, he’ll get over it and if he doesn’t, he’s as weak as I thought.”
“He’s not weak,” she murmurs in his defense.
“We’ll see.”
“Well, you’re right about one thing. That girl Scarlett is a bitch.”
“What was she like when you saw her?”
“I don’t know… cunning, confident, a bitch. When they arrested Hugo,” she shakes her head in disbelief, “she had this look that was so cold. It was the coldest I’ve ever seen. It reminded me of what she did to you, and I imagined that same cold stare followed with a smile as big as the damn city. It pissed me off and reminded me why I’m doing this.”
I stare back out the window and reach for my baby sister’s hand and hold on to it. I hold on to it like it’s the only breath I have left. I have a habit of squeezing tight. I have since the night my world changed forever.
“Karlie, just promise me this will end well,” she says as she squeezes back.
I look at my sister—right in the eye—and I lie. “I promise.”
2
GABRIEL
“I promise, you won’t get hurt,” I lie to a nervous Noel, who is holding a shiny green apple on top of his head. I stand there, revolver in hand, ready to aim and fire.
“I-I’m not so sure about this, guys,” Noel says, sweat on his forehead, eyes closed, face pale as a ghost.
“Well, you should’ve thought about that before you lost the bet,” Chad mouths off next to me.
We bet Noel that he would be the last of us to sleep with Tracy Newman. He’s always last. I point the colt .45 caliber revolver my grandfather gave me for Christmas. It has been in our family for years. It’s black with gold engraved decorations on it, including the family name Mandrake. I pride myself on receiving this gun from my grandfather because he saw fit for me to have it, not my father, and I remember when receiving it the jealous stare my own father had for me. Pissing him off is almost as good as sex. We’re on the patio of our own private boarding house owned by Ms. Eleanor, a crazed widow of many husbands who’s made up of old money. I close one eye, the other focused on the apple, and I can feel an anxious Chad waiting.
“Don’t. Move.” I pull the trigger. The apple blows off of Noel’s head and falls to the ground in pieces. My jaw drops and so does Chad’s. Noel is shaking and searching for the air in his lungs.
“Holy shit!” Chad says and tugs on my shoulder. “I thought you were gonna fucking kill him.”
“So did I.”
Noel finally opens his eyes in shock. “What?!”
“I’m just kidding.” Sort of.
I like to play with death. It’s always fascinated me and when I was younger I used to suffocate myself by tying one of my father’s ties around my neck. I would tug so hard to see how long I could take it. To see if I could do it. If I could go all the way. I always gave up once at a loss of breath.
“I heard gun shots!” Ms. Eleanor yells from somewhere.
“It was only the wind!” I yell back and, as predicted, she goes back to her Bloody Mary and Latin lover of the month.
We sit down and I throw a napkin at Noel to wipe off his sweat and juice from the apple.
“Didn’t think you had it in you, Noel,” Chad says lighting up a cigarette.
Noel just gives him a look while wiping his face.
We hear the door open and close, and it’s like magic as all three of us light up and turn our head at the click of her heels coming our way.
“Hello boys.”
“Good day, Scarlett,” I say back. She grabs me by my chin
, tilting my head back to face her, and plants a sweet kiss on my lips.
“Where have you been all night long?” Chad asks as she sits down between him and Noel. She kisses them both on the cheek and I see the disappointment on their faces. She only kisses me on the lips. Wherever we are, it is I who gets the privilege of her display of affection. They hate that I’m her favorite.
“Out.” I’m sure she was with one of her many lovers but she refuses to disclose. “What have you idiots been up to?”
“The usual male bonding,” I answer and glance at Noel, who is masking his true weak self with a man of confidence, just enough for Scarlett. But she sees right through it. I really don’t understand why she puts so much effort in him. Maybe because he was the first to arrive before Chad and me? She had no choice but to embrace him.
“Pour me a drink, Chad.” Chad keeps his cigarette in his mouth and pours her vodka and orange juice at the table. She huffs and notices the frustration in her alluring grey eyes.
“What’s got you wound up?” I ask.
“What makes you think I’m wound up?” She and I both know that no one knows her better than me. I grin and narrow my eyes, waiting for her to cave. She rolls her eyes, smacking her lips.
“Fine. If you must know, I still haven’t gotten over a certain incident.”
“What incident?” Noel asks.
“She’s still pissed that Karlie Dale was voted most likely to succeed and most beautiful. Smartest. The most likable,” Chad lists on grinning. “I still can’t believe you thought you would be voted for.”
“I didn’t,” Scarlett sneers at him. “But… I don’t approve of her. Also she came to a certain delicate flower’s rescue right after I informed everyone of her recent Winona episode.”
“That damn Sophie. She’s a virgin yet a klepto.” Chad was right. Sophie Lake was a virgin and a girl who wouldn’t even curse, but when it came to make up and clothes, she was as dirty as a pick pocket on the street. Obviously things were not going well for her at home. Scarlett made it well known to everyone at school, and just when Sophie was beginning to crack in the middle of American History, Karlie Dale came to her rescue. She didn’t do much; she just gently placed her hand over Sophie’s because their desks were right next to each other. She gave her this bright smile, and personally I didn’t get it. What is so special about Karlie Dale’s smile? Yeah, she’s hot, but I just don’t get it.
Reckless Karma (Sinners & Saints #2) Page 1