by Bella King
This was what all the women did after they turned 18 at Palm Valley Academy. It was completely off the records, but it had been going on for decades according to Megan, who was the student body president.
It was noon on an hour-long lunch break when me and eleven other women gathered in an abandoned bathroom at school to take part in the age-old ritual as we crossed into adulthood. The thing was, I was already 19, but I had just got to Palm Valley, and so I had to complete the ritual in order to be accepted among the ranks. I was quickly discovering the pecking order at this school, and I can’t say that I approved of it.
“1891.” My voice rang out confidently, but my shoulders were still bunched up in anticipation.
Megan’s laughter bounced off the walls of the tiled bathroom, her throaty voice loud and obnoxious. “I said Palm Valley, not Palm Valley Academy.” She looked around at the other women as though they were in on the joke, but none of them laughed. They all looked terrified to be the next one in line for these trick questions.
I groaned. “Palm Valley could mean anything then. That’s not fair,” I blurted, pushing away a shot that had already been poured for me by one the glossy brown-eyed girl.
Megan’s face fell, turning from a sinister smile to an even more sinister scowl. “Drink the shot, Ava,” she demanded, her voice deep and serious.
“It’s nasty. Why are we even doing this?” I protested.
The other women looked terrified that I would cross Megan, but I didn’t know any better at the time. If I did, I would have downed the shot with no questions asked. It would have made my life a hell of a lot easier.
“If you don’t drink it, you can’t be an adult,” she said, her voice quivering slightly.
I should have seen that as a sign of rage, but to me, it looked like weakness, so I continued to challenge her. “I’m 19. I am an adult, whether you say I am or not. I’m older than you are,” I said, throwing my hands up.
Megan smiled at me, her lips shaking like they were struggling to maintain their position on her face. She fluttered her eyelids. “Ava, if you don’t take the shot, I’m literally going to make the rest of your time here at Palm Valley Academy the worst time of your life.”
I doubted that. I had been through a lot at my last school, from bullies to deaths in the family. I was no stranger to tough times, and in my last school, it was the one who threw the punches that came out on top, not the one who submitted.
That was how I got kicked out, actually. I punched a bully so hard in his face that I broke his nose. I would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for the principal standing twenty feet away when it happened. Oh yeah, and it was all on camera.
I rolled my eyes at Megan but snatched the shot out of the glossy brown-eyed girl’s hand. Some of it sloshed onto my black pleated uniform skirt, but I ignored it, tossing back the shot like it was nothing more than water.
Megan’s face melted back into the perfect doll-like pleasantness that it usually was. She was one of the most attractive women at the school on the outside, but I could already see that her insides were rotten to the core, like a tomato that had sat too long on the shelf and had been forgotten, only to be picked up by some unfortunate sap and rendered into a pile of stinking mush.
“There, happy?” I said, placing the shot glass back into the center of the circle.
“That wasn’t so hard,” Megan said in a half-whisper, then turned to the next girl. “Mindy, it’s time for you to tell me what the original school uniform colors were.”
The vodka that I had ingested bubbled in my stomach. I felt like I was going to puke already, and I was only two shots in. At this rate, I was going to be wasted before lunch break was over, but I suspected that was Megan’s intentions. All of the questions were intentionally difficult so that we would have to make a fool of ourselves. It was a sick display of power.
I knew that Megan didn’t like me. She had singled me out early on, but what I didn’t realize was that it wasn’t for anything but my attitude. It never got me in trouble before. In fact, it was the only thing that kept me out of trouble at my last school, aside from my careless punch. Back then, you had to show attitude to keep yourself in a higher social status. Things here clearly weren’t the same. That same attitude was getting me into a world of trouble.
Megan had a pretty big stack of cards left in her hand, so I assumed this was going to go on for the rest of lunch break. That was a shame, because I was starved.
“Hey, are we going to have time for lunch today?” I asked as the next girl failed to answer the question correctly and had to take a shot.
Megan glared at me, her blue eyes turning cold. “If we finish in time, you should have a few minutes to grab something, but you’re the one who is dragging this out.”
“Alright, but I don’t really feel like drinking anymore,” I replied.
“Ava,” the glossy brown-eyed girl whispered, tugging at my blouse.
“Get off me,” I said, jerking my arm away. Perhaps I should have heeded her warning, but I didn’t feel like getting wasted with this woman in the middle of the day at school with no lunch.
“If you answer the questions correctly, then you wouldn’t have to drink,” Megan replied, pulling out the next card. “Daisy, what is the middle name of our school’s founder?”
I shook my head. I had enough of this. I thought that Megan had some kind of fun initiation in mind when she gathered us up and pulled us into the bathroom, but I had come to realize that this was a demented display of her power more so than a bonding experience. I was out.
I sprung up, my skirt billowing like a jellyfish as I rose. Everyone looked up at me as I stood up, their eyes wide with surprise and fright, all except for Megan. She looked pissed.
“I’m going to get some food. I’ll see you all later,” I said, pursing my lips together in an awkward smile and waving goodbye.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Megan said, springing to her feet.
“Bye,” I said, turning around and waving her off.
I heard gasps behind me as I exited the bathroom. I suppose the vodka may have had something to do with my foolish courage, but I wasn’t the kind of person to tolerate treatment like that. The other women here might be terrified of Megan, but I didn’t think she was all that scary. What’s the worst she would do? Kill me?
CONTINUE READING…
Hate Lover: A Dark High School Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked, nearly jumping out of my skin when I saw Apollo standing in the pristine white hallway of Winterlake Prep.
His thick arms were crossed, and a mean smirk marred his otherwise handsome face. He was older now than when I last saw him, around 19 years old and still as wicked as they came. His white cotton shirt was unbuttoned so low that I could see the littering of tattoos and symbols inked into his skin for eternity. His serpent green eyes danced in amusement at my surprise.
Apollo had been expelled from Winterlake last year under accusations of tampering with his grades to stay on the football team, but he, of course, denied any wrongdoing. He was never known to own up to his bad behavior, instead, letting evil things slip through the cracks of an otherwise morally sound mind.
Men like him walked the line between deplorable and irresistibly charming, with each side unable to exist without the other. Apollo was the perfect yin and yang, dancing gleefully on the thin line between good and evil. A little nudge would be all it took for him to fall off to either side, but he quite liked the middle. He thrived in grey areas.
Surprise didn’t even begin to cover how I felt upon seeing him standing in the school hallway. When you were expelled from Winterlake, there was no going back. You weren’t allowed on the grounds, much less in the damn building.
Apollo watched my face as my thoughts quickly brought me to the most unfortunate conclusion I could imagine. He was back.
“Did you miss me?” Apollo asked, uncrossing his arms and ste
pping forward.
I could smell the deep masculine cologne that he used, woody and dark. Somehow, it was relaxing and aggravating at the same time.
“I most certainly did not miss you,” I said, putting my hands on my wide hips. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Daddy has money,” Apollo answered, slowly moving the tip of his tongue over his lips.
“Your dad paid off the school to let you back?” I asked, shaking my head.
“I wasn’t talking about my father. I was referring to myself,” he replied, raising his eyebrows a few times for effect.
“You’re disgusting,” I said, scrunching up my nose. “Did they really let you back in?” I asked, not fully believing that the school would be that sleazy as to accept bribes from a simple jock like Apollo.
“I’m standing right here,” he answered with his arms stretched wide. “Larger than life, sweetheart. I can do anything I want.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said, shooting daggers through my eyes. I tried to look threatening, but I doubted that it would work against him. Normally, guys backed down when I got feisty. Apollo? He fucking lived for it.
“Sweetheart? Are you not sweet?” Apollo asked, leaving his position against the locker and walking a circle around me. “I seem to remember you begging for my cock just weeks before I left.”
I took a deep breath, trying not to crack under pressure. “I was drunk,” I said through tightly clenched teeth. My shoulders came up defensively as he walked behind me.
“Off a single glass of wine?” He mused, shaking his head. “Come on, sweetheart. You’ll have to do better than that.”
“I told you not to call me that,” I said. “I’m not your sweetheart.”
Apollo finished his circle around me and stopped to stand inches away from my face. “Alright, Georgia. That still doesn’t explain why you were so desperate to have your pretty red lips wrapped around my throbbing cock, now does it?”
I could see the reflection of my face in his large pupils. I was pissed off, and he reveled in my anger. My copper hair hung straight to my shoulders, moving like silk, no frizz, no mess. That’s how I kept it, and no amount of harassment from Apollo would change that. I needed to remain cool.
I relaxed the cramped muscles in my face, pouting out my lips just enough to appear in control of my emotions again. Apollo played a hard game, but I was used to it by now. I hadn’t forgotten how to fight back just because he had been gone for a year.
“I asked for your cock so I could slice it off,” I whispered, challenging him with a deadly stare.
He narrowed his eyes at me, allowing them to flicker down for a brief moment in submission. Yes, I could read him well. He wasn’t going to win this one. Men were so obsessed with their penises, that any threats against them would throw them off. Apollo was no different.
He stepped back. “It’s a shame we were interrupted. I would have knocked you up in an instant.”
Apollo’s baby inside my belly was an image I didn’t need in my head. I was lucky enough that my friend Cora interrupted us by accident, breaking my temporary lapse in judgment. I would have regretted having sex with him.
I blinked slowly, reminding myself that he derived pleasure from my reactions. I could let my anger loose when he wasn’t around. For now, I had to stay strong.
“I’m sure you’ll get kicked out again soon. Until then, stay out of my way,” I said, turning to leave him.
“See you later, my little Georgia peach,” Apollo said in a deep voice as I left.
I shuddered at his words, as though my body was trying desperately to shake them off, but they wouldn’t leave so easily. I was in total disbelief that Apollo was back after his year-long break from Winterlake Prep. It all seemed like a cruel joke, but I knew that security around here was tight. He couldn’t have just snuck in.
I cursed beneath my breath as I trudged quickly down the familiar hallways of the school. This was my last year here, so why did he have to come back and ruin it? I could have graduated in peace, but instead, my life was back to the hellscape that it had been when he first began bullying me.
Apollo, a rich douchebag who had a prick for a brain and more muscles than he had control over. He had no tact, no style, and no sense of right and wrong, dancing around gleefully in a place that few people cared to go.
That was because it was a place that would make people hate you. It was shocking to me that the entire school hadn’t turned against him by now, but he was far too handsome and successful for that to happen.
They didn’t care about being nice here. I found that out in my first year when a group of girls began teasing me about my copper hair, calling me carrot top, freak, and stupid just for the way I looked. Most of the girls here were blonde, and if they weren’t naturally, they would bleach it until it was like straw on their poor tired scalps.
They feared to be different, to be an outcast. I already was, so it didn’t bother me. Things weren’t actually that bad once Apollo was kicked out. He was what made people gang up on me. After he was gone, peace returned to my life. I was able to disappear and go unnoticed at the school. I could concentrate on my grades and slip through without causing a stir. It’s what I wanted.
But now, things were changing again. Apollo was back, and he seemed like he wanted a bigger piece of me than the last time he came. His teeth could bite deep into my core, and he knew how to jerk and roll so that he tore out chunks of me like an alligator doing its death roll.
I was in for a ride. That much was for certain.
CONTINUE READING…
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