Found (The Scions Book 2)

by Gemma Weir

  Mom lowers the veg she’s chopping and turns to face me, her butt resting against the countertop. “I know, your brother told me. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”

  “I don’t understand why she would do this. Valentine thinks it’s because she wanted to be more popular than me, but surely to do that, to expose me that way, there has to be a better reason than that?” Tears fill my eyes, but I refuse to let them spill over, blinking them away.

  Mom sighs. “Girls can be ruthless. I wish I had a better reason for this than that, but I just don’t. Until you ask her face to face, I don’t think you’ll ever really know the truth.”

  I pull myself onto the counter and sit with my legs dangling as I pick at my nails. “I think I must either be really stupid or just a terrible judge of character. I thought Brit was my friend and I like Valentine. I’m an idiot, Mom, a stupid, pathetic idiot. Brit deliberately set out to hurt and humiliate me; and Valentine, well I have no idea what Valentine is, but he wasn’t very nice to me and I still like him.”

  Mom’s smile is sad but full of understanding. “I thought Brit was your friend too, sweetie. Not in all the years that I’ve known her or the hundreds of times that she’s been here or you’ve been to her home did I ever suspect that she was pretending or being fake. I don’t know why she did this, but envy and jealousy can be very strong, very toxic emotions. As much as I want to go kick down her front door and wring her skinny little neck, the best thing to do is just to try to move forward and forget her.”

  “I kind of want to punch her in the tit,” I say solemnly.

  Mom giggles. “Move forward and forget after you punch her in the tit.”

  I giggle too and nod. “And Valentine?”

  Her laughter fades. “He’s a complicated boy.”

  “Complicated,” I say, scoffing. “That’s the understatement of the year.”

  “Maybe you should talk to him?” she suggests.

  “Maybe.”

  Jumping down from the counter, I drop a kiss on Mom’s cheek. “Love you.”

  “Love you too, baby.”

  Right now, everything revolves around her. All I can smell is her. All I can hear is the sound of her pants and moans. All I can think about is the way her body writhed beneath mine.

  Turning off the shower, I grab a towel and dry my wet skin, hoping that the smell of my shower gel will diminish her scent which seems to have sunk into my skin so deeply that every time I move a fresh wave fills my nose. It’s heaven and hell all rolled into one and my dick is so hard it hurts.

  I’m itching to get back to her, to touch her again, taste her again, watch as she falls apart. I know I shouldn’t have touched her, not like that, not while she still hates me. But she wanted me, she needed me, and I was powerless to resist. I need to tell her everything, to explain my fucked-up past, Bella, my mom, but I’m not sure if that will pull her closer or push her even further away.

  Pulling on some of the sweatpants and one of the new t-shirts Brandi bought for me, I sit down on the edge of my bed and let my head fall forward into my hands. I don’t even know where to start. I sit with my head down for a while before I find the courage to pull out my new cell phone and open the text messaging app.

  Me: Bella was a girl I met at the second group home I was in. She turned up one day looking skinny and sad and she was the first person I made friends with since I became a throwaway. We lived in the same home for almost a year. I thought I was in love with her and then I found out it was all a lie, a trap.

  I can’t bring myself to type anymore. Bile rises in my throat and I gulp air to try to stem the tide of nausea that hits me. I haven’t allowed myself to really think about her in so long.

  * * *

  Eighteen Months Earlier

  “Baby, come on,” Bella coos, her breasts rubbing against my chest as she lay on top of me.

  “No. It’s not worth it. Lenny is going to get caught and I’m not going down or letting you go down with him.

  “Vali, you’re being a pussy. It’s only one pick-up and a teeny tiny road trip. We’d be back before they even have a chance to report us missing. All those rich friends at your old school will lose their shit over what we have, and we’ll make some money to petition the courts again.”

  “Bells, I’ve tried before; they won’t emancipate me until I finish high school and having a felony on my record won’t make them any more likely to change their mind.”

  She rolls off me and stands, her expression turning angry before she looks away. I hate when she does this, when she hides from me. Her back is to me now and I run my eyes over her. She’s not as skinny as she was, but her hips are too pronounced, and her waist is so tiny. She’s beautiful, perfect, and I hate knowing she’s upset with me.

  “Come here,” I coax.

  She shakes her head, her long blonde hair swaying with the movement.

  “Bella,” I call, the anxiety clear in my voice.

  “I just want us to be together,” she says, her voice cracking.

  Standing up, I go to her, spinning her around and pulling her into my chest. “I want that too; you know I do.”

  “Then do this for me, for us. Make the pick-up. It’s only a little coke. We’ll take a car, run west, sell it to your old schoolfriends and pocket the cash; it’s easy money.”

  “No, baby, it’s risky and stupid.”

  Tears fill her eyes and her full lips form a pout as she looks at me from beneath her lashes. “I thought you loved me, Vali?”

  “You know I love you,” I say, cupping her face in my hands.

  “Unless we can get out of here, we can’t be together. You know they’ll send one of us away if they find out we’re in love. If you do this, if you can get this money, we can run. We can start a new life far enough away that they won’t come looking for us.”

  “Bella.”

  A single tear rolls down her cheek and my heart tightens in my chest. This girl is everything; she’s all I have. Maybe she’s right? The money would give us the chance to run. We only need to hide for a couple of years, then I can turn eighteen, graduate, and we can live on my trust fund for the rest of our lives.

  “I need you,” she says.

  “I need you too.”

  “So you’ll do it, for us?”

  I pause and her hand slides down my chest to the button on my jeans. “This is what our life would be like if we could get away, just me and you, forever.”

  “I want that so bad,” I pant.

  “So let’s do it, one little job, then it will be like this, every day for the rest or our lives.”

  * * *

  Present Day

  I push away the memories, my fists clenched tightly, my muscles so tense I swear I hear them crack as I force my fingers to relax, lift my head up and let my arms drop to my sides.

  Thinking about Bella, about how fucking blind, how stupid I was, makes me so angry that I want to destroy everything around me. How do I even start to explain that the only two women I’ve ever cared about almost destroyed me?

  I eat dinner with Brandi, Sleaze, and the kids, but I don’t speak. All my anger is still simmering just below the surface and I don’t know how to make it go away. Thinking about Nova makes my dick hard; thinking about Bella makes me violent; and thinking about my mom makes me sad, angry, and hurt. If only I could wash away the memories of all three of them and start again with a fresh slate.

  When my plate is empty, I stand up, taking the other dirty dishes from the table and moving to the sink almost robotically. Turning on the taps, I let the water heat up then add dish soap and start to wash.

  “Valentine, we have a dishwasher,” Brandi says cautiously.

  “Oh,” I say, not really knowing how else to react.

  “If you’d prefer, you can just load them into it, although I do appreciate you cleaning up.” She says. Her voice is low and soothing, like she’s expecting me to explode because I don’t need to wash dishes.

  “Sure,” I say, turn
ing off the taps and scanning the counter to find the dishwasher.

  “It’s that one,” she says pointing to the cabinet to the left of the sink.

  I nod, pull open the door and load the plates into the sliding tray, before closing the dishwasher. “I’m going to go see Nova.” A calm settles inside of me the moment I make the decision, and some of the rage abates.

  “Echo’s home, fairly sure he still wants to kick your ass, kid,” Sleaze says.

  “It’s fine, I’ve taken a hit from Zeke and Griffin, only seems fair that Echo get one too. I’m hoping now they believe it wasn’t me who set up the video that just beating the shit out of me will be enough rather than him actually killing me.”

  Sleaze chuckles. “Kid, you’ve got big fucking balls, I’ll give you that.”

  I shrug. “Either that or I’ll just climb through her bedroom window and her dad won’t even know I’m there.”

  I can still hear Sleaze’s laugh as I push open the front door and walk out into the cool evening air. Ten minutes later, I’m outside Nova’s house trying to decide if I should brave ringing the doorbell or just let myself into her bedroom. The window option wins, and I sneak around to the side of the house and climb up to her bedroom as quietly as I can.

  Hauling myself through her window, I fall to a heap on her carpet, only to find her room is empty. The faint smell of sex still lingers in the air and I breathe in deeply, inhaling the scent as flashbacks of the way she arched her back and pushed her wet pussy closer to my tongue fill my mind. As I glance at her rumpled bed, memories of the way her sex had tightened around my fingers, how she’d cried out my name when she finally crashed over the edge and her orgasm hit consume me.

  I’m not sure she even realized she was chanting my name, or that her fingers had buried themselves in my hair, she was so far gone. But I heard her. I heard the catch in her voice when I hit just the right spot, felt the scratch of her nails against my scalp, the way she tugged at the strands of my hair.

  Unable to resist, I climb onto her bed, leaning back against her pillows, just the way I had when I’d let myself into her room only a couple of weeks ago. She’d been frightened that day, fresh from the shower, her towel gripped tightly around her naked body.

  I wanted her then and I still want her now, only this time as I wait for her to find me on her bed, it isn’t a powerplay. This isn’t the start of a game of control, because she’s in charge now. She holds all the cards and the dice are in her hands. If I wasn’t such a fuck up, then maybe things wouldn’t be this way, but all I can do now is wait.

  When the door handle turns and the heavy wood pushes open, a mix of fear and excitement rushes along my skin. I shouldn’t be here, not after earlier, not if I’m not prepared to tell her everything, but I just couldn’t stay away.

  “Valentine,” she says breathily when she spots me on her bed.

  “Princess.”

  “You really can’t keep breaking into my room; it’s getting kind of predictable now.”

  I laugh, loving the sass she’s throwing my way. I’ll take all the attitude she can give me over the sad, broken girl from a few days ago.

  “You know you love finding me here, no point denying it. Might as well admit that you left your window open hoping I’d climb through it.”

  She rolls her eyes, but there’s a smile on her lips and amusement in her gaze. “What do you want?”

  “To see you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s impossible to stay away.”

  She climbs onto the bed and crosses her legs, sitting opposite me but far enough away that we’re not touching. “I got your text.”

  I tense, the last text I sent her didn’t tell her any details, but it opened the path to memories that I don’t want to think about, not now anyway.

  “Do you want to tell me about her?” she asks and I’m surprised that it’s a question not a demand. She has every right to demand answers from me and I owe them to her.

  “I really don’t,” I say on a sigh, letting my head fall back onto her pillows.

  “Do you want me to forgive you?”

  Her question surprises me and I lift my head so I’m looking at her. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a fuck up.”

  “I don’t understand,” she says, leaning forward, her eyes begging me for more, to explain.

  Pushing upright, I mimic her position, sitting opposite her, our knees almost touching. “My mom lives in New Hampshire.”

  Nova’s eyes widen.

  “She’s rich, lives in a big house with a maid and a private chef,” I say with a derisive scoff. “Until three years ago I lived there with her. I went to a fancy private school, the type where the kids who drive brand new Mercedes are considered poor.”

  “I don’t… How?” Nova says, stumbling over her words.

  “My life was perfect, and then one day my dad went to work and never came back. A pissed off ex-employee walked right into his office and shot him. One minute he was alive, the next he was dead; just like that.”

  Nova leans forward and reaches for my hand, but I pull it away, not wanting her comfort.

  “My mom just sort of stopped existing. She got depressed, stopped leaving the house, stopped caring. She sunk so far into her own grief that she just stopped being my mom. Then one day I came home from school and a social worker was sitting on our couch. It was the first time I’d seen my mom in months; she was dressed up, full hair and makeup done. She didn’t look at me while this stranger sat there and told me that I was leaving my home, my mom, and moving into foster care.”

  I lift my head and look at Nova. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and her hand is covering her mouth, tears dripping down her cheeks.

  “Don’t feel sorry for me, that’s not why I’m telling you. This isn’t a way of excusing what I did to you. I just, I don’t know how to be a normal kid anymore. I’m a throwaway; the discarded son of a rich, selfish woman. Don’t forgive me because of pity; I knew what I was doing to you and I did it anyway. But just know that I might be a fuck-up, but you’re the first person in a long time who I’ve ever wanted to be normal for. I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Princess. I don’t want to be someone you can throw away, and if you can figure out a way to forgive me, then I’m going to try so fucking hard not to be.”

  There are tears in my eyes and I know she can see them too, but I don’t wipe them away. When she moves, I tense for her rejection, but instead of putting distance between us, she surges forward, her arms lifting to my neck and wrapping around me, holding me. This isn’t sexual, it isn’t a precursor to anything else. What she’s doing isn’t a considered action or part of a bigger scheme. It’s just her comforting me, because she’s a much better person than I could ever be.

  I have so many questions to ask him, so much I want to know, but this isn’t the right time. My mom is my biggest ally; she’s there for me no matter what. The thought that she potentially could just stop being my mom one day and put me into foster care is baffling to me.

  Valentine calls himself a throwaway and I want to tell him that he’s wrong, that he wasn’t thrown away, but I can’t find a single word to say to defend his mom. I hate her, like truly hate her, and I’ve never met the woman. I feel this burning rage; this need to drive to her house and punch her in the face.

  How could she do it? How could she send her child away, just like that, like he was an inconvenient object that belayed his usefulness? I pull my arms a little tighter around him, until he slides his around my back and holds me while I hold him.

  I don’t tell him I’m sorry this happened to him. He doesn’t want to hear it and my words won’t change anything. We two are a pair, I’m crazy and he’s fucked-up; maybe it’s our jagged edges that pull us toward each other, maybe it’s that we’re each so frayed and distorted that we fit.

  Reluctantly, I release my hold on him and sit back down on the bed.

  “I really want to kiss yo
u right now,” He says, his voice rough.

  “Is that you asking?” I say, amused.

  “Would you rather I demand you kiss me? You pretended to hate me ordering you around, but your eyes don’t lie, you liked it a little bit too.”

  “Maybe I should demand you kiss me.”

  “I don’t respond well to demands, Princess,” he drawls, his voice low and seductive. “So why don’t you get over here and kiss me?”

  I wait, blinking slowly up at him, then I lean forward halfway between us and pause. His chuckle is warm and full of amusement, but he leans forward anyway and we kiss in the space between us.

  Fingers slide along my jaw and I lift my chin so he can deepen the kiss, his tongue lavishing against mine in a slow dance. For the first time we’re equal; no one winning, no one playing. This kiss is a start, a clean slate, a beginning; and although the sins of the past aren’t forgiven or forgotten, perhaps there might be a little light at the end of the tunnel.

  I’m not sure how long we kiss for, but when the door opens neither of us notice.

  “Seriously.” My brother’s voice shatters the moment and I pull away from Valentine’s lips and turn to look at Zeke. His expression is black, his arms crossed angrily across his chest and his fists clenched tightly.

  “You’ve forgiven him?” Zeke says incredulously.

  “No, I haven’t,” I say, sliding off the bed and standing beside it. Valentine is suspiciously quiet behind me and I can only hope that he’s not sporting a smug grin on his face or anything else that might provoke my brother into punching him again.

  “So what the fuck is he doing here? He can’t be trusted. He had us all fooled, pretending to want to be our friends, pretending to be your guy, and the whole time he was just playing us.”

  “I wasn’t pretending to be friends,” Valentine says quietly, but loud enough to draw both mine and Zeke’s attention. “I liked hanging out with you and Griffin and the twins.”

  “My friends don’t screw over my sister,” Zeke hisses, then he turns away from Valentine like he’s dismissing him and looks at me instead. “Emmy and Griffin are back; they want to know if you want to watch a movie or something. Our real friends are in the basement, Nova. Come down when you remember what he’s done to you.” With that parting shot, he leaves the room, slamming my door behind him.