Bully (Angel & Demons Trilogy Book 1)

by Ashley Love

  He finishes his first cigarette mindlessly while staring up at the stars, and immediately lights up another. The nicotine is hitting his system and it feels amazing and weightless tingling up his limbs and in his belly. He smokes this one slower, just letting it hang from his lip as he stares at the stars.

  This is the type of moment he wishes he could share with Ariel. Zane has had girlfriends before, but he never felt the way about them that he feels about her. He wants to do things with her. He wants to see things. He wants to hold her hand in public and go on road trips and take those stupid strips of pictures at mall photobooths. It's so cheesy it's almost nauseating, but Zane wants to do all those things and more with her.

  He wants to sit on his roof with her and look at the stars. And then he wants to make out with her. He wants to lose himself in kissing Ariel Riley. He wants to melt.

  And goddammit Zane is the most sexually pent up person he's ever met today. He's been admittedly horny all day, and it's been a couple weeks since he last took care of himself in that way. Honestly, it's been since before...

  Since before Slate.

  And that's just fucked up.

  But right now he's half-hard in his pants with just the fleeting thought of kissing Ariel. And while he feels a little ill thinking about jacking off, he wants to try it. He's jerked it to thoughts of Ariel before obviously, and those were some of the best spank sessions he's ever had.

  He takes one last drag on his second cigarette and grinds it out on the roof, flicking the stub aside and unzipping his pants. He's hidden here against the chimney in the shadows, which he's thankful for. The last thing he needs is squash-lady peeking out her window and seeing Zane playing with himself on the roof of his house. Boy, would that traumatize the poor old woman.

  His dick shrinks up a little when he pulls it out of his pants and into the icy night air, but he wraps the hand that had been tucked away in his pocket around it, and his palm is warm against his hardening flesh, which helps. He closes his eyes, and tries to swallow down thoughts of how pathetic this is, jerking off to Ariel again, and starts to move his hand slowly up and down his dick. He squeezes under the mushroom head, teasing at the most sensitive spot, and his legs flex and relax.

  It takes longer than usual, even when Zane reaches into his pants with his free hand and massages his balls in time with his other hand's movements. He sets up a steady rhythm, but even so, his dick aches with the memory of claw-like, bony fingers wrapping around it and squeezing bruises into the sensitive, vulnerable flesh.

  No. No, he can't think about that. He can't think about Ghost Town. He can't allow that to ruin jerking off and anything sexual for the rest of his life.

  Zane sets his jaw, and it's probably the most serious he's ever been about masturbation. He forces himself to think about Ariel, and banish all thoughts of Slate's bloody tongue and rancid breath from his mind. Eventually it works, obviously. It doesn't take much for a guy to make himself cum.

  He gasps and bites his lip hard to keep from moaning out loud as he cums over his hand, his balls tightening and pulsing spurts of white. Zane works himself through it, and then slumps back against the chimney, catching his breath, allowing himself to enjoy the brief post-orgasm bliss.

  It's only when his seems starts to grow tacky and cold that he moves, wiping his hand on his pants with a little grimace and tucking himself back into his pants.

  And then, he leans to the side, and vomits.

  What the hell is happening to him?

  God, he's getting tired of throwing up so much. He's not going to have an esophagus left if this keeps up for much longer.

  Deep down, somewhere in his mind where he refuses to venture, he knows that the reason he's suddenly shaking so hard he can feel it in his bones, the reason he's vomiting, is because of what happened at Ghost Town. It damaged him a lot more than he wants to admit, and that scares him.

  But he doesn't want to think about it. No. He won't. He can't.

  He can't let it go on. He can't let this ruin sex for him forever.

  What happened with Slate wasn't even that bad, was it? Why is he freaking out?

  He just needs to push it down. Compartmentalize. He needs to swallow it all back just like he does with all his other problems, with The Accident, and with Mike's drinking, and with his stupid, stupid crush on Ariel. He needs to let this go. He needs to get over it.

  He hugs himself and pulls his legs up to his chest, forcing himself not to rock back and forth like a mental patient. He turns his eyes towards the stars again, and tries to just forget about everything. To focus on the stars. To get lost in their endlessness. To pretend like he's floating away, up into those great burning orbs of light. That would be so nice, to just disappear like that, up into space.

  Zane shakily reaches for his cigarettes and lights a third one up, taking a long drag. It's too long, and he coughs it back up, almost vomiting again before he gets control of himself and tries again, pulling more smoke into his lungs.

  It's not working.

  He can't distract himself. The stars aren't distracting enough. Even thinking about Ariel isn't distracting him enough from this sudden attack his mind is having on him. He feels panic starting to claw its way up his throat, and his vision is just starting to get fuzzy at the edges, to tunnel.

  No, no, no, no, no! He can't let this happen. He's had enough panic attacks the past couple weeks since Ghost Town. He's puked his guts out enough times. He just jerked off successfully for the first time since Slate attacked him, and it didn't feel good. It felt like a burden. It felt sick, and wrong.

  Zane is desperate not to panic again, but it's not working.

  He doesn't really think it through. He just does the first think he can think of.

  He holds his arm out, tears his sleeve up, and presses the glowing tip of his cigarette to his bare skin. It doesn't feel like anything at first, but then suddenly it flares up in pain as the red-hot tip begins to burn his skin.

  The tip of a cigarette can reach temperatures of over 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Zane heard that somewhere once.

  He's never felt the urge to hurt himself before. But suddenly it just seemed like the only option he had as he felt a panic attack coming on and flashbacks about what happened at Ghost Town.

  He stares in awe as the cigarette burns his skin, and he holds it on there. Pain vibrates up his arm, pulsing and intense and agonizing. It somehow doesn't feel at all the same as when he was on fire during The Accident. Maybe because he has control over this. Maybe because he's doing this to himself.

  He holds the cigarette on his skin so long that eventually, the glowing tip fades out and dies. And it's only then that Zane pulls it away. There's a perfectly circular burn on his arm, and in the meager light from the streetlamp across the way, he can see a ring of white, burned flesh, with little dots of black ash stuck in it.

  And then it sinks in. He just put a cigarette out on his arm.

  He just put a fucking cigarette out on his arm.

  How did that just happen?

  He knows why he did it, but suddenly, his problems don't seem to matter anymore as endorphins flood his body from the pain. That was simultaneously the best and worst thing Zane could have done in that moment of panic.

  He stared wide-eyed at his burned arm for a long several minutes. His hands are shaking, but it's okay suddenly. He feels okay. Wow, who knew controlling your pain could feel so good?

  He sits there so long just staring, that eventually, the burned skin starts to swell as it blisters. He watches in fascination as the blister slowly forms, eventually bubbling up into a few little round globes on the tiny, circular burn. Zane bites his lip as he reaches over and prods gently at one of the little globes with the tip of his finger. There's a dull ache in his arm, but for the most part, he can't feel anything on the actual burn. He thinks maybe the skin is dead there.

  Zane huffs a little laugh, and then swallows shakily. His stoma
ch feels heavy, but it's a fuzzy, strange kind of heavy, like he swallowed a bomb and is just waiting for it to explode. But it never does. It's a dud.

  And suddenly, he has the urge to do it again. He's not sure if he should, because surely the burns will scar. But right now, he can't actually find it within himself to care all that much. He just wants to forget about Ghost Town. He just wants to forget. So he reaches over, feeling strangely numb, and heavy, like he's high. He scoops his lighter up, and lights up the same cigarette again, and he holds it over his forearm.

  He can feel the heat radiating off of the glowing tip, a tendril of smoke streaming towards the sky in a string of white. It's harder this time, to get himself to press it down, because he knows it's going to hurt, and he's not panicking blindly this time. But at the same time, it's a good kind of hurt. And he thinks of the euphoric feeling of the endorphin rushing through his body after the pain fades.

  He swallows past his dry throat, heart throbbing rhythmically, hands shaking.

  And he does it.

  He presses down, right next to the first burn.

  The glowing tip has the same effect. It feels like nothing at first, and then the pain begins. Zane grits his teeth, his forehead scrunching up as agony flares through his arm. It's horrible. It's amazing. It's harder this time than it was the first time, but he keeps the tip of the cigarette pressed firmly to his bare skin on the inside of his forearm until the glowing red fades out once more and the cigarette is snuffed.

  Zane huffs out a breath of relief when he feels those endorphins flood his body, and he closes his eyes, hanging his head, dropping the cigarette somewhere on the roof. And he sits like that for a while, with his eyes closed. He doesn't know what he's feeling. He doesn't feel happy, but he didn't really expect to. He feels kind of empty. But it feels sort of good. It's better than feeling so full of every trauma that it's like he's going to explode.

  He sits there for so long that Liam actually comes out of the house and calls up to him to hurry up and come inside before he freezes to death out here.

  Zane blinks his eyes open and looks down at the two circular burns on his arm. They feel good. They're like battle scars.

  It feels so good.

  And that makes Zane feel guilty as hell, and weak. But he doesn't care right now.

  He pulls down his sleeve, wincing as it rubs over the burns, and then claws at the bricks of the chimney, using it to pull himself to his feet. His legs are shaking like Jell-O, but he forces himself to wander over to the edge of the roof, climbing down unsteadily onto the trash cans and wandering inside.

  He tries to keep his face even as he walks into Liam's room and checks on him. He ruffles Liam's hair just like he always does, and says goodnight to him even though it's not that late. Liam eyes him strangely, because he can tell Zane is acting weird. Zane knows he's acting weird. But he slips out of Liam's room before he can ask any questions.

  He walks into his own room and closes the door, and just stands there for a few minutes in the dark. His forearm is throbbing, and it feels wonderful. It's the best feeling in the world right now. It's amazing. Why didn't he try this years ago?

  Eventually, he strips down, peeling his jacket off slowly, making sure he doesn't pop the blisters on his arm. He throws all his clothes on the floor. He doesn't even care. He doesn't care about anything right now. He's floating, and it feels so good. He doesn't even have the mental capacity to think about Slate, and wasn't that sort of the whole point?

  He collapses onto his mattress in his boxers, and pulls the blankets up to his chin, and in the light of the streetlamp out his window, he stares up at the origami Yoda's spinning lazily above him.

  And he feels nothing. He actually feels nothing.

  It's spectacular.

  41

  Over the next couple weeks, I throw myself into rehearsing for the winter play. I find it surprisingly easy to embody the mindset of a bully and play one in the show. I didn't know it would be this easy, but apparently it is. I suppose I've had enough experience with the way bullies act to be able to successfully play one. Even Lynn is impressed, which feels pretty good to be honest.

  Marv, the janitor who wrote the play, attends a couple of the rehearsals, and he seems to approve. I'm not sure if I like Marv very much, but I don't say anything. Mason, however, the ultimate unfiltered one, states that Marv sort of reminds him of a fungus, and he's not a very good janitor anyway. He doesn't even clean the bathrooms in The Dungeon, and according to Mason, it's one of the best places to take a quiet public shit in the entire high school. Charlie makes a gagging noise and walks away to go hang out with Olivia. I just laugh, and Mason shrugs.

  As time goes on, I find it easier to walk home through the woods without panicking because I think the Cancers are following me. I always pass by The Docks on the way home, and they're always there, and while they continue to taunt me, things don't escalate to the point they did after Thanksgiving Break. I'm thankful for that. And I'm actually a little disappointed when I don't see Zane at The Docks with his friends day after day, but I try to ignore it.

  I still look for the deer though, every time I walk by the spot where I spent the night in the woods. I still look, but I never see it, even when I stand there for a few minutes in silence, waiting for it to come out of the brush.

  In addition to rehearsing for the play, working at Alfred's shop, and trying my best to prepare for mid-year exams, I spend every waking moment I can listening to my iPod. I've grown fond of Zane's music, and I spend more time listening to it than I do my own. I still listen to Beethoven and Celtic lullabies and all those things I used to listen to before Zane loaded his music on there still, but now I also listen to AC/DC, and Steam, and Joan Jett. I've grown quite fond of the song "Ramble On" by Led Zeppelin. It's relaxing, and sweet, and actually sort of cute. And of course, I spend hours listening to "Learning to Fly" by Pink Floyd on a loop, although I avoid laying down when I do it because I don't want to fall asleep and have a dream about Zane again. It's too much.

  It's getting a little easier to be in the same room as Zane. I've noticed a bit of a change in him, but it's very subtle. There's a look in his eyes, like he's dreaming while he's awake. And if I weren't so attuned to him and his every move, I wouldn't have seen it.

  I've also noticed that he doesn't go outside to The Docks anymore during lunch. I wonder if maybe him and his friends had a falling out. Zane sits inside with the rest of the students in the cafeteria, although usually he's sitting alone. He doesn't seem to mind though. He spends the majority of lunch looking at me. I try my best not to stare back, but I can see him out of the corner of my eye, eating his lunch and staring in my direction. I just keep my eyes on my origami and pretend I don't notice, but by the time lunch ends and I have to go to math class, I'm already sweating and wet in my panties, every time. It's almost unbearable.

  Math class is getting easier at least. Zane stares at me in there too, but most of the time, I can't see him because I sit in the front of the room. But I can feel him staring, and sometimes it gets the best of me and I have to rush out of there and splash my face with cold water in the bathroom. I trick myself a couple times into thinking that maybe I'm getting over Zane, maybe I'm finally getting over it...but then I see him again, and it's like a punch in the gut. And my crush only grows stronger every day. As does the urge to just grab him and kiss him until neither of us can breathe.

  It's pathetic. It's painful. And it's wonderful.

  Thinking about Zane should make me feel sick, scared even. But instead, it makes me feel warm. When I'm in a bad mood, I'll think about those big green eyes and that muscular back (which I can't seem to stop dreaming about) and suddenly, my mood will lighten. I still feel a little sad when I think about him though, because I know I can never have him. He would probably punch me right in the mouth if I decided to act on my impulses and kiss him.

  So I sit there quietly, and I pine. And I throw myself into rehe
arsal and homework and hanging out with Sophia at Hartley's Bend. I have movie nights with Mason, Kira, and Charlie, and I force myself not to talk about Zane. I keep it all in my head. I don't deny it anymore, but I keep it to myself.

  And I masturbate. A lot. Because that's just about the closest I'm ever going to get to having any sort of anything with Zane.

  God, this is terrible.

  It's the middle of the day on Wednesday, our last week of school, when I'm at my locker switching out books for one class with the next. I'm zoned out, my headphones in, listening to "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi, thinking about Zane of course, since I'm listening to his music. I've developed a habit of imagining where he would be if he was listening to a particular song. I imagine him laying on his bed listening to Pink Floyd, and maybe driving around listening to AC/DC. While listening to Bon Jovi, I imagine that he would be sitting on the creaky wooden swing at Hartley's Bend, smoking a cigarette and trying to lose himself in the music like I keep losing myself in thoughts of him.

  I'm so enveloped by the music and stuffing different notebooks into my backpack, that I don't see the Cancers coming up behind me until it's too late. Someone's shoulder slams into my back, and I make a startled little noise as I'm shoved into my locker. I catch myself just in time before my face smacks into the shelf at the top of the locker, and my headphones fall out of my ears.

  I straighten myself up, but it's just in time for someone to grab handfuls of my shirt and spin me around, slamming me back against the lockers again. The hallway is nearly empty apart from myself, the Cancers, and a couple stragglers who stare at me being picked on with weird expression on their faces before continuing on. No one really tries to stop the Cancers when they're picking on other students. No one wants to be their next target. I get it—I do—but it would be nice to have someone stick up for me every once in a while.