by A. E. Snow
Table of Contents
BELLAMY RISING
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
BELLAMY RISING
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
BELLAMY RISING
A.E. SNOW
SOUL MATE PUBLISHING
New York
BELLAMY RISING
Copyright©2017
A.E. SNOW
Cover Design by Leah Kaye Suttle
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Published in the United States of America by
Soul Mate Publishing
P.O. Box 24
Macedon, New York, 14502
ISBN: 978-1-68291-592-9
www.SoulMatePublishing.com
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Chapter 1
I love the sound of breaking glass. Adrenaline rushed through me as I smashed my fist through the glass pane of the back door of 328 Maple Street. I pulled my hand, wrapped in Will’s flannel shirt, back through the window and unwound the fabric. As I shook out the glass, he reached through the jagged pieces of freshly broken glass and unlocked the door. He swung the door open and stepped into the dark.
I followed him inside and handed him his shirt.
He smiled, mischief gleaming in his eyes. “I love exploring empty houses.”
“Is that the part you love exploring? Empty houses?” I teased.
“That’s one part,” he said and pulled me toward him.
Laughing, I moved away. “There’s plenty of time for that later. Let’s see if this house is as interesting as the last foreclosure we broke into.”
“Fine. Let’s look around first.”
“Are we going to get much exploring done in the dark?”
“I have a flashlight.” Will held up his phone and shone it around, illuminating the avocado-green refrigerator and stove, which matched the wildly patterned wallpaper peeling off the walls.
“Beautiful kitchen.”
“Very stylish.” He nodded in agreement. “I especially like the choice of flooring.” He pointed the flashlight down to highlight the mustard-color linoleum.
“Yuck.”
I staggered a little as I stepped into the living room. The light revealed green carpet and a fireplace with yellow brick. “The décor is giving me the spins,” I said with a giggle. “Is it even possible to drink this carpet away?”
“I don’t think the décor is to blame,” he said and poked me.
“What’s down there?” I ignored him and set off into the darkness down the hallway. The first door stood open and I peeked inside. The streetlight cast a bluish glow over the curtainless room. “Nothing here,” I said, backing out of the room into the hall.
Will opened the door across the hall and peered inside. “I found the basement.”
I stood on my tiptoes to see over his shoulder. His flashlight revealed standard stairs leading down to a concrete floor. “It seems pretty normal. Not like the one in the last house we broke into.” I stared down the stairs.
“Yeah. That one must have been a torture chamber in a former life.” He took a step. “Should we go?”
“Stairs and concrete. That’s exciting,” I deadpanned.
“Come on. Maybe someone left a body cemented into the wall.”
“How would we know?”
He shrugged and followed me back into the living room where I flopped onto the dusty carpet. “Achoo.”
“Bless you.” Will sat down next to me. “Need a beer?”
“I lost my other one somewhere . . .” I didn’t see my half-empty can on the mantle, the only surface in the room. Giggling, I took another. “Losing your beer probably means you don’t need any more.”
I twisted the cap, but it didn’t budge. “Ow.” I shook my hand as if that would get rid of the burn.
“It’s not a twist off.” He grabbed my beer, popped the top with his lighter, then gave it back and let his hand linger on my leg.
“Thanks.”
He leaned in closer until I felt his breath on my neck. A familiar heat spread through my body. I faced Will as he brought his lips close to mine. I closed my eyes and waited, snapping them open when he failed to connect.
“Oh shit.”
I whipped my head around. Through the mini-blinds, flashing blue lights drew closer.
“Back door.” I jumped up and bolted toward the back door with Will on my heels. I got to the door first and grabbed the doorknob. My hand touched the cold metal at the same time that a bright light beamed through the broken glass and in
to my eyes.
“Hello, Bellamy,” said a voice I recognized.
I groaned.
“Come on out, kids.” The voice belonged to Officer Jackson, someone I’d run into once or twice before.
The door swung open and Will and I shuffled outside to our fate. It’s too bad that the glass shattering had alerted the neighbors and they’d called the police. Being half-drunk with Will Onishi in a foreclosed house that had been sitting empty for more than a year was one of those things that had seemed like a good idea at the time. That was until I sat on the sidewalk getting lectured by the police.
“We aren’t going to arrest you this time, but we will call your parents,” Officer Jackson said, her voice stern.
I crossed my arms and bristled.
Officer Lewis stood on the sidewalk with his donut gut pushed out in front of him. “Wait here. You’ll have to stay with us until someone comes to pick you up since you’ve both been drinking.”
Jackson and Lewis were well-known to me. I had a particular gift for being in the middle of trouble when the cops showed up. Maybe if the Louisa Police Department spent more time busting the meth labs that overwhelmed Louisa, they would have less time for me.
“Mrs. Foster?” Jackson asked. Mrs. Foster would be my mother. “Officer Jackson of the Louisa Police Department here . . .” I heard my mom yelling on the other end of the line.
“Bellamy and Will Onishi were caught vandalizing a vacant home while being in possession of alcohol. I’m sure you realize that they are seventeen.”
“I would be more inclined to call it ‘light’ vandalism,” I whispered to Will.
He grinned at me. It was easier to grin once we realized we weren’t spending the night in jail. It would have been ridiculous to go to jail over a broken window and some beer.
“Someone needs to pick these kids up.” Jackson kept her jaw clenched, frustration evident in her voice. I almost laughed. My mom couldn’t just leave work in the middle of a shift like that. She was the only bartender. “Fine.” Jackson ended the call. I knew that my sister would be the one coming.
“Bellamy?” Officer Jackson waved me over.
I held back an eye roll as I stood up and joined her in the middle of the empty street. Avoiding eye contact, I surveyed my boots, old and scuffed.
“What are you doing here?” Jackson asked. “Look at me.”
“Nothing,” I muttered, squinting at her through my orange bangs.
Jackson snorted. “Yeah, right. You’re drunk and trespassing . . . again.”
I chewed on my lip and didn’t answer.
“I doubt anything I say is going to do any good, but your father would be disappointed.”
An ache spread through my chest followed by a flash of anger. “I . . .” I started to retort but closed my mouth again, realizing that sassing a police officer would do me no good.
“Get a hobby, Bellamy! Join a club! I do not, I repeat, do not want to catch you breaking and entering again. Or loitering by the 7-11 drinking. Or doing anything illegal at all.”
I nodded, shifting my weight from one foot to the other trying to stay warm.
“Your father was a good man,” Officer Jackson said, her tone softening.
“I know,” I mumbled, my eyes filling with tears. I kept my gaze firmly on the ground.
“He wouldn’t want this for you.”
I didn’t answer, but I hoped the ground might swallow me up.
Officer Jackson sighed. “Sit.”
I shuffled over to the curb where I plopped down next to Will. He raised his eyebrows at me and I shrugged.
Finally, the busted Subaru that I shared with my siblings rolled to a stop on the opposite side of the street. Shivering, I stood up and brushed off my mini-skirt.
“Bellamy,” Lewis said, pulling me aside on my way to the car. “I hate to see a good kid like you in trouble. Your father was a good man.”
My face grew hot with anger. “Yeah, I know.” I hated when people brought my father up. I didn’t want to talk about my dead father, especially with cops. I got in the front seat and let Will get in the back.
“Dumbass,” Meredith said, shaking her head.
“Shut up, whore,” I said, using my pet name for her.
“What were you doing?”
“Vandalizing, supposedly. But really we were just drinking and exploring an empty house.”
“Did you at least find anything good?”
“Seventies kitchen, tiny closets, and only one bathroom. We found out why it won’t sell.”
I heard the flick of a lighter, and the smell of a skunk on fire wafted through the car.
“WILL!” Meredith yelled. “The cops are right behind us, you idiot. Put that shit out.”
“Ah, they aren’t gonna stop us,” he said, but he put the joint out on the bottom of his shoe anyway.
“You can’t afford to get into any more trouble.” Meredith rolled the window down. “You either,” she said to me.
“Like you never got into trouble.”
“Not like you, baby sister,” she said. “Mom is super mad.”
“I know. I heard her on the phone.”
“And I’m mad because I’m going to be late to meet Mike. I was changing out of my work clothes to go out when she called actually.” Meredith pulled up in front of Will’s house, a beat-up one-story ranch house where he lived with his mom.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I kind of was.
Will reached up to the front seat and wrapped his arm around me. “See ya, Belly,” he said.
“Don’t call me that.”
Will laughed as he got out of the car and I watched him lope through the front yard and disappear into the darkness of his house.
Meredith spent the short car ride on the phone with her stupid boyfriend. “I’m sorry, baby. I have to take Bellamy home and then I’m on the way.”
I rolled my eyes and stared out the window watching the houses go by. Each one was probably home to happy, intact families. My family had been in tatters since my dad died. Mom would be home soon to lecture me or ground me, which would be hard to enforce since she worked all the time just to make ends sort of meet.
Meredith squealed onto our street and swung into the driveway. “Good luck, kid,” she said and whacked me on the butt as I got out of the car.
“Whatever.” I trudged toward the small red house with peeling paint and a sagging porch.
I waited in the living room, flipping through the channels until mom got home. She started her rampage as soon as she opened the door. “Bellamy! I’m so mad I don’t even know what to say!”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” And I was sorry. My mom worked as hard she could, as much as she could, so that we could eat and wear clothes and stuff.
“I’m just at my wit’s end with you. What’s next? An arrest? Something that will stay on your permanent record?”
“Okay, okay, Mom. I hear you.”
Mom stared at me for a long time, waiting for me to say something else, but I wouldn’t.
“I’m going to bed.” Mom sighed and climbed the stairs.
Chapter 2
“You gotta quit doing such stupid things,” Ana Sofia scolded me the next evening at work.
“I didn’t even do anything,” I said, grumbling as I wiped down the steam wand.
“Yes, you did and don’t you sass me!” Ana Sofia whacked my butt with a dishrag.
“It was just a broken windowpane.” I held my hands up in protest.
“Stop being so dumb.” Ana Sofia scowled. “It wasn’t just a broken windowpane either. Your mom said you were drunk. She was so upset when she called me in the middle of the night last night. And don’t try to blame it on Will. You were there. Stop being th
ere. And get back to work.”
I smiled and looked around The Beans. Not a single customer in sight. Ana Sofia went back to her office while I wiped the counters down and then I did it again. I used my reflection in the window to take my hair down and tie it back up with a navy-blue bandana, which was a stark contrast to my orange hair that glowed like it was under a black light in the shop window.
Nobody wanted coffee at 6:00 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. After I ran out of things to do, I just stood behind the counter tapping my fingers, resting my chin in my hand, and using my tongue to fiddle with my lip ring. Outside, people were bundled up, and there was still a festive spirit in the air left over from Christmas. I hate New Years. It seemed like a lot of pressure to put on one night if you ask me. The holidays would be officially over tomorrow, and there would be nothing much to do or look forward to until April or May when tourist season began.
Louisa is a tiny town. There are less than 800 people at my high school and the town itself had a population of 3,000. Most of my classmates came from outside of Louisa, from the little communities that could be found by traveling down long, curvy, unmarked roads. On the edge of town sits a beautiful lake with mountains on all sides. Those same mountains isolate our community from the rest of the world. One side of the lake features sandy beaches, hot lifeguards, a resort, and restaurants, which were all closed up for the winter. Tourist season is the only reason Louisa exists at all. Without the masses of people taking over and wearing bikinis and T-shirts to the grocery store all summer long, we wouldn’t even be a blip on the map.
By 6:45, I was dying to go home. I checked the clock on my phone for the fifteenth time in fifteen minutes. To pass the time, I drank a lot of coffee. Maybe even too much coffee. A workplace hazard was being too jittery from the caffeine. Ana Sofia didn’t drink coffee, which seemed kind of crazy since coffee was her life’s work.
I wiped the counters down a third time. I was about to leave my post behind the counter to lock the door and flip the sign from open to closed when Jenna Woodson, captain of the cheerleading squad and homecoming queen, walked in. She goes to my high school, but I paid her very little attention, mostly because she was a cheerleader. I knew her because everyone in my school knew everyone else.