The Elites Of Weis-Jameson Prep Academy: The Complete Series (A High School Enemies To Lovers Bully Romance Box Set)

by Rebel Hart

  I nod, looking at my Nikes, hoping he doesn’t see just how touched I am by his comments. “Thanks, Granger,” I say. “That means a lot.”

  He pauses, almost like he’s waiting for me to say something else, but when I don’t, he slaps his hands on his thighs. “All righty then, Lopez,” he says. “Time to get on back out there. Short practice today.”

  When Coach Granger says short practice, what he really means is that it’s your own tempo. The faster you can get through it, the faster you can go home.

  The moment I see a darkened figure at my car is the moment I realize that Monday has twenty-four hours in it.

  “Ophelia,” Emmett says, his grin spreading as his arms open up wide. He looks sinful, his lips pillowy and his cheekbones high. When he smiles like he means it, it sends a zip to my core. “How was practice?”

  I check around us – my teammates are slowly driving away, their windows down and looking at us. But I don’t see any of the other Elites.

  Emmett is alone.

  Which is unusual.

  And bad.

  For me. Very bad.

  I stop about five feet from him. He’s parked his black car next to mine, on the drivers side. I can’t help but think that’s not a coincidence. Sweat has cooled my skin, and my need to brush away my wayward hairs is stemmed by my desire to not look like I’m primping in front of him. I’m wearing my sports tank that’s a razorback, exposing my collarbones, shoulders and shoulder blades. My shorts are high-thigh and tight, and I know my legs and butt look good in them.

  I wish I’d brought sweats and a sweater. His eyes flick down to my toes, meandering up my body, and settle on my lips. He stares at them a little too long.

  “What do you want, Emmett?” I demand. I don’t want to walk closer to him or to my car, so I stay put. “I’m not in the mood.”

  He unhitches himself from the car, and I contemplate making a break for it. But instead I’m rooted to the concrete, a tiny voice in my ear saying bad move, Ophelia.

  “You know,” he says, “I’ve been trying to think of how to punish you for hanging up on me on Saturday night. And then blocking me.”

  “Oh great,” I say sarcastically, but inwardly a twinge of fear strikes a chord. “You know how I just love to be punished.”

  His lips twitch. “You’ve been a bad girl.”

  “That’s relative. I’m great, actually.” He’s getting closer, but it’s like he’s approaching a wild deer, and his movements are slow, coordinated. I step back. “Why are you walking toward me? Please stop.”

  “Then don’t back away,” he says, stepping forward again. “Come on, I just want you to take a ride with me.”

  The normality of his voice chills me. Almost like the blank stare he gave me earlier in the day, with Vivian draped around him. None of the lust from our first encounter. And none of the sadism of every encounter after that.

  “What the hell makes you think I would willingly go anywhere with you?” I snap. My voice cracks from the uneasiness. I had gotten used to the cruelty, but this strange, calculated, yet distant, eerie deadness in his eyes is shooting straight to my gut. Everything in me is telling me to run, but I know that will only make it worse.

  And then…there is the other part of me that feels sucked in like a moth to a flame. His gaze is locked on to mine as he steps closer and closer, too slowly. I can almost hear the Jaws theme playing through my migraine, but that’s too comedic for a moment this dangerous.

  He freezes, inches from my face. A disturbingly cold breeze hits the strands of my loose hair ever so slightly…seemingly freezing time right along with his body. Everything slows.

  His hand reaches for my face, and for the first time since I arrived, I don’t feel the urge to flinch or bolt. It’s like I’m suspended in some magnetic hold.

  “You can try to ignore me, block me or whatever else you like,” he says softly, his fingers brushing along my jaw. “But we both know what’s going to happen. It has to. Sooner or later.”

  I give my best sarcastic laugh, but it’s too thinly veiled. I know he sees straight through me. My defenses are officially tattered.

  “And just what is that?” I tilt my head, trying to sound as harsh and uninterested as possible. But the seriousness in my face is giving me away.

  “When two bodies are drawn to each other like ours,” he whispers in his low, grumbling voice that ripples straight through me, “we have no choice but to act on it eventually. Why torture ourselves like this?”

  He is close. Too close. His lips so close to my neck I can feel his hot and heavy breath burning into my skin. I swear I hear a growling snarl between each inhale and exhale.

  I hate myself for it, but I want to give in. I want to believe he’s right…That however fucked up it may be, our bodies are meant to meld together, in violence or in sex. And obviously I’d prefer the sex, if he’d actually behave like a decent person.

  “I could never be with someone like you,” I snarl against his neck. “Not after the things you’ve done to me.”

  “Oh no?” he smirks, completely unfazed. “So, you’re telling me when you read that note…and my texts…you didn’t linger on them? Think about it all…even just a minute longer than you meant to?”

  His fingers trail through the back of my hair. I want to turn into him more, push my body against his. Break through all of this sick tension that has been building.

  But memories of the cruel and vicious side I’d seen of him stop me. I can’t move.

  I wish I could run, or that he couldn’t read my mind so well. It sickens me that for all he has put me through, he knows that some part of me deep down still can’t deny this primal attraction to him.

  “You know, no answer is an answer,” he murmurs with a cocky smile.

  I am paralyzed. I have no energy to fight back, to deny him. And I don’t hate myself enough to surrender to him.

  He finally takes several steps backward, leaving the places along my face and neck that he just touched cold. A loud and trembling exhale escapes my lungs, just for the simple relief from the pressure of saying or doing anything. For a brief moment, I’m free.

  His hands go up in a surrendering motion as he continues stepping back. It’s not like him to give up. To show any sign of caring for my comfort. It only unhinges me even more.

  What the fuck is he up to?

  His eyes dart down to specks of gravel scattered across the pavement as he kicks them around with his shoes. “Look…I know we’ve made it hard on you. I’ve made it hard on you. The way things work here…the hierarchy…the system… It’s not easy to adjust to.”

  He has to read minds. Has to. Or maybe just mine. He knows when I’m at my breaking point. And when to back off just enough to make me think I could maybe…maybe not be filled with rage and an intense desire to knee him in the balls. Or worse.

  “I want to make it up to you,” he says, still not looking up from the rocks he is fiddling with across the black tar. “Give you a chance to…I don’t know.” He looks up and away, almost bashfully. “Get to know me. The real me.” For once, his smile almost looks like one a normal teenage guy would flash when he’s talking to a girl he likes.

  I can’t stop myself from laughing out loud…until my laughter almost turns to tears of frustration. Then I stop real quick.

  “That’s rich.” I look away, trying not to cry.

  “Just take a ride with me,” he insists again. “I promise I won’t hurt you. I mean, it’s a beautiful afternoon.” His hand flails toward the almost ready to set sun.

  It is a beautiful afternoon. The air is perfect – not too hot or too cold. A breeze rushes through every few minutes, urging you to do something to keep up with the fleeting warmth. It’s my favorite running weather.

  It would also be a wonderful afternoon for a girl’s crush to take her for a drive. If my life was still anything close to normal. The realization of just how far from normal I’ve been since arriving hits my gut like a knife
.

  Memories of my life before coming here start flashing before my eyes. How simple everything was. And moving here… That plays like a cheesy movie montage. One where I am blissfully naïve and optimistic. I had no idea how wrong things were about to go. I want to walk straight up to my former self and shake her. Warn her that this wasn’t some dream come true. It was going to be a nightmare.

  To my horror, the tears don’t hold back with the thought. My eyes burn as they begin to pool.

  I quickly shoot my fingertips up, pushing the drops away too roughly. Enough to tug the skin in pain and poke into my eyes. I deserve it. I’m angry with myself for letting any weakness show.

  He’s getting to me, and he knows it now.

  His hand is suspended in midair, beckoning me to follow him. Get into his car. Surrender my safety and freedom. Trust him.

  And like an idiot, I do. I know it’s the wrong call. Everything in me screams to stop stepping forward. Stop following him. Don’t slide into the passenger seat as he opens the door.

  But my body follows him like a zombie. A dumb zombie.

  I resentfully note the cleanliness of his car. Psh. Probably pays someone to detail it for him at least once a week. These people’s cars are perfect, clinging to that new car smell for dear life.

  Nothing like my beat-up old car, littered with empty water bottles and protein bar wrappers.

  A blur of something in the back seat catches my eye. Something that makes me feel foolish for thinking about petty things like paid help or clean cars. It is a passing nothing at first, but quickly turns into a blaring alarm. A siren going off in my brain telling me to run. My pulse pushes to an impossible speed as my muscles tense and my jaw slacks. I’m unable to move, frozen with bulging eyes through my quickening breath.

  Rope. Gloves. Other random things I can’t make out…but whatever they are, it can’t be good. Not with our history. And the fact that I am so completely alone out here.

  By the time my mind absorbs the warning signals, he’s plopping into the driver’s seat as I tuck into myself and lean toward the door, as far away from him as I can manage. I know I only have mere seconds before he’s going to lock the doors. My head shakes reactively with my mouth frozen in a panicked circle as my hand smashes against the door handle, blindly fumbling for a grip to fling it open. My shaking body prevents me from being able to pull the handle fast enough.

  Just as the tiniest light seeps back through the door as it swings to open, a sharp blaring pain sears into the back of my head, causing me to cry out in pain. His fingers are digging into my scalp, catching a big enough handful of my hair to yank me backward. The door, and any hope I have at escape, slams shut. I beat mercilessly at it anyway, thrashing wildly against it with my hands and feet to no avail.

  My heart started racing the moment I made that lunge for the door, and now it only quickens, the sound thrashing in my ears, as his tires screech across the parking lot, pealing away from everyone and everything that can help me.

  I know the roads around here are long, winding and empty. Once he starts driving down them, I am completely at his mercy. And given everything I’ve seen so far, I can’t convince myself he wouldn’t kill me…after putting me through unspeakable torture for who knows how long.

  My head hangs low and my teeth gnaw into the side of my mouth as I keep a side-eyed glare glued onto him with a need to see any other lunge for attack before it happens. I can’t let him out of my sight for a single second, but my mind races for some kind of solution. An escape. I fight through the voice in my head telling me I deserve whatever happens for getting in the car in the first place.

  The only thing I know to do is move and fight and try to escape this in any way I can.

  The car. He’s in control of the car. If I take back that control, even if only for a second, maybe I can find a way to escape.

  My hand juts out to the steering wheel, mindlessly jolting it in any direction opposite from where he thinks he’s taking me. My scream is the only thing I can hear when the streetlight post appears in front of the windshield. It sounds foreign and far away, as if it’s not even coming from my mouth. But I feel it ripping through my throat all the same before there is a terrible, deafening crunch of metal and everything goes dark.

  Chapter Eight:

  BOOK 1

  You’re being punished. Just like he promised.

  That’s all I can think as I come to. My head wobbles around as my line of sight fills with indistinct blurs of harsh light and red spots. I feel like I’ve been punched in the chest and my head is throbbing. There’s a hiss of smoke and dying car parts croaking in the background.

  I look over to Emmett’s foggy silhouette. His head is hanging limp and heavy from his neck. He’s still out. I want to think over my options for killing him…making it look like it was from the accident.

  But an urgent need to get out of the car takes over. The seatbelt buckle sticks at first, causing me to panic. I don’t want to be stuck in here…with him. But my frenzied jiggle of the contraption finally sets the buckle free. My chest burns as the belt loosens. I can imagine a big red and purple strip across my skin from being flung against it so hard. I begin pushing on the car door which sticks at first – the same as the seatbelt. But once again I am able to pry it open. Some sort of adrenaline-powered strength, I figure.

  I realize all of this is being made more difficult by the giant white balloon pressing against me. It whistles as I awkwardly maneuver around, not deflating fast enough to make this any easier.

  By the time my feet finally touch the ground again, I nearly fall over. Everything aches and hurts. But not with the rewarding swell I am used to feeling from running. These pains are blunt and sharp. Unnatural.

  I manage to find my footing as my eyesight slowly readjusts. That’s when I realize my ears are ringing. The sound takes me back to what I saw just before the crash.

  What was this fucker going to do with that rope? Just how was he going to punish me?

  But then my heart begins to beg a different question… What if he wouldn’t have hurt me at all? For once. What if he really did only mean to take me for a nice, innocent drive.

  I remind myself of how he yanked me back into the seat as I tried to run. Don’t be stupid, Ophelia. There was nothing sweet and innocent about this.

  This is punishment, I think again.

  For letting my guard down. I willingly got into that car. I let him know that all he had to do to get me where he wants me was pretend to be nice for a few minutes. Looking back, it wasn’t even that convincing of an act. I only made him put forth the bare minimum effort of a show.

  How could I be so easy and stupid?

  I tell myself it’s only because I was exhausted. But that’s not good enough. No excuses. I don’t get to run slower or cut the miles short…no matter how tired I am. I don’t get to cave into these Elite fuckers just because they’re wearing me down.

  Toughen up. I clench my fists and repeat it to myself over and over.

  I hear Emmett rustling out of his door. My feet immediately begin to bounce, needing to run far away from him. But the sight of blue and red lights stops me.

  There’s blood dripping from his forehead as he shoots his eyes straight to me. They’re filled with rage and confusion, but I can tell he’s blaming this all on me. Taking in the sight of his car and his banged-up body, he has the nerve to look to me with a What did you do!? victimhood.

  I shake my head, snarling at him through my own bloody lip. How dare he look at me as if this was my fault. Don’t stalk girls, trick them into getting into your car, and then hold them by the hair when they try to run. Then your car won’t get smashed up.

  Thankfully before he can say or do anything, he has the police to answer to.

  “Are you two okay!?” One of the officers yells out as their doors swing open.

  Oddly though, they both run up to Emmett and immediately begin giving him all of their attention. Wrapping him in a blank
et, propping him up on their arms to help him over to their car to sit down.

  I am left standing with the sickening reminder that everyone in this town is shoved up the Elites’ asses. Even the cops. They did warn me but standing here now…just as bloody and beaten as my perpetrator…while the two cops that should be helping me are fawning all over the town’s golden child. It reminds me just how alone I am in all of this.

  “What happened?” they ask him, willing to get his side of the story before they even so much as acknowledge my existence.

  I wait for him to blame this on me. Find some way to twist it all around to make this completely my fault.

  “It’s my fault,” he confesses. “I feel so stupid… I guess I was showing off doing donuts and dumb shit like that…But I was distracted having a beautiful woman in my car. You know how it goes.”

  One of the cops laughs, “Oh, son. Believe me, I do. No sweat. Just be glad you’re okay.”

  The other cop finally comes over to me and helps me over to lean against their car…too close to Emmett. I guess they can acknowledge me now that I’m not considered to be a problem or an enemy. I wonder if he had told them he was just getting ready to rape me if they would have helped him finish me off or dumped me somewhere.

  More flashing lights emerge from the nearby winding roads. This time an ambulance. Each new arrival makes me feel safer, no matter how entrenched they all are in the game of the Elites. Safety in numbers. The more people who are here, the more likely it is that someone will make sure I’m okay.

  I lean into the back seat of the cop car, their door wide open. Emmett is in their passenger seat. Our bruised and cut legs are perched out the side of the car on the pavement. I try not to notice his eyes burning into me every chance he gets. But I can feel the weight behind them.

  I can practically hear his voice warning me telepathically…You just wait. You’re really in for it now.

  The EMTs get to work on us like busy bees – patching this, sanitizing that. Just enough to get us ready for a trip to the hospital. The reality swirls around my swaying head, my vision unable to focus. But my mind intact enough to piece together what’s about to happen. There’s only one ambulance. They’re going to make us ride together.