“Later,” Bubba calls, picking up his stuff and heading downstairs to greet some customers before shuffling off to class.
Ms. Anderson’s literature class is exactly the kind of snooze fest I don’t need right after a semi-decent lunch break. As I listen to her shrill, shaking voice drag out the lines of The Taming of the Shrew, and watch the bored lolling of heads around the room, I can’t help but wonder why I even bother to continue coming to this place. There’s really no point in graduating, even if I could scrounge up the fees to pay for graduation, let alone tuition for college. All my money gets funneled in one direction - home. I do what needs to be done daily so that I can provide for the two people who need me the most – my mom and my baby sister. Graduation at this point would be a masochistic slap in the face because there’s really nothing left for me.
My course has been set and I’m just running against the clock. Why I pretend to care is beyond me most days, but it’s a part of the routine now and a box to check off on a good day. I suppose being here is the only excuse I have to not be around Cain for eight hours a day, even though I have a sinking feeling that even that’s about to change.
As I try, and fail, to appear even remotely interested in Ms. Anderson’s lecture, my mind wanders to last weekend’s encounter with Cain.
“You talk to Fabio ‘bout the new shit we got?” Cain and Gabriel were hefting crates of weapons in the basement, sorting through the inventory before sending out their squawks to let buyers know that the bread was ready.
“Yeah bro,” Gabriel grunted and Cain must have caught a glimpse of me passing the room.
“Kace get your ass in here.”
“What?” I asked, barely entering.
“Deaf all of a sudden, boy? I said-”
“I heard you. What do you want?” I asked, stepping in and leaning against the wall.
Cain started laughing so loudly the crates rattled, but I heard no humor in his voice.
His face distorted into a cocky pout as he reached around into his waistband, pulled out his piece and pointed it right at me.
I could feel my heart thumping loudly in my chest and feel the vibrations on my tongue. That wasn’t the first time he’d brandished a gun at me, but every time he did it, I wondered if it would be the last time. Cain and I may be brothers, but it’s not beneath him to drop me where I stand on a good day, just for getting on his nerves.
He used the gun to motion to me to come closer to him. I didn’t want to, but the odds were against me, so I just went with it. The cold metal bit into my face as soon as I was an arm’s length away from him.
“You don’t talk to me like that. You hear me, boy?”
Boy?
I wanted to slam his face into the crate and leave him squirming on the floor like a little bitch.
Boy?
I was only a few months away from nineteen!
I stared back at Cain, a sneer drawn on both our faces. I know Cain is hostile and unpredictable with a chip on his shoulder and a lust for blood, but I wasn’t in the mood to put up with his shit. Our silent stare-off increased the temperature in the room and I could almost hear static crackling in the heavy, dusty air.
Gabriel was leaning against the wall, puffing smoke from a cigarette - always the silent, useless observer.
Before Cain could do anything else, his phone rang, and he stepped away to take the call.
I don’t know if I earned any respect that day, but he didn’t kill me, so I guess that counts for something. Apparently someone was playing all the gangs in Kensington and nobody knew who it was, which had everybody on edge.
I could see the vein in Cain’s bald head pulsing as he shouted into his cell phone. The snake tattoo wrapped around the vein seemed to come alive as Cain let Dimitri know that if he came back without the information he needed, he’d dress him up and send him off to a fancy dinner with a Columbian necktie.
I’m paraphrasing, of course.
For a guy who never saw the value in finishing high school, Cain can be quite creative with his threats sometimes. Poetic in his violence in a strange kind of way that both Shakespeare and Ms. Anderson here would probably appreciate.
I’m pulled back into the present by a choral groan. I have no idea what Ms. Anderson just said. She probably gave out homework or some crap like that. Good for her.
I already know I’ve got no time to get it done. I’m booked solid for days to come.
Truth be told, I should probably cut classes for the rest of the week - that seems to make the most sense to me. This is literally the last place I want to be while my life continues to fall apart. I don’t need the condescending stares of straight-A students or the side-eyes from jocks with more testosterone than they actually know what to do with. They’re all just apes running around looking for a stick to scratch their ball sacs and I swear if Sam steps to me one more time, I’m getting expelled.
“You could at least pretend to be interested in the class.”
I look across the row and Janey is sitting right beside me, taking notes from the board.
“Did you just say something to me, Princess Bradshaw?” I challenge and I see her flinch.
Good. Mind your damn business. As if I hadn’t given her enough of a warning that I’m not to be fucked with.
“I’m just saying you’re being very obvious.”
I turn to look at her. “What’s it to you?”
When she doesn’t answer, I hiss and turn around in my seat. There goes my whole mood. Not that I was in a great one, to begin with.
“What happened to you?” she asks, and I spin around to face her.
I can deal with lecturers and guidance counsellors, but I don’t need to take this shit from her.
“Why don’t you go back to your notes or your novels or whatever it is that makes spoilt rich bitches like you tick and stay the hell out of my business? Huh? How about that?”
She blanches and I can see her bottom lip tremble before she bites it to stop her tears. I look up and everyone is staring at me again for the second time today. Some of them have anger in their eyes, some pity. It’s the latter that irks me the most.
“Mr. Da’Costa,” Ms. Anderson gasps, pointing to the door.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. I know.” I pick up my bag and swing it over my shoulder effortlessly because it’s about as empty as my future.
I glance back at Janey just in time to see her wipe away a tear and I’m annoyed that I’m second-guessing myself. She deserved that, I’m sure of it. She needs to be taught her place - at least that’s what Cain would say.
Not that I’m taking examples from Cain, or anything. But goddammit, Janey needs to know not to speak to me without permission. It’s not like we’re friends or even acquaintances anymore. What’s it to her if my life blows up and takes everyone around me with it? She’s not around me, so that makes it none of her concern. I make up my mind that I have no regrets, but that doesn’t seem to be enough to stop me from feeling like an asshole as I walk into the Principal’s office.
When I open the office door, the secretary looks at me and shakes her head.
“Again, Kace?”
“You know I can’t stay away from you,” I smirk at her and she frowns.
“You’re pushing it. Go in. She’s free to assign you detention.” She rolls her eyes, waving me away like a fart in the breeze.
Mrs. Jordan seems no more happy to see me than her secretary was. They should really revise their VIP welcoming policy.
“Kace.”
“Samantha,” I say. For as often as I’ve been here this year, we may as well be on a first-name basis. Her face tells me that she doesn’t agree. “Mrs. Jordan,” I adjust and she nods.
‘Pretty sure your hot-shot husband is cheating on you anyways,’ I think to myself and chuckle at my own joke.
“Do you somehow find this funny?” She sounds annoyed.
I stare back at her with a blank look on my face. Her neckline is plunging just a
bit more today than it usually does. Lucky Mr. Jordan.
“What are you staring at?”
I didn’t realize I had been staring at her cleavage and I blanch when I notice my mistake.
“I’m tired of seeing you in my office. Detention doesn’t seem to be doing anything for you so we’re going to have to get a bit more creative.”
I can see a smile forming on her lips and I’m curious to know what kind of bullshit punishment she’ll come up with. Apologizing in front of the student body? No biggy. I could make a whole comedy routine out of that. Confiscating my cell phone? No problem, I’ve got burner cells at home. Suspension? I really don’t want to be here anyway.
“You’ll stay back after school for two hours under security’s supervision and help with the decorations for the school fundraiser coming up.”
“You’re joking.” My face falls immediately.
She has to be joking.
“I’m not joking. You don’t get to leave until everyone else does. And Kace,” she pauses and I mull around in my mind, calculating the maximum number of hours between leaving from here and making it home before curfew officially starts. Or whether or not skipping this whole thing will land me with a big fat expulsion. Hate it as I may, I’m not ready to be rid of this place just yet.
“If you leave before you’re allowed to, we’ll have to start considering more permanent solutions to your behavioral problem,” she says, answering my unasked concern.
The thing is, she has no idea how permanent my real problem could become because of her response to some teenage girl’s inability to mind her own fucking business.
God damn it, Janey.
Cain is going to kill me.
2
Janey
Kace is an idiot.
I have to keep reminding myself of this fact.
To be fair, I know he’s not as big of a moron as he’s pretending to be, but ever since the final semester of last school year, he’s been acting like a complete fool. So yeah, he might be smart, he might have brains, but he’s still an idiot.
How does someone go from being the captain of the science team to making straight Ds in chemistry class? None of that makes any sense to me.
And what about him becoming such a colossal jerk to me all of a sudden? We may not have been best friends, but at least we were civil. He was approachable and polite, and I liked looking at him.
That last one hasn’t changed much.
I’m enjoying the view right now, even if it’s under unfortunate circumstances.
Kace is across the room, pacing the floor with an intensely pissed off glint in his smoldering green eyes. His attitude may have deteriorated, but his body most certainly has not.
Puberty showed up at his doorstep with a bulky frame and gorgeous chestnut blonde hair. He’s leaner and more rugged and I can tell that if he wanted to, he could actually grow a pretty decent beard. Those are all natural additions to an already perfect specimen.
There’s a lot about him, however, that he doesn’t get to thank genetics for. He surprised the rest of us at the beginning of the year with his body modifications. There’s a tattoo on his inner right bicep and wrap around barbed wire around his left bicep. Those are the most obvious ink art, but I’m pretty sure I caught a glimpse of something closer to his chest. Only Kace could get away with something like that and in a way, it breaks my heart. It’s as though he’s expected to keep blossoming into a bum and that seems unfair. And the whole bullying thing. I don’t know, maybe I should take him graffitiing my locker and tossing my backpack across the hall as a warning to leave him the hell alone and stay as far away from his demise as possible. And all the insults he’s never shy from throwing in my direction… sure, the dude’s an asshole, but not naturally.
There’s a loud thud beside me and I turn to find Erika grinning at me and Charley standing beside her.
“Look what we found!” Erika shrieks excitedly at me, using her index finger to slide her glasses back onto her face.
The crate is filled with spray paint cans and I can already tell what Erika is thinking.
“No,” I warn her, and I see Charley shrug.
It is beyond me what Erika finds so interesting about Charley. To me, he’s got the attractive force of a glass of water at the bottom of the ocean, but she’s my best friend, so I keep that observation to myself.
“Oh come on, Janey! People deserve to know how amazing you are!”
“No... they really don’t,” I whisper, hoping that she’ll take a hint and tone down, but she seems to be on a roll today.
“Oh Charley, you should see what she can do with a can of paint. She’s like Piccasso or something,” Erika gushes and I briskly start to walk away from her.
“Get back here, Janey Bradshaw!” she squeals, running in my direction.
Her joy is infectious, and I take off running away from her, giggling at her childishness.
I glance over my shoulder in time to see a horrified look on her face as she halts. When I turn around, it’s too late for me to stop myself from slamming headfirst into Kace and we both go tumbling across the auditorium floor. I can hear him swearing as he pulls himself off the ground and I barely have time to register just how firm and manly his body felt against mine in the brief collision.
“What the hell is your problem?!” he growls at me, and I quietly bring myself to my feet, mumbling my apology as he continues his rant.
“Haven’t you done enough today? It’s like I can’t get rid of you,” he continues, dusting off his full black outfit.
I tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear and inch away from him. “What did I ever do to you, Kace?”
“Exist,” he barks, scowling at me.
I can’t explain why that hurts so much, but it feels like I just stubbed the pinky toe of my heart.
“No need to be such a huge jerk, Kace,” Erika chastises him, and he turns slowly, menacingly towards her, assessing her up and down.
My jaw tenses as I watch him take a step closer to her, and I inch closer to them, ready to pummel this caveman with my tiny fists if he tries to hurt my best friend.
“What are you going to do about it?” he growls, all 6 ft 2 inches of him towering over her 5ft 4 inches frame.
Charley does as I expect him to do, which is absolutely nothing. He stands nervously beside Erika, looking up at Kace and I inwardly roll my eyes.
“Back off, Kace,” I warn him, keeping my voice low and my temper in check.
I hear him chuckle and I want to knee him in the nuts. “You’re all a bunch of losers,” he scoffs. “Stay away from me, Janey. You’re bad luck.” With that, he slinks away from us and heads over to another corner of the room.
“What a moron,” Charley finally chimes in, trying to sound bold, but the mild trembling in his voice betrays him.
“I think he’s misunderstood,” I find myself commenting out loud.
I can almost hear Erika roll her eyes. “Janey, you think everybody is misunderstood. It’s really annoying. He’s not misunderstood. We all understand him. He’s a jerk, end of story.”
He certainly has gone out of his way to make everyone think so, but I know a genuine jerk when I see one and Kace isn’t one. He’s annoying and hurtful, but I think he’s also massively wounded. Of course, I don’t bother to say this to Erika. She’s not a great judge of character by a long shot. Charley is sufficient evidence of that fact.
She takes my hand and leads me back to the crate of spray paint. “Can we just focus on doing this?” she asks, beaming with hope.
“Sorry E, you know I don’t do the whole public art thing.”
Even if I did, my run-in with Kace has put a serious damper on things.
I excuse myself from the auditorium and head to the students’ council office to get some administrative work out the way. As the secretary of the Students’ Council, I’m basically the President. The elections had come down to a popularity contest and both the President and Vice Presid
ents wound up being party-loving jocks with no real sense of responsibility.
With this semester’s main fundraiser coming up, you’d expect that the President and VP would at least make their presence felt, but as usual, it’s just me, my OCD and my need for the perfect execution of everything.
There are a ton of unanswered emails in the Council’s inbox and I’m a little too excited to bring that number down to zero.
Thankfully there’s a bottle of water in the mini-fridge when I check and I grab it and settle into the swivel chair to respond to the emails, which proves to be a more difficult task than usual. For every meaningful sentence that I’m able to compose, I have to reword two paragraphs. My mind seems determined to be everywhere but here today, and for some reason, it keeps wandering back to Kace.
I have no clue what it is, but I know there is something much deeper going on with him than he’s letting on, and I feel like somebody should be doing something about it. Of course, add to that the fact that I feel like a complete idiot for getting him into trouble again, and what you end up with is a slow 1-2-step through these never-ending emails.
A beep on my phone distracts me from my miserable sulking and I realize that not only have I had an unproductive session, but it’s actually gotten pretty late.
There are three missed calls from Erika and a voicemail to say that she had searched everywhere for me and had to leave with Charley when she couldn’t find me. I’m sure she wasn’t too heartbroken about that. Their love story is a hilarious tragedy that I can tell will end badly, but I’ll never be able to get Erika to see it before it happens.
I suppose nobody wants love advice from the girl with no experience. It’s logical reasoning, I suppose. But even in my inexperience I can tell a dreadful pairing when I see one and that’s exactly what this is turning out to be. Erika refuses to hear me out and insists that Charley understands her in a way that no one else does. Which is utter rubbish, but when she has her mind fixed on an idea, I know better than to try and convince her otherwise. To her, Charley is an angel and all I can do is pray for her daily.
Infinite Fury (High School Bully Romance) Page 2