by Ashley Gee
Necessary Cruelty
Copyright © 2020 by Ashley Gee
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Resemblance to actual persons and things living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
Contents
About This Book
Playlist
Prologue
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
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Before you go…
About the Author
Will he save me or break me?
Vin Cortland is the crowned prince of Deception High. He is beloved by his subjects and ruthless with his enemies.
We used to be friends, once. Not anymore.
It’s no secret that he hates me, but only the two of us will ever know why. And the guilt of what I’ve done makes me hate myself more than he ever could.
Except love and hate are two sides of the same coin and both will make you burn.
Then he comes to me with a proposition: one fake marriage in exchange for enough money to finally escape this town and leave the past behind me. The offer is hard to refuse and Vin is used to getting what he wants.
I want to know why me, but I won’t ask for his secrets when it means revealing my own.
He is the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me.
My savior and my destruction.
It’s a deal with the devil.
I’ll let him take my hand in marriage.
The only question is whether or not he also gets my soul.
“Heartbreak Hotel” — Alice Chater
“Tokyo Drifting” — Glass Animals
“Champagne Eyes” — AlunaGeorge
“Daddy AF” — Slayyter
“My Name is Dark - Art Mix” — Grimes
“Bury Me Alive” — Kelvyn Cole
“Crossfire” — Stephen
“Own Me” — bülow
Nothing painful is there, nothing fraught with ruin, no shame, no dishonour, that I have not seen in thy woes and mine.
Antigone
Prologue
Zaya
Dark clouds swirl on the horizon. A distant storm rapidly approaches the shore. The crash of ocean waves is louder than ever as I walk down the deserted beach. I’ve spent my whole life with the world on mute, and now I’m hearing it all for the first time.
Silence has been my only defense against the world’s cruelty for so long that the noise is more than I can bear.
My whole life has been driving toward this moment, forcing me closer and closer to the edge of the cliff until I don’t have any choice but to jump.
I’ve never really felt like I belonged anywhere, certainly not here where I’ve never been more than the town trash. Even my family is only bits and pieces with no glue holding it together. My own mother couldn’t bear to stay with me, not for any longer than she had to. Dementia has freed my grandfather of his bad memories and saved him from the pain of missing me. My brother is gone, and he won’t be coming back.
No one left will miss me if I’m gone, at least not for long.
Shocking cold hits my toes as I step into the surf, a bitter mismatch for the warmth in the air. The water here is always frigid. It takes a brave soul to step into it without protection and hope to make it back out.
I’ve never been anything close to brave.
The idea of being done with all of it brings a surprising lightness to my step, a stark contrast to the crushing despair that has always been my more constant companion. In death, there won’t be fear or pain.
There won’t be anything at all.
I’ve always feared the ocean, a strange thing for someone who was born in spitting distance of the water. Growing up, trips to the beach were more frequent than visits to the grocery store. I’d never understood how anyone could look at the infinite water, the waves crashing hard enough to break bone, and see anything but death.
Just more evidence I was never meant to survive in this world.
As a kid, my mom used to tell me stories of people being washed out to sea by the tides, unable to make their way back to the shore. Even the strongest swimmers eventually grow exhausted fighting the undercurrent. She described in detail the lashing waves during a storm that could tear apart fishing boats in a matter of minutes and suck the pieces down to the bottom, too deep to be recovered.
Darkest ocean is the final frontier, harder to reach than walking on the moon.
I’ve dreamed about what it might be like to give my body over to the sea. I’d always called them nightmares until I realized the real nightmare began the moment I opened my eyes.
Water churns around my ankles like the phantom hands of death, so cold it burns my skin. I take another step forward, and the frigid surf splashes against my knees, weighing me down as water seeps into the long train of my dress.
Some girls gently pack their wedding dresses away like priceless antiques, mine will be a death shroud.
I shiver at the creeping chill, knowing it will only get worse. The most excruciating moment will come when the water rises to my chest, just above the level of my heart.
It’s always the heart that can least take the cold.
My hand drifts down to touch the still flat plane of my belly. I imagine a touch of heat there, the tiniest spark of life, but it isn’t enough to call me back. And I refuse to bring anyone else into this world who might experience the same pain I have.
A voice echoes through the distant canyon, familiar even over the sound of crashing waves that is so loud it’s nearly deafening.
It’s too late.
It has always been too late, even from the very beginning.
I force myself further into the water, because I’m running out of time. If my nerves give out now, I won’t get this chance again. Padded restraints and the double locking doors of a psychiatric ward are all that await me. My supposed husband would rather leave me somewhere to rot than lose his meal ticket. I’ll never be out of someone else’s sight again.
This is my only opportunity.
“Don’t do this, Zaya. Please!”
Vin is already on the beach, but far enough away I can’t make out his face under the night sky. The only light out here is from a full moon hiding behind dark clouds. I don’t need to be close to kn
ow it’s him. No one else would stride down the sand of a public beach like he owns the entire world.
I turn away to face the endless black of a dark horizon. There may be distant lights from our small town behind me, but I can no longer see them. All I have to do is take a few final steps into oblivion, and it will all be over. I wade further into the water, licking cold creeping up my thighs and then my waist, forcing myself to take painful steps forward even as my heart pounds in my chest.
“Zaya,” he calls again, voice sounding more desperate than I’ve ever heard it.
He can’t see me in the dark, might even walk right past me and never know it, as long as I don’t say a word. But that doesn’t stop him from shouting his promises into the wind, begging me to give him another chance to prove himself.
Vin has never broken a promise to me, because I’ve never expected him to make any.
I don’t want to believe it’s possible for him to change. Belief requires hope. And hope forces you to pick yourself up so life can kick you right back down again.
I don’t have the strength left to hope.
Eventually, he’ll go away and I can finish this.
Except I underestimate both his vision and the flash of my off-white dress against the dark water. His feet slap on the shallow water as he starts toward me, but he still isn’t close enough to reach me in time. I just have to force myself to move fast enough.
He shouts my name, screams it, until his throat sounds like it is going hoarse.
Soon he’ll be on top of me, grabbing me, forcing me out of the water and back to the shore. If I’m going to choose, then it has to be right now. The time for indecision has long passed.
I have to make a choice.
Stay and fight, give him the chance to build me up so he can tear me down all over again.
Or let it all just float away with the tide, taking a lifetime of pain away with it.
I have to decide.
Vin
I pushed too hard and for way too long. There isn’t any excuse except that I’m the biggest asshole who has ever lived.
Not to say that I haven’t had my reasons. But it’s hard to make the past matter when you’re confronted with the reality of your future.
In the beginning, I convinced myself that keeping secrets would be the best thing for both of us. The less she knew, the easier it would be for me to control her. But I didn’t understand what I stood to lose.
And now I’ve lost everything.
Waves crash around me with destructive force. The wind is so howling that it steals my voice and carries it away to the sky. I pray I’m not too late, even though I don’t deserve to have any prayers answered at this point.
I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve anything.
But I’ve never been one to worry too much about what I deserve. I’ve always taken what I want when I want it, regardless of the consequences. There isn’t any reason to change my ways now, not when it means I have the chance to save her.
I’m going to save her.
From herself. From me. From the world, if I have to.
I’ll tie her to the bed and keep her there for the rest of her life, if that is what it takes to keep her alive.
I’m barefoot because I kicked off my shiny loafers to run faster. Bits of coral and stone dig into my skin. Sharp enough to cut, but the physical pain is a distant thing. If I have to run a hundred miles across hot asphalt covered in broken glass to save her, then that is precisely what I’m going to do.
I scream her name again, even though I know she wouldn’t hear it even if she was standing only a few feet away. The darkness and the angry sound of crashing waves are enough to hide any number of sins.
Hers and mine.
For the longest time, I wanted to break her. Tear her into bits so I could examine every piece until I figured out exactly what fascinated me so damn much. I succeeded, but she isn’t the only one who has been broken.
In the beginning, this had mostly been about the money. And maybe a little about how much I got off on forcing her to be what I want. Everything seemed to make so much more sense back then, even the worst of what I’ve done seemed justifiable.
But now, I’m just disgusted with myself.
King of Deception.
Vice Lord.
The guy who has never heard the word no.
My reputation is as big as the waves crashing onto the beach and as powerful as the undertow threatening to pull us out to sea. I tell myself I’m more than the things people say about me, but I’m not convinced that’s true.
Maybe it has never been.
I see a dark shadow in the meager light, and I fight through the water toward it, driven by instinct.
Everything about her is dark. Her hair. Her eyes. Her thoughts, at least the ones she shares with me. But that didn’t stop her from becoming the only spot of light in my otherwise colorless world.
And I let all of my worst impulses nearly destroy her.
When I squint, there is the barest outline of a figure moving through the waves. The white dress is what gives her away. She has gone far enough out that the water has to be past her waist.
I’m running without a conscious awareness of what I’ll do when I reach her. Like every other interaction we’ve ever had, I’m operating on an instinct I’ve never fully understood.
As I chase her into the water, I realize I would give anything to rewind the clock to a time before we became what we are.
Before tragedy robbed me of a real childhood.
Before I stole her voice.
Before fate and bad luck forced us together.
Before secrets and lies drove us apart.
Before it all went wrong.
I follow her into the sea like I’d follow her to the ends of the earth if that is where she leads me. Even if it is impossible to go back, I can move forward. Into tomorrow. Into the future. Whatever place she chooses to go.
Even death.
If she throws herself on the mercy of the gods, then I’ll jump off the cliff after her.
At this point, it’s only a question of who gets to her first.
Oblivion or me.
One
Helen of Troy was the original basic bitch.
If she popped up in the twenty-first century, the chick would definitely have a skim pumpkin spice latte clutched in her hand with a stylishly oversized sweater hanging off her shoulder paired with skinny jeans and calf-skin ankle boots. Helen is the girl who orders food based on how good it will look on Instagram, knowing she isn’t going to eat it anyway. She is grateful and blessed because the whole world is wrapped around her pinkie finger.
But Helen of Troy is long dead, which leaves me to deal with her spiritual successors, the fashionably scattered girls of Deception High School.
And the guys willing to go to war for them.
But it’s one guy in particular that represents a key figure in the story of my life that puts Greek tragedy to shame. I try to avoid him like my life depends on it, because I often question whether it actually does. Keeping in mind that it’s impossible to get away from anyone in a small, incestuous town like Deception, CA.
There isn’t anywhere to hide where he can’t find me.
My senior literature class is currently working its way through the Greek classics, and we get extra credit for dressing up like famous characters. So I’m drowning in a sea of Helens, assuming the aggressively blonde hair and tiaras made of gold leaf are any sign. Even the natural brunettes have gotten their hands on a wig or a box of dye for the occasion. Some fit the role better than others, but all of them try.
Except for me.
Because I am no Helen of Troy and never will be. If her face could launch a thousand ships, then mine isn’t worthy of the old fishing boats anchored in Deception Harbor. I’m not ugly, at least I don’t think I am, but Helen and I are a bit of a tonal mismatch.
Both on the outside and the inside.
The aspirational dres
s-up might be a measure of their optimism, the belief something better is waiting for them out there in the world. I can’t share in that particular delusion, even in the moments when I give into the urge to try. My future seems written in stone, a stone that has been tied around my neck and then tossed into the ocean as I sink deeper and deeper beneath the California waves.
Hope is the easiest way to get your feelings hurt when life kicks you in the ass.
The hallways of Deception High are a prison for us all, and the same rules apply. Keep your head down and your business to yourself, and you just might survive. I’m counting down until graduation like an inmate scratching on the walls of their cell to mark the days, and with about the same amount of anticipation. This place is a minefield, and every step brings me that much closer to an explosion.
The school is divided so cleanly you’d almost think someone designed it that way. There are two very distinct groups walking the halls, and it’s an established rule that a battlefield littered with bones lies between them. The rich kids, many of them descendants of our town’s illustrious founders, live out on the Bluffs in their big fancy houses. They drive late-model imports to school and wear clothes that weren’t fished out of a bargain bin. The rest of us live outside of the town proper in the Gulch, a dusty and unincorporated part of the valley that is full of broken storefronts and run-down offices for bail bondsmen.