Reckless Hate: A Bully High School Romance (enemies-friends-enemies-lovers-enemies) (Westbrook Blues Book 1)

by Thandiwe Mpofu

  “Shut up already!” Emmett shouts this time, standing up and getting in Noah’s face. “We’ve all read that more times than her fucking twin brother’s autopsy report!”

  “Yeah, her twin brother’s autopsy report! No wonder she doesn’t want to stay here. This fucking place has taken everything from her man!” His voice breaks and he throws a bunch of keys on the ground. “I just fucking got her back and you throw this secret in my face? What the hell?”

  “I don’t fucking care what you do. I’m going to get shit faced.” Noah leaves and doesn’t look back.

  My chest tightens and I know that should be me leaving. I should be going after her.

  That should be me going after my girl. That should be me but I just can’t. I grab my car keys and start to walk towards my car but Emmett blocks my path. My entire body is shaking, my thoughts are buzzing around my head and nothing is clear at all. I feel so damn volatile, and I’m going to fuck shit up in major proportions, starting with the woman that calls herself my mother!

  “Where the fuck do you think you are going?” He demands, somehow he doesn’t look like he is blitzed, he looks and sounds normal, but I know better.

  “None of your fucking business. Get out of my way.”

  “No, your stupid ass is not going anywhere. You are going to sleep that shit off and then we need to get to work. We need to find this asshole and nail him to the damn boulder by his balls.”

  “I can’t fucking take it. . .”

  “You fucking will. For her, you’ll rein in that monster and channel it elsewhere. She fucking needs us.”

  “I’m no good for her at all.”

  “Yeah, you damn right you are not. But this isn’t about you, this is about honoring George and the promise we made to each other when we were fucking seven. No blue promise will be broken ever. Protect baby Blue no matter what we lay on the line.”

  Because it’s all her. It’s only ever been her.

  And we failed her. I failed her.

  I wasn’t there to protect her. Wasn’t there to keep her away from this kind of evil. An evil I know all too well.

  “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “Yeah but I want to fucking know why the whole thing was covered up!” Emmett growls.

  I pause as the words sink in. Someone did try to hide this, cover it up and make it seem like it was just an intruder. Then the fact that I burned down the house, burning away any evidence.

  Fuck!

  “Surely the police were called about this, weren’t they? Let’s start there!”

  “Yeah but if someone wanted to cover this up, they can make a police report go away.”

  “Doesn’t matter, I found the dude you wanted.” Emmett says.

  “Good. We have work to do.”

  “Did you hear what she said before?” Emmett questions as we amble back in the trashed house. Noah made a fucking mess out of this but I know he isn’t done fucking shit up. Where ever he is, we’ll need to find him later on to make sure he is still alive.

  “What?”

  “She said that it’s him. Who is him?” Emmett questions with a frown, his words starting to slur.

  What did Star say before? Who is he?

  I walk over to the scattered papers, documents and the photographs that we showed her earlier. I can’t tell you how many fucking times I’ve studied these fucking images, wondering who on earth was taking them.

  I’m drunk, my brain is fuzzy and filled with weed but as I study the damn photos, I see something eerily similar about them.

  The lens of the camera was focused not just on Star’s face, but on her eyes. I keep shuffling the photos, studying them one after the other and I see the same thing.

  “What the hell?” I groan.

  Emmett comes to stand over my shoulder, looking down at the photos with me. I pass them along to him again as I go, my breathing becoming heavier and heavier as the broken pieces fall into a kind of pattern.

  This was not random. This was not from a distance. These images are not just images. . .

  “How the fuck did we not see this before?” I growl, feeling the tightening of my chest.

  “Because we didn’t know what happened to her.” Emmett answers, his damn voice hard and clipped.

  “Fuck.”

  It’s clear to see, and for Emmett who has studied photography, he can see it.

  “The person who took these knows the subject. . .one would also go on to say, this person knows the subject intimately.” Emmett slowly states, his hands growing together around the edge of the photos.

  Everything blurs that night. I completely lose it.

  I don’t think I would have been able to describe the intense pain that ripped me apart as soon as I realized that the person who has been sending us these threats, the person that murdered George. . .is the same person that raped my girl!

  WHAT THE FUCK!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ASTRAEA

  TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY both come and go but I don’t leave my room.

  I don’t bother waking up or leaving my bed for anything other than using the bathroom as human nature dictates but other than that, I do nothing. Because the one thing that I live in fear of each day that passes, has finally caught up with me.

  Depression.

  I don’t have the strength to move or do anything other than be stuck in my mind—which is a dark abyss that is never ending. Calling me out on all my failures, all my mistakes, all my aches, my unworthiness and everything in between.

  My thoughts have been racing a mile a second since Noah dropped me off Monday night and no matter how much I try, I can’t sleep, can’t eat and even more so, I can’t switch off my brain.

  I feel worthless.

  Kim calls and calls and calls but I ignore her each time, sending her straight to voicemail. Voicemails that I delete after periods of two hours each time without listening to the them.

  The same goes for all of Noah and Emmett’s texts and calls. I don’t bother reading them, I just delete and toss my phone away until I feel the compulsion to reach for it where I drop it all the time on the floor beside my bed. I notice that Ace hasn’t called, he hasn’t texted but whatever.

  Nothing matters.

  Everything is stupid and pointless. This life doesn’t matter and I obviously don’t matter.

  Each time I close my eyes, I hear his voice. I can feel his arms in the darkness that is my room. I can just about make out the painful grip he had over my mouth, trying to stifle my screams, but he enjoyed it even more when I gagged and recoiled with the need to hurl, meanwhile ripping my skirt—that stupid skirt—apart.

  Each time I close my eyes, I can feel the thundering of my heart and the painful awareness that I can’t move. The weight of his huge body on top of me. Each time I close my eyes, I can just about inhale the scent of stale tobacco and I feel so nauseous that I have hurled the contents of my empty stomach about three times since leaving that damn Brook House.

  Even now in my bed, it’s chilly.

  All the curtains are closed shut. I have no idea what time it is and I made a point of not checking the time about three hours ago or whatever, forcing my brain to stop counting.

  But I can’t stop the shaking. I can’t stop the trembling and I can’t stop the voices or the recollection of the night I was raped.

  “Astraea! Are you alright sweetheart?”

  My mother is back for the third time. I haven’t answered her the entire time. I don’t have it in me to actually speak. I don’t have the words.

  “Honey, are you awake?” Her melodic voice comes through the door that I since locked last night but I remain motionless under my covers, my pillow case wet and my cheeks stained with my dried-up tears.

  I open my mouth as if to say something. I want to assure her that I’m fine, I just need a moment but nothing comes out. I want to call out to her to come in and be my mother but even that is impossible.

&
nbsp; How can I trust her now? How can I trust anyone?

  “I just came to check on you sweetheart. You know, it’s not too late to have your new doctor come and talk with you.” She calls out and I flip over to the side, away from the door and reach over to the other side of the bed, and under the pillow for my anxiety pills.

  I don’t want to hear anything she has to say and I certainly don’t want to talk to no damn shrink.

  She makes it seem like I am crazy, like I’m not in my right mind. I wonder how life would have turned out if only she had done her maternal duty. Stood by her daughter, listened to her daughter when she tried to speak up but now. . .

  All she wanted was status. Now that she has it, she wants to be my mother and toss me into the hands of a shrink?

  She doesn’t love you.

  No one loves you.

  You have no one.

  You did that by yourself.

  The voice is back again, this time so vicious that I bury my head under the huge pillows and try to will them away. I don’t know if my mother is still there or not, all I know is I’m alone.

  George is gone and I’m alone.

  I am all alone.

  The pain in my heart begins like a small pin prick, almost indistinguishable, until it morphs and grows into a breath taking, gasping pressure that isn’t letting up any time soon.

  I start to hyperventilate, my vision becoming blurry and distorted. Everything hurts, everything feels like a massive body cramp and my body spasms.

  I start patting the bed quickly, kicking away the sheets in search of the bottle of pills. I need them right now!

  I pat the bed furiously, the hiss in my head growing louder each second, my breath becoming shallow and slower with each passing second. Each agonizing, painful second.

  Just as I gasp out in pain, I make contact with the bottle and quickly open it, shake out a pill or two, I don’t know how many fall out into my palm but I quickly toss them into my mouth without a pause.

  Almost immediately, everything around me calms the fuck down. It’s kinda like the calming of a roaring storm.

  Silence.

  There is blissful silence around me.

  The darkness looks so damn inviting.

  Nothing matters at all.

  The blue glowing stars are so damn pretty.

  I’m not conscious long enough to enjoy it, because all too soon, I pass out. But I don’t mind, it’s the sweetest and saddest oblivion I have ever experienced but I welcome it with open arms.

  Ace doesn’t want me. I disgust him.

  But darkness and I are old friends.

  At least, there in the darkness, I know my demons and they know me. Much better than the ones living amongst me.

  HIS SCENT IS THE FIRST thing that hits my senses before the rough, callousness of his touch registers.

  His scent surrounds me, swathes me and somewhat lulls me into a kind of false security that I know isn’t real yet in that second, I want to enjoy it.

  “How did you get in?” My words are a mumble, heavy with sleep and drug intoxication.

  But how did he get in here? I remember pushing a huge dresser to make sure that the secret door he used the last time wouldn’t open.

  “I have my ways.” His deep voice answers after a while. I can fell his arms are around me. I know that my head is no longer resting on the softness that is my bed but is now resting on the hardest chest—which is strangely the most comfortable of them all.

  “How long have you been here?” My voice is groggy and dry. It feels like I haven’t used my voice or my mouth for a long time. How long was I out for?

  “Does it matter?” He questions, still rubbing my back from the nape of my neck right down to my ass, where he takes his sweet time and then right back up.

  He rubs my bottom for a while, like he is thinking of something right then. I shiver, but I don’t move away.

  It’s a heady concoction that has me drunk on it. I feel like a stupid puppet in his arms and where my first instinct is to get away from him and fight him, the firm grip on my thigh tells me that he knows my train of thought and is ready to subdue me at any moment.

  “Mind telling me why you still take these?” He questions, shaking a bottle of. . .my pills! I still.

  My fuzzy brain halts, my eyes fly open and it’s only then that I become cognizant of my surroundings.

  I realize that it’s still dark in here and there is no tell of time anywhere. And secondly, Ace wasn’t just asking for the sake of it, his touch is not gentle and comforting—no—he is angry and his entire body is tense.

  “Answer me.” He demands, his voice a deep whisper but he might as well have shouted the words, demanding for me to comply and quickly answer him.

  “It’s none of your business.” I grit out and try to push away from him.

  I knew the security I felt from him was an illusion. There is nothing safe about Ace motherfucking King. I can’t believe that for a moment there when I opened my eyes to feel him around me, I lied to myself.

  I lied to my damn heart. Again.

  “Really? So, what happened three years ago?” He growls, low under his breath.

  My heart pounds so damn loud, I’m sure he can hear, let alone feel it. I still, my breath halts as I think back to my first year away from home, away from my boys. I lost my shit then. . . but how does he know about that?

  “You think I don’t know that you got addicted to these damn things?”

  His voice is like the devils’ caress. Smooth, silky, deep and oh so seductive. But his anger, oh gosh, his anger. I can feel it pulsating and growing within the space of my room.

  “That is none of your business as well. I want you to leave!” I demand, my breath catching, heart pounding, the shivers are back.

  I remember the dark, volcanic hate in his eyes when he looked at me at their safe house. I remember the coldness I could feel from him. The way he distanced himself from me. The way he made me feel in that moment, when I was so damn vulnerable.

  He made me feel like I was nothing.

  Through it all, he hasn’t stopped any of his touches, he doesn’t even twitch or move his hand that grips my hip. He just continues to caress my back—from the nape at my neck right down to my ass where he pays particular attention and then back up again.

  He is in no particular rush. The way my body is spread over him, we are practically glued together. How to get out of this without angering him even further?

  “I don’t like being touched there.” I whisper in the darkness, my chest feeling tight and constricted.

  He tenses, stops all motions of his strong hands, but then after a while, carries on like I didn’t say anything at all.

  “I’m touching you, baby. Just my touch.”

  The bite in his voice cannot be concealed by the soft way he delivered the words. I can feel the rage within him, I can feel the anger and the restless energy pulsating between us, around us and within us.

  So, I don’t bother moving away.

  My head rests on top of his chest where his heart beats strong, powerful and sure. Unlike mine that seems to be in some kind of formula one race.

  Ace’s caresses are sure like he can’t get enough of touching me. I can feel his hardness at my hip and I try to ignore the need that is rising in me but he makes it so damn hard with the way he is touching me. Caressing me all over, like he is making love to my body, like he is purposely arousing me, trying to keep his anger at bay.

  I know if I try to push him away again, I won’t like what he does next. But because I have always liked to test him, driving both of us to the brink of insanity and hate, I lift both my arms and push him away. I can’t for the life of me, forget the way he made me feel up there in that damned room! I can’t move past that.

  As if he anticipated that move, he uses the momentum that I created, flips me over and somehow, I breathlessly find my tummy resting over his thighs, both my arms firmly in his grip.

  And the next th
ing I know, my ass is forced up into the air. The movements are so foreign and swift, so unfamiliar that when my brain finally catches up with the real time and what’s happening, Ace has me gripped tight with no chance of escaping him.

  What the hell?

  “What are you doing?” I stammer, feeling breathless all of a sudden. He doesn’t answer me.

  I start panicking, pressure weighing down on my chest as if I’m about to have a panic attack again.

  “If you don’t relax, this will be much worse for you.” His voice still as sensual as the devil.

  I turn my head towards the sound of his voice, struggling to move because he doesn’t let me move at all. I can’t see his face, it’s dark but for some reason, I can just about see those icy blue eyes in the dark, glinting with a hateful evil in them.

  “What are you doing to me?” I demand but he only chuckles, adjusting me to his needed angle. “Let me gooo!”

  The last word is elongated when a very loud slap cracks through the large and silent confines of my room, echoing back to me. That sound is quickly followed by an intense, heated and throbbing pain that attacks my ass and I gasp.

  Did he just. . .

  “Did you just spank me?” I demand, completely in disbelief and confusion but all he does is caress the hurt and I flinch, trying to move away from his touch, but he doesn’t let me.

  Infact, he tightens his hold around me. Ace is in a dark space right now and I’m only now realizing it when he doesn’t answer me but instead, he pins me down firmly.

  He delivers seven hard slaps to each of my ass cheeks in quick succession. I have no time to react or to scream or to move away. I have no time to even understand, all I can feel and all I know is pain.

  “Ace. . .” I try again, tears now falling down my cheeks because it hurts. It fucking hurts and he isn’t even listening to me. “I can’t. Not there. . .”

  My legs are kicking on the bed, I can’t take the intensity of the pain and I’m shocked that he is doing this to me right now. I try to move away, but he doesn’t let me, firmly pressing me down over his muscular thighs covered by soft sweatpants.