St Mary's Academy Series Box Set 1

by Seven Steps

  Even if I wanted to and I didn’t, I had no idea how I was supposed to ingest it. Instead, I opened my purse and put the white packet inside.

  Exhibit B.

  “Maybe in a little bit,” I said, trying to sound casual, even though I wanted to run away screaming. “I should eat first.”

  Bree nodded. “Good idea. It’s better not to get high on an empty stomach.”

  It was then that Jake chose to walk down the stairs, his trademark smile on his face.

  “Getting to know each other, ladies?” he asked.

  Bree smiled and nodded. I didn’t.

  “We’re becoming best friends,” Bree said. She looked at me oddly, as if wondering why I didn’t parrot her words.

  Earth to Bree. I was not a parrot.

  Jake took my hand and pulled me to his side. He must’ve spotted Dana.

  “I’m going to go show Bella off some more. We’ll catch up soon.”

  “Nice meeting you, Bella,” Bree called after us. “Don’t get in too much trouble.”

  She laughed too loudly to be genuine as Jake and I walked away.

  “So, you’ve met Bree,” Jake said. “She’s amazing, isn’t she?”

  I swallowed my fear before answering.

  “Sure.”

  “Me and her met after I got back from boarding school. I’ve known her my whole life. She’s like my sister.”

  “Great,” I said. My eyes went to the pool.

  “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

  I was in the middle of a high school version of Scarface. I was terrified.

  “Me? No. Just a little overwhelmed. It’s an amazing party.”

  He shrugged. “You’ll get used to it.”

  “Is, uh, is that drugs they are passing around?”

  “You say it like this is a lame after school special.”

  I shook my head, ignoring his comment. “Bree gave me some.”

  “Oh yeah? What?”

  I shrugged. “Some powder or something.”

  Jake raised his eyebrows at me. “Are you going to take it?”

  I shook my head, my hands shaking.

  “No. It’s just weird. They’re passing it out like candy.”

  “To be fair, it’s really good candy.”

  “That you brought here?”

  His eyes hooded.

  “Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that you’re going to narc on us?”

  “I’m not narcing on anyone. I’m just curious. That’s all.”

  Jake examined me for a moment.

  “How about I give you a dollar and show you how to satisfy that curiosity?” he asked.

  A shiver ran down my spine.

  “I’m not going to use it, Jake.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  He held out his hand, silently asking for the powder in my purse.

  I pulled it out and dropped my second piece of evidence in to his awaiting palm.

  “If I find out that you told anyone about this, they will find your father’s body at the bottom of the school swimming pool. Understood?”

  I swallowed down the horror that raised within me and quickly nodded.

  “I won’t say anything. I promise.”

  Jake’s eyes looked at me a moment more before his face relaxed. “Good. Keep it that way.”

  Just then, Cole and Stephanie walked in. When she saw the box of drugs, she clapped and jogged over to it, leaving Cole to stand awkwardly by.

  Our eyes met. I wanted to run to him but I couldn’t. He was with Stephanie and I was stuck with the knock off version of El Mayo Zambada.

  I bit my lip and turned away.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

  Jake looked at his phone again. The black scratched one.

  “Hurry back,” he said, not looking at me. “We have girls to make jealous.”

  I nodded and walked back into the house.

  The majority of the people were outside, leaving the hallways mostly deserted, except for the line that stretched down the stairs.

  The girls bathroom.

  Why did the girls bathroom always have a line?

  “I know about a secret bathroom. Of course, if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”

  I turned to see Cole ambling toward me. Relief touched me from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes.

  “You’ve been here before?” I asked, suppressing the urge to run to him.

  “Only a million other times. Our families are kind of tight.”

  I nodded. “I guess what they say is true. Millionaires stick together.”

  “Yeah. I guess. So are we going to stand around and leave a mess for the help to clean up or do you want to see that bathroom?”

  “Lead the way.”

  Cole led me into another hallway. The floors were made of rust colored marble, the doors heavy wood, the side tables gold. I could probably sell one table and pay my rent for a year.

  “So, what is it like to party with the rich and famous all the time?” I asked.

  “Not as fun as you would think. The people are phony and the conversations are hollow.”

  “And the drugs?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I stay away from that stuff. It rots your brain. You?”

  “Same. That girl, Bree, offered me something. Cocaine, I think. She said that it would loosen me up.”

  “That it would. You will be as loose as Kenny Jennings.”

  I laughed shortly. “That’s not loose. That’s just weird.”

  “Yeah.”

  A comfortable silence fell over us. We turned down another empty hallway.

  “You don’t look like you’re having fun, French,” he said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You lied about having to go to the bathroom and now you’re in an empty hallway with me. Not exactly a barrel of laughs.”

  I stared out of the windows that we passed, my eyes fixed on the water lapping against the beach that surrounded the house.

  “Is it my brother?” he asked. “Did he drag you here against your will?”

  “I wouldn’t say against my will.”

  “What would you say?”

  I frowned. What could I say? That I was investigating his brother for running a drug cartel?

  “Did he threaten you? Did he hurt you?”

  Yes. Not yet.

  Still, I stayed silent, drawing a frustrated breath from his lips.

  “You’re being weirdly quiet about it,” he said, stuffing his hands in to his dress pants pockets.

  I shrugged.

  “There’s nothing to say, really.”

  “Is that right?”

  We stopped walking and leaned on a window ledge. The moonlight poured in to the hallway, giving Cole a pale glow that made my heart stutter. He was so beautiful. So genuine. I turned away from his knowing eyes.

  “What do you see in him?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “He’s popular.”

  “He’s popular? That’s it? That’s the one quality that drew you to him?”

  I bit my inner cheek, still not looking at him.

  “Funny. I thought you had more substance than that.”

  “Are you trying to bait me, Cole?”

  “No. I’m trying to get you to talk to me. I’m trying to understand what this weird relationship is that you have with my brother. And don’t tell me that you love him. You barely like him. You can barely look at each other half the time.”

  “You sound like you’ve taken notice.”

  “What if I have?”

  My heart thudded hard. I finally looked up at him. His hard eyes, his stubborn chin, the red that rose in his cheeks. His gaze was focused on me so intently that I squirmed.

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Do what?” he demanded.

  “I can’t have this conversation with you.” I pushed off from the window and w
alked back the way we came.

  “So not only are you a popularity chaser, you’re a coward, too.”

  My feet stopped, my body whipping around.

  “What did you call me?”

  “I called you a coward. A chicken. Full of fear. Do you need more synonyms?”

  “You are the biggest hypocrite that I have ever met!”

  “You don’t want him! You can’t stand him. I know it.” His long legs slowly covered the distance between us.

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “I know that you’re afraid of what would happen if you admitted it.”

  “Admitted what?”

  “That you don’t want to be with him.”

  “And what good would that do for anyone, Cole? How would that help anyone?”

  “Tell me what you want, Bella.” His eyes bore into mine, piercing my soul, my spirit. My feet rooted to the floor, my lungs sucking in the smell of him until my head felt light and my heart felt full. “Tell me who you want.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?” His hands encircled my face, his mouth so close to mine. My eyes closed. My lips puckered.

  “Because…” My brain fogged. All reason fled from me. There was something that I should have said but I couldn’t remember. Cole had taken up residence in every part of my mind. My soul.

  “Tell me and I swear to you that I’ll say yes.”

  Electric currents raced through me. He was closer now. I only had to lean forward for our lips to touch. I wanted to. I had never wanted to do anything else in my life. But I couldn’t. To kiss Cole would be disastrous, but by god, I wanted to watch the world burn with him.

  “Tell me.”

  My lips parted, forming the words that would ignite both of our worlds.

  “I want…”

  A sliver of my mind was still in control, but it grew smaller and smaller by the second.

  “I want…”

  “Bella.” His voice was rough. Tight. It awoke something in me that I didn’t understand. Drew me toward him. Beckoned. Called me like a deadly siren. “Tell me.”

  I couldn’t hide it anymore. I couldn’t fight it. Couldn’t fight him. I had to say it. I had to tell him or else I would explode.

  “Y-”

  “Are we interrupting?”

  Our heads whipped to the right, staring down the hallway.

  Stephanie and Jake stood at the end of the hallway, watching us.

  “Did you forget who you came here with, Cole?” Stephanie asked, her screeching voice echoing off the walls, breaking the bubble of desire that Cole and I had erected around us.

  He didn’t step back. Didn’t move his hands from my face.

  Jake’s cheeks grew redder by the second. One more shade and he was going to explode.

  I stepped back and smoothed my hair behind my ears.

  “We were just talking,” I said. It was a stupid thing to say but with Stephanie and Jake’s hate filled eyes on me, I couldn’t think of anything else.

  “What they put on your locker is right.” Stephanie’s heeled feet ate up the space between us until we were nose to nose. “You are a whore.”

  Like a flash, Cole was between us.

  “Leave her alone,” he said.

  “And you. You, I can’t even stand to look at. From now on, stay away from me.”

  “I told you that we were just friends.”

  She reached up and slapped him hard across the face, her eyes narrow slits.

  “Now, we’ll be ex-just friends.”

  With one final glare at me, she was gone, the echoes of her heels bouncing off the walls.

  I looked at Jake.

  “I’ll take my girlfriend back now,” he said, reaching out a hand to me.

  “She doesn’t want you,” Cole spat.

  A slow, devilish smile spread across his lips.

  “Guess what, little brother? It doesn’t matter. Bella and I have an agreement. She’s mine for as long as I’ll have her. Isn’t that right, Bella?”

  I hesitated. My hands wrapped around my mid-section, my body going cold.

  “Isn’t that right, Bella?” Jake repeated.

  Cole turned to me. His fingers stroked my chin. I felt the warmth in those fingers. The affection. The gentleness. Things that I craved but couldn’t have.

  “You don’t have to go with him,” he whispered. “You can stay here. With me.”

  Those pleading eyes crushed my heart into powder. I looked away, taking hateful steps toward Jake. Each step made me want to sprint back to Cole but I couldn’t.

  It was impossible.

  Jake threw an arm around my shoulder and sneered at Cole.

  Cole’s face fell. He looked defeated, that sad look returning to his eyes. I had put that sadness there. This was my fault. It was all my fault.

  “Tough luck, bro. Maybe next time.”

  Jake’s arm dropped to slide around my waist and I allowed him to guide me back to the party.

  It will all be over tomorrow, I thought. I’ll call Detective Harding tomorrow.

  Dread filled my gut.

  The second I made the call, everything about my life would change.

  Ariel, Jasmine and Cole would probably never speak to me again. I would be alone.

  Before I was invisible.

  After tomorrow, I wouldn’t be anywhere at all.

  I felt like I was walking through a fog. Like a piece of myself was left in that hallway with Cole. I smiled a little. At least that piece of me was happy. The rest of me was an inch above misery and falling fast.

  Jake paraded me around in front of Dana but I barely registered it. He kissed my cheek and somehow managed a feel on my butt, but I barely felt it. My life was going to change in the worst way possible. I would be alone and it was all because of one, little lie.

  “Jeez. Lighten up,” Jake said, leading me to a chair next to the pool. “You’re like the mummy out there.”

  I didn’t respond, my mind sinking deeper and deeper in to dark thoughts.

  He handed me a drink and I swallowed it down, not thinking about what it was or what was in it. It burned a little, but the burning felt good. It was a small reminder that a little piece of me was still alive.

  He handed me another and I drank that too, relishing in the sweet taste and my stinging throat.

  I was surrounded by the children of movie stars, rock stars, politician and wealthy businessmen. Teens who had no idea what it was like to struggle. To want. To need. To pull together an entire family’s life savings just so that you could go to a good school.

  Jake handed me another glass and I quickly swallowed it.

  My head felt dizzy. My body felt light.

  His lips touched my ear. “Ready to make some new friends?”

  I nodded, not knowing why. My mind slowed, drifting like a boat on the sea.

  The lies came quickly now. Naturally. My father became a rich hedge fund manager. I had no idea what a hedge fund manager was but fortunately, no one else did either.

  I spoke non-existent truths and spun tales of money that I’d never seen or possessed.

  “Isn’t it great to be rich? My family’s fortune stretches back generations.”

  “Yes. I own a diamond tiara. Don’t you?”

  “We summer in Australia because Mom has a thing for koalas.”

  “Do you boat? I own a yacht on every continent.”

  Lies. Lies. More lies. Every dream of travel, wealth and power all came alive within me. I laughed at the right times. I sipped Jake’s magic drinks until my head spun. I flirted with Jake and let him kiss me on my forehead and hold me tight to his chest.

  I was my own fantasy all under the lights and marble and gold of this castle.

  It was glorious.

  I hated myself for it.

  Jake pulled me close and we danced near the warmth of the pool.

  “I have to say, I like you better like this.”

  “Like what?” I asked.
r />   I didn’t recognize my own voice. It was deep. Strange.

  “Loose. Without the weight of the world on your shoulders. You’re almost tolerable. If I had known that, I would have gotten you drunk earlier.”

  “You say such pretty things.”

  He laughed out loud and we continued to slow dance to the house music that pumped around us.

  Someone lit a fire on the lawn and everyone cheered. Marshmallows appeared at the buffet table and we roasted them on wooden stakes stolen from the chocolate fountain.

  After my third marshmallow, I pulled off my shoes and walked to the pool, hiking up my skirt and dipping my toes in.

  “That’s not how you go into a pool,” Jake said, opening his cufflinks. “This is how you go into a pool.”

  He pulled off his shoes and socks, ran forward and did a cannon ball in to warm water. Everyone cheered as a Jake sized wave rose up, splashing the girls who stood too close to the edge.

  Jake hooted and suddenly, the rest of the boys were taking off their shoes and socks and jumping into the pool. It didn’t matter that their suits costed thousands of dollars. It didn’t matter that they would have to drive home soaking wet. What mattered was that they were having fun.

  I smiled at Jake.

  He smiled back at me and for the first time, I wondered if I could live this way. With him. Sure, he wasn’t as smart as Cole, or as kind or gentle. He didn’t make my heart quake and my breath catch. He didn’t make my skin hum and my world fill with music. Jake was hollow. A shell.

  Maybe that was what I was, too. A walking, talking, lying shell.

  “Don’t you want to join your boyfriend in the pool?” a voice slithered into my ear before I was airborne, slipping off the edge of the pool and sinking to the bottom.

  Water went up my nose. In my mouth. I flailed, trying to relax my body and float back to the top. It didn’t work. Panic set in. I kicked but the pool was deep and I wasn’t a strong swimmer. I reached for something, anything to hold onto, but there was only black water that stung my eyes and nose. The sound of bubbles. The feel of deathly liquid surrounding me. Invading me.

  One horrific thought flashed through my mind over and over again.

  I am going to drown.

  I opened my mouth to scream and water rushed in, filling my lungs. Something gripped me around my waist, pulling me upward. I fought against it but only for a moment. Suddenly, I was out of the water and lying on the side of the pool.