by Sam Crescent
Hannah breathed in and laughed. “Don’t you just love it? I think this is so amazing. So pretty. So beautiful. You’re going to love it.” She ran toward the window. “Look, you get to see the entire street, and also a side window as well.”
Harper stood perfectly still. Hannah’s laughter irritated her.
“She loves it,” Ian said, dropping her bags on the floor. “You’ll be taking her shopping tomorrow. I’ve got to meet a client. You understand.”
“Of course. Of course. You’ve got all your work that is so important to you.” Hannah rushed to his side.
Harper didn’t turn as the sound of their kissing filled the air.
Dropping her bag to the floor, she walked over to two of the doors. Opening one, she saw the en-suite bathroom.
Again, so much pink.
Finding the closet, she ignored the two people who were now her parents and started to unpack her clothes.
They stood out against the silk of the sheets. Silk wasn’t something she was used to. The grandeur of this house glared at her, reminding her once again of everything her mother never had.
“So, what do you think?” Ian asked.
She glanced over at him. His arm was wrapped around Hannah.
“It’s fine.”
She hated it, but it didn’t matter what she said. They didn’t care.
“It’ll grow on you, sweetie. Believe me, at your age, I was mad for pink anything. I know what it is you’re going through, and there’s no shame in loving a bit of pink.”
“Your mother slit her wrists in the bath as well?” she asked.
Any color in Hannah’s face drained away as she simply stared at the woman.
The homewrecking whore.
The woman that had something her own mother didn’t have.
She tilted her head to the side. “You want to compare notes.”
“Sweetie, go and make dinner. I bet Harper is hungry.”
Hannah didn’t argue and made the escape quickly.
“I don’t want you bringing that incident up, do you understand?”
Harper stayed silent as she waited for whatever he had to say.
Be silent. Keep it secret. Don’t say anything. Pretend it didn’t happen.
“I want you to have fun tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to go shopping.”
“Stop being difficult, Harper. Seriously, enough.”
She watched him turn on his heel and walk away. Sitting on the edge of the bed in the large room, she felt like a stranger. She didn’t belong here.
Harper Miller was part of his old life, not the new one.
At eighteen years old, she’d seen the heartache her mother had to go through. Ian didn’t move towns.
No, her father decided to stay in the same town, moving to the good part of it, the wealthy part. When she went shopping with her mother, they’d see him with his new trophy wife.
Looking back, Harper should have known her mother wasn’t happy, that she was finding it hard to cope, but she didn’t see it in time.
Standing up, she filled her closet with the few pairs of jeans and shirts she’d kept. Within twenty minutes, her life was neatly packed away in the closet. There was nowhere else for to her to go. This house, her father, Hannah, were all part of her life. She didn’t have the means to take care of herself. No house, no job, nothing. She depended on him, and she hated knowing that she did.
She sat on the edge of the bed, fingers locked together, staring at … nothing.
The empty void had come to her when the ambulance came to take her mother away, as she sat in the hospital for three hours waiting for her father to arrive, to take her home.
She moved toward the window and stared out toward the sterile street. Not a piece of trash in sight, nor any loud neighbors.
Just silence.
This life, she already hated.
Nothing made sense to her.
“Harper, dinner.”
She looked toward the door and frowned. That wasn’t her mother.
Gritting her teeth, she wanted nothing more than to climb out of her window and run. To rebel. To not conform.
Instead, she walked quietly to the bedroom door, closed it behind her, and headed downstairs to her new family. Slowly, step by step, she walked downstairs, coming to a stop near the entrance to the dining room.
She’d visited her father twice since he left.
“These potatoes are stunning,” he said. “You make them so creamy.”
“I fill everything I do with love.” A few seconds of silence. “You should call her again.”
“She’ll be here. She’s not used to being in such a big house.”
“How do you think I should … handle her?” Hannah asked.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, her mother is gone, and I can see she’s hurting.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“I want her to like me.”
“She’ll like you. I know how good you are.”
Harper heard them kissing and rolled her eyes.
“Do you think I should make her eat more healthily? I remember what it was like to be at that age, and no one likes a fat girl, even if she has a pretty face. I could help her get more style. To become more attractive. She could be beautiful, but she doesn’t exactly use it to her best potential.”
“You’ll do what is best.”
“We’ll keep it a secret so she doesn’t feel like I’m picking on her.”
“Her mother was always too soft with her. She wouldn’t do what’s right. She always believed that a man would love a woman regardless of her flaws. It’s time for Harper to get into the real world.”
They laughed.
Harper stayed perfectly still, her hands clenched into fists as she heard them. They shouldn’t be laughing like that. Not about what her mother thought. She’d loved all people, flaws and all.
“Oh, well, some women think that, but don’t worry. I know what a real man wants. I’ll take care of her.”
“She’ll love you like a best friend and then like a mother. Just you wait. Harper’s always been a good girl. She doesn’t make waves.”
They sounded so happy, like their lives hadn’t been touched by death.
She stared at the door across the hall. It led to the outside, to freedom, to being far away from here.
The normal Harper would walk into the room and pretend nothing had happened. Pretend that she wasn’t hurting as they laughed about her mother.
Her dead mother.
Her heartbroken mother.
Facing the both of them, she didn’t want to be the good girl anymore.
“I’m going out,” she said, stepping across the doorway and going straight toward freedom.
She sped up, not giving anyone time to call her name as she opened the door, closed it, and walked down the long driveway toward the exit.
On the visits she’d paid to their house, she often stayed in her room, out of the way. The only reason she ever went to visit him was because he forced her to.
He’d turned up, waiting outside her mother’s house, calling her mother names, saying she was turning his daughter against him. When he first started this, Harper had believed it was because he wanted to see her, and he’d not had a great lawyer to get custody of her. In the end, she saw it for what it was—he was being a bastard. He could have had custody, her mother told her. When she went home with him, he wasn’t interested in her; he just wanted to hurt her mother. It was another way to bind her mother to him. She could never move on, which was probably another reason her mother had decided to end it.
Her mother never tried to turn her against him.
Not once, from the arguing to the impending divorce, did her mother turn around to her and say, “Your father is a womanizing bastard who deserves to have his dick cut off.”
She acted like nothing had happened, like her husband moving on with another woman didn’t even bother her. All the time, it had.
Blood.
So much blood.
Pulling out of her memories, Harper found herself walking toward the abandoned park. It was abandoned because it normally had tape around it, red tape advising, not telling, people not to go inside.
How dangerous it was.
A kid had hurt himself on one of the rides, which was why it was so dangerous.
It was still light out, and as she stared at the red tape, the sign saying not to enter, she touched it.
“Always be a nice girl, Harper. No one wants a bad girl.”
Tears filled her eyes, and stepping past the red tape, she walked into the park.
Her heart raced.
To some this was just a little rebellion, but she needed this. To glide past the red tape to see what was beyond.
The swing that had snapped still lay on the ground. According to gossip in the town of Stonewall, the kid had screamed for an hour before the ambulance arrived.
Some women were so saddened by the sound. Others were pissed off that it polluted their nice ears. How dare a child scream?
Just past the park was a small wooded area. The woods, even now, was a place where teenagers made out and lost their virginity.
Having never had a boyfriend or anything, seeing the woodland called to her this time. Her rebellion was not even complete as she stepped across the park and went straight into the woods.
It was still light out.
No boy had ever looked at her, ever wanted her. Being a virgin had felt right to her.
Her mother would often say, when you meet the right boy, you’ll know. You’ll give yourself to him without a single care in the world.
Lies. All of it was lies.
When she heard voices and moaning, Harper didn’t stop. She didn’t turn around and pretend she hadn’t heard them. She kept on walking, only stopping as she saw them.
The four guys who went to her school.
They didn’t possess a name for their little group or gang. No one else was allowed to join, or at least, they were, but had to pass a series of tests to do so.
Others had given them a name: Fearless.
They didn’t give a fuck about breaking the law, about hurting people. They were a law unto themselves, and because Axel was one of the richest kids in town, they got left alone.
Draven and Axel were both from wealthy families. Their wealth came with a lot of rumors, a lot of assumptions that it came from the mafia or illegal means.
She didn’t know the truth.
Staying away from bad boys all of her life, she never looked toward them, never cared what they did or didn’t do. It didn’t matter to her.
Buck and Jett came from her area, the wrong side of town. They didn’t give a shit about conforming.
No one would speak out against the four of them, even the teachers if they saw what they’d done, right in front of them.
Staring at them now as they stood around someone, she wondered what it would be like to have no cares in the world, to not worry about what others thought.
Draven was the tallest and biggest of them all. Girls wanted him. Boys hated him but would bow down and respect him.
They walked the school halls and owned the place.
Fearless.
Watching them now as Axel kicked whoever was on the ground, she felt her heart pound. They were kicking someone. The person on the ground whimpered, begging for mercy. She should help them.
“Please, please, I won’t do it again. I won’t.”
Draven drove his foot between the guy’s legs, silencing him.
Again and again.
“You keep your filthy cock to yourself, do you hear? The next time you think to touch a girl without her permission, you better be ready for me coming for you.” Draven grabbed the guy’s head, lifted up a handful of dirt, and shoved it into the guy’s mouth. “You will be silent about what happened here. I hear a pervert like you doesn’t do well in prison.”
The guy whimpered.
“You going to be my bitch now?”
The man nodded.
“Good. There’s not going to be a next time, is there?”
Another shake.
A sinister, sick smile came across Draven’s face. He didn’t care that he was hurting the man. All he cared about was that he was on top.
She couldn’t look away.
Suddenly, as if he sensed her watching, he looked up. She stared into his green eyes, and couldn’t move. With his gaze on her, he grabbed the guy’s dick and started to twist it.
Stepping back, she couldn’t avert her gaze.
“This now belongs to me.”
The threat, the violence, all of it took her by surprise.
She took another step back and another.
Now all four guys were looking at her.
She didn’t run though. Turning on her heel, she left.
****
“We need to go and stop her?” Axel asked.
Draven stood at the edge of the woods, watching the rounded ass of Harper Miller as she left the park.
She didn’t run. With her head held high, she walked.
He waited to see which direction she’d go.
If she turned right, she would be heading to the police station. Not that it would do any good. The cops didn’t give a fuck about people like them. They only cared about the money their parents fed to them.
Kind of a sick world they lived in.
He was the one exacting justice from the school janitor who’d cornered one of the girls in school and started to touch her tits and forced her to put her hands on him. The girl was thirteen years old and shouldn’t be scared of the fucking janitor. Draven usually didn’t give a shit about what went down. It wasn’t his business. The janitor being a pervert wouldn’t have bothered him, but today, he’d wanted to hurt someone. The janitor being into young, scared girls was the perfect outlet, and now he had a guy he could use to hurt. He wouldn’t squeal to anyone because Draven knew his secret, and now he had someone to have fun with.
This town was full of darkness, and he relished every second of it.
The fear others felt toward him, he fed off it. No matter how mean he got, how evil, girls still wanted to suck his cock, and if he told them to suck his friends’ cocks first, they would.
He’d seen it happen, watched them all moan and showed him mouthfuls of cum from doing exactly as he requested.
He’d heard how proud they were of themselves for sucking all four of them off. As if they could join their little clique.
He smiled, thinking about it. How he’d be sitting in the cafeteria, his friends with him. All four of them ignoring everyone, and just eating. Some of the chicks had tried to join, and he’d tossed them on their ass.
No pussy or dick was with them. They were just the four of them. Friends for life. Each of them had each other’s back.
That’s what made them Fearless. None of them were afraid to step out. Because of their union, their loyalty, they didn’t need a name. They were just them. The four of them. No one else.
She turned left.
This did surprise him.
Little Harper Miller. The good girl in school. The girl he’d seen with the look of disgust on her face whenever she caught them shoving people into lockers.
“No. She’s going home.”
He knew what had happened to her, seeing her across the woods, hands by her side. She’d stared at him, and there hadn’t been disgust in her eyes. She’d looked … envious.
Was she envious of him?
Did she fancy him?
Did she want a gangbang with the four of them?
Nah, it had nothing to do with that. She was now living with her father. He knew what had happened in the past few weeks. They all knew. Her mother had killed herself. Slit her wrists, and Harper had been the one to find her.
“How much do you think the bitch saw?” Jett asked.
They all stood watching her. Jett was pissed he’d not been able to use h
is trusty knives.
Within the next second, she was out of sight.
“She saw enough.”
Why did he find her sudden interest appealing?
The town good girl, walking into the woods known to be the area where people fucked. It wasn’t even the kids either. He’d been in the woods many times and watched other men fuck their mistresses or whores.
Stonewall hid a great deal of bad shit, as he and Axel were aware.
Their fathers owned cities, but it was the towns that made hiding easier. They pushed through drugs and guns, used the women as whores, and paid the cops to look the other way as business went down.
He, himself, had been brought up on violence.
Getting hit by his father had taught him how to fight.
No son of Alan Barries was going to be a puff, gay, or a wimp. He demanded his son be strong, to fuck all the pussy he wanted, and to take. Nothing in this world came free unless you took it, unless you forced others to give you what you wanted.
He’d been taking his whole life. He was used to having what he wanted.
Axel, Buck, and Jett were the same. They didn’t allow anyone to talk down to them. They always commanded respect, always expected it, even of people they hadn’t earned it from.
Again, why was Harper in the woods, and why didn’t she scream like the good little girl, or demand that they leave the guy alone?
She was the nice one, the sensible one, the girl every teacher called upon in class.
He knew, because he’d seen her. Some guys would be after the blonde chick, the one that flashed her pussy, wore short skirts with no panties, but not him.
They were easy targets. If he wanted a bit of pussy, he would take them, get what he wanted, and dump them. They were cum dumps as far as he was concerned.
“We’ll send her a little message. She’ll know not to mess with us.”
“Who would mess with us?” Axel said, full of cockiness.
They all knew the answer to that, no one.
Even little miss goody two shoes wouldn’t be listened to. Their families spoke for themselves.
“What business did she have in the woods?” Jett asked.
“I don’t know.” It was the first time Draven had ever seen her in the woods, or anywhere near where they usually hung out.
Leaving the park, he followed in the path she’d gone. He wasn’t following her. Draven happened to live on the same road as her father.