Oh.
Shit.
“As in the Malloy’s Supplements Malloys?” I ask, as if there could be any other Malloys that would elicit such a reaction from Noah.
Eli nods. “And you just told Noah all the ways you want to fuck her.”
“All the ways I want to shag her. You Yanks have no sense of poetry.” I lift an eyebrow. “But you’re right. I’m an insensitive prick. I should’ve made the connection. Blame the distraction of Mackenzie’s glorious arse. I’ll apologize to him. Later. When he’s had a chance to cool off.”
“That’s good.” Eli’s looking out in the distance, and I know it’s not Noah that’s bothering him.
“What’s up with you? Did the Ice Queen freeze your dick, too?”
“If I tell you something, do you swear you’ll keep it to yourself?”
“Of course.”
Eli grabs the bottle and pours himself another Scotch. I notice his hand shake, but I assume that’s because the booze reminds him too much of his father. He leans back in the lounger and closes his eyes.
“We used to be friends.”
“You and Ice Queen?” Curious.
Eli nods. He drains his glass. “We’ve been in the same classes since I can remember. One day at school, some kid made fun of my accent. Mackenzie stole the class snake and hid it on his chair. When he sat down, it bit him on the ass. We were friends ever since. But her parents and my dad had this stupid rivalry. Some kind of business deal that went sour when Dad first came to the city. I brought her over for dinner one night, and you’d have thought I proposed marrying a streetlamp the way they reacted. Our parents forbid us from being friends, so we hung out in secret.”
“Noah doesn’t know?”
Eli shook his head. “We didn’t want to risk trusting anyone in case it got back to our parents, and then when it all happened with Noah’s brother and her family disappeared, I couldn’t tell him. You didn’t know him then, but he barely held it together.”
I grin. “Considering what a picture of mental fortitude he is now, I’ll take your word for it.”
“Anyway, I’ve been looking for her ever since she disappeared. I even hired a private detective last year, but he couldn’t tell me anything. I’d given up hope of ever seeing her again. But today, she walks into school and looks at me like I’m scum. I tried texting on her old number, and I can see she read my message, but she hasn’t replied. I can’t understand it. Mackenzie and her parents have been missing for four years – what has to happen to a person to turn her into a stranger?”
I want to say that people are turning into strangers in front of you, every single day, and you don’t notice until they’ve swallowed every pill in your stash and died in your arms in a rancid hotel bathroom. I want to say that sometimes you’re closer to random people on the public bus than you are to the people you profess to love. (Not that I’ve ever ridden a public bus. Like a commoner. No thanks.)
I want to swipe the bottle from Eli’s hand and toss the whole thing back, to feel the burn of whisky in my throat and the sweet oblivion that alcohol brings, the void of nothingness where I can live with myself until the hangover comes.
But that’s fucking morose, and Eli already looks like he’s fronting a 90s emo band, so I keep my mouth shut.
Eli stares at the sky. Notes dance around in my head – snatches of a song that might, in the hands of someone who hadn’t completely bollocksed up his life, become something sorrowful and beautiful. But the notes are snatched away like a firefly snuffed out, and I’m left with only the darkness in my own head.
9
Noah
Fuck you, Gabriel.
I bury my foot in the floor and yank the wheel, throwing the car around the corner at an irresponsible speed. The wind whips my hair across my face, and my chest squeezes tight. Red welts dance in front of my eyes, but I don’t lift my foot from the accelerator until I see our house up ahead.
The wind does nothing to ease the heat of my rage. My fingers grip the steering wheel so hard they’re numb. I wish I was numb.
I slide the Lambo into the garage beside Dad’s Aston Martin and click the button to lower the doors. A breeze blows in from outside, fluttering the edge of the white cover that hides my brother’s car. Dad gave him the keys to a Bugatti Veyron Vivere when he got his acceptance letter to Harvard – the dream car to go with Felix’s full-ride athletic scholarship.
Now, the Veyron sits in the shadows, hidden beneath a shroud. Not unlike my brother.
I fling off my books and gym bag. They hit the wall with a THUMP and drop into a messy pile on the tiles – out of place, out of order. Like me. I don’t stop to pick it up. Who cares? Some maid will be along to arrange my things in the neat little rows my father demands.
My shoes squeak on the tiles as I wander through the hallways, peering into the rooms, half-desperate to see another person, half-dreading what would happen when I do. The grandfather clock ticks in the foyer – the sound ricocheting like a gunshot through the silent rooms. When Felix was around, he made this house fun – we stood on either side of the grand staircase and tossed a football to each other and wrestled on the furniture until we broke expensive things and Mom yelled. But Felix’s easy smile would always get us off the hook in the end.
Without that smile, this house is a Pharaoh’s tomb – a shrine to a dead king. Everything and everyone inside made of shards of precious gems. Pretty to look at but broken, and liable to make you bleed.
I find my stepmother Grace in her drawing-room (she likes to call it that, says it makes her feel like the heroine in a gothic romance novel). She’s curled up in a puddle of mink blankets on the window seat, one of her romance novels clutched between her fingers. Around her, the buttercup yellow walls and pastel-pink furniture pulse in my vision. Today, even this cheery room has a sinister quality.
Grace reminds me so much of my mother, with her dark curls falling over her soft features in a curtain. It makes sense that she does, since she’s my mother’s younger sister. My dad married her only two years after Mom died. I might’ve been angry about that, like I’m angry about most things, but having Grace around is one of the only things that keeps me sane. Sometimes she smiles my mother’s smile at me, with the dimple in her left cheek, and the pain in my chest twists – a knife cutting deeper. I’d worry about it slicing out my heart, but I have no heart left.
I hover in the doorway, watching Grace read. I battle with the words I need to say. She senses my presence, looks up from her book. The smile that tugs at her dusk-pink lips is the only genuine thing in this house. “Noah, you’re home.”
I shrug off my backpack and slide in beside her, wrapping her into my arms. She’s so small, so fragile. It feels like she might shatter into pieces at any moment. In reality, Grace is the one holding things together – she pulls Dad’s rage and my darkness into herself, and gives back only light. But even her light gets lost in the void where my heart used to be.
Sometimes, I forget that Grace lost everything too.
“How was school?” she asks.
“Fine. Track trials are next Thursday. I’m going to work with Eli on my 400m every day after school.”
“You don’t have to make track, Noah.” She squeezes me extra hard. “You could go back to swimming—”
“No.” The word comes out harsh, final. I’ll never get back in the water again. Not after it took my mother.
“—or something different? As long as you have something on your college application. It doesn’t have to be track—”
“I enjoy track. Well, not the 400m,” I try to smile, but I’m pretty sure it comes out as a grimace. I haven’t smiled in so long I don’t think the muscles work any longer. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“It’s my job to worry about you. Tell me something happy.” She peers up at me with my mother’s eyes. “Are there any girls after you?”
Mackenzie’s face flickers in my mind. I stiffen.
I swallo
w. “Is Dad home?”
She nods. “I saw him head into the reception room.”
Of course. The grand sitting room where Dad receives foreign dignitaries and state officials, where he introduced Felix to all the important people who were going to help him succeed. Dad’s never far from that room now. Sometimes, when I sneak down to his study in the night to steal his alcohol, I see him sitting on the sofa in his boxers, staring up at the portrait, mourning his shattered dreams.
I know I have to tell him. I don’t want to; fuck, I’d rather stick my hand on a hot stove than tell him. But if I don’t, he’ll find out anyway, and then he’ll be pissed at me for not telling him.
I slink away from Grace. I can’t bear to feel her warmth with Mackenzie’s face in my head. “I need to talk to him.”
“Don’t upset him. It hasn’t been a good day.”
I stiffen, my hand on the door. It hasn’t been a good day. I know what that means.
I’m worse than useless. I can’t help Grace. I can’t save my father from himself. Grief takes many shapes – Grace’s grief follows her like a friendly ghost, touching her hands with kindness. Mine is a noose around my neck and a red mist that shrouds my vision before I throw a punch.
Dad’s grief has transformed him into a monster.
I drag my feet as I approach the reception room. My fingers curl around the doorframe. Dad stands beside the fire, a whisky glass in his fingers. He grips it so hard his knuckles are white. He doesn’t look up when I enter.
I stand behind the sofa, gripping the carved back so I don’t fall over under the weight of Felix’s presence. My brother’s portrait hangs over the fireplace – he’s practically life-sized, painted in photographic detail with a dramatic sky behind him. I can practically hear the crowd roaring as his results are announced – not only did that famous throw qualify him for the Olympic team, but he broke a national record.
The painter had every detail right – except for the eyes. Felix’s eyes were always warm, kind, shimmering with light, like dipping your feet into the emerald water at the beach on a hot summer’s day. But the Felix in the portrait has Dad’s eyes – cold, stormy, demanding.
“Dad.” The word catches in my throat. He makes no movement, no sign he registers I’m here.
I cough, swallow, try again. “Dad, Mackenzie Malloy is back at school.”
There. It’s out.
I can’t take it back now.
Dad’s shoulders stiffen.
He turns to me, but he can’t meet my gaze. He stares past me, doesn’t see me.
His coldness breaks something inside me. The red mist falls over my eyes. I need answers. “Did you know about this? Did you hear anything? What about her parents? She didn’t say—”
“Don’t go anywhere near her,” he rasps. The sound is a snake, coiling through the silent house, wrapping around my chest and squeezing the void until the sides collapse in.
“What?”
“You stay away from Mackenzie Malloy.”
For the first time in months, in years, he tilts that aristocratic chin of his to meet my eyes. Cold green orbs study me, his one remaining son, and I catch the glimmer of a secret burning away the edges, eating my father from within.
He turns away, but it’s too late. I’ve seen.
It’s not rage in burning at the edges of his eyes.
It’s not hatred that tenses every muscle in his body, that tears the glass from his fingers and hurls it into the fire.
It’s fear.
10
Mackenzie
Alec LeMarque wastes no time in exacting his revenge.
When I walk into Stonehurst Prep the next morning, all eyes turn toward me. Conversations stop. My footsteps echo along the hallway. It’s worse than yesterday – the stares, the whispers, the judgment.
I square my shoulders and toss my hair. I spent an hour in the bathroom with a YouTube makeup tutorial, and I know I look fierce. My skirt hugs my hips, the hem just high enough that anyone looking can catch a glimpse of the garters holding up my thigh-high socks. I’ve got my spike-heeled boots because to hell with Mrs. Foster’s write-up.
I am Alec LeMarque’s wet dream, and he can’t touch me.
I’m Mackenzie Malloy, and I’ve donned my armor, ready for battle.
I pretend their judgment means nothing. I pretend that I revel in their attention. I pretend I crave the eyeballs that crawl over my skin like ants seeking their next snack.
When I arrive at my locker, there’s a photograph tacked to the grating. It’s my face Photoshopped onto a porn star taking it in the ass from a fat guy in a bondage suit. I have to hand it to whoever created it – they did an impressive Photoshop job. As I tear the photograph down, snickers erupt along the hall.
Behind the photograph, someone scrawled ‘Mackenzie is a ghost slut’ in blood-red paint. I scratch the edge with my nail. Yeah, that’s not coming off.
Fine. Whatever. If this is the worst they’ve got, I’ll be their ghost slut. They think this is going to chink my armor. They have no fucking idea what I’ve seen, what I’ve done.
All I need to do is graduate. I’m here for that high school diploma and nothing else. I can get it with graffiti on my locker.
I can do that with Alec LeMarque’s dagger in my back.
I touch my fingers to my chest, over where my locket hangs beneath my shirt.
I’m Mackenzie Malloy, the richest, most badass bitch of you all, and I can do anything.
I toss the photograph in the trash and open my locker. The hinges squeak, and the sniggers grow louder. I turn my back to the corridor. I’m not afraid of who’s lurking behind me. I’ve already met the people who hunt in the shadows, and they’re on my side of this war.
As I pick up my books for first and second period, my fingers brush the knife Antony gave me. I leave it where it is, tucked behind my makeup case. I don’t need it.
Yet.
“Mackenzie.” My name sounds like the dull thud of a bullet striking flesh. I brace myself for trouble as I turn my head just enough to see who calls me.
Elias. He’s pushing his way through the students, shoving aside heiresses and child actors like they’re trash (which they are). His handsome face is tight with concern, that stone jaw clenched, that too-pretty mouth turned down.
A dark twisted part of me – the part that isn’t head bitch Mackenzie Malloy, but a lonely girl who’s lived in a silent house for too long – aches to run to Eli, to have those muscled arms wrap around me and hold me close, to feel those pretty lips brush mine, to know what it feels like to be safe. That’s what Eli looks like to me – someone steady and sure. And it’s not just because of that faint familiarity of him – Eli seems like a person who always has to fix things, to avenge wrongs, to put the world back in order again.
But that safety would be a lie.
The only way to be truly safe is to keep guys like Eli away from me.
I slam my locker shut, ignoring Eli’s shouts. I stalk down the hall, following the snickers toward the grand staircase. I turn to follow the stream of students ascending, and that’s when I see him – Alec LeMarque leans against his locker on the end of the row, surrounded by guys who look like Beverly Hills 90210 castoffs. He catches my eye, and a dark smile twists across his face, creasing the edge of the dressing covering his nose.
I toss my hair. I want him to know how little I’ve thought about what I did to him.
My heel lands on the first step. Alec strides toward me. I move faster, but not fast enough. He throws his arm out, cutting me off. His fingers curl around my wrist – his skin cold and slimy. It feels like he’s crawling over me, inside me. That touch stirs a memory – the glint of a knife in the shadows, dark blood splattered across my reflection, splinters digging under my nails.
Blood rushes to my head, pounding against my temples. Alec leans close, his breath hot on my face. I straddle two worlds – the memory of screaming into the dark, the need to be strong in the light – a
nd when I glare back at Alec, I’m not sure if I’m seeing him, or another, more dangerous enemy.
“You broke my nose, bitch.” If he’s trying to sound tough, he fails. His voice is comically nasal from the damage I did.
“Is it bitch or slut? If you’re going to be so unoriginal with your insults, at least make up your mind.” I keep my eyes fixed on his. “And you broke your own nose. Don’t touch a woman without her permission.”
I stare down at his fingers, still curled around my wrist. I itch to break them all. It will only take a moment, and Alec would be on the ground in front of all his friends, howling in pain. But then I’d be back in the principal’s office, and I am not going to get kicked out of Stonehurst Prep on my second day because of Alec LeMarque.
So I remain still, neutral, ready to strike if Alec decides to make a monumental mistake. I can see the indecision in his eyes – the desire to make me pay versus the social capital he’d lose if he hits me in front of a crowd of spectators. He doesn’t know what to make of this girl who should desire him, who should fall over backward to give him whatever he wants.
“I don’t need permission,” he hisses. “I own this school. I’ll make your life a living hell, and don’t you forget it.”
The urge to laugh bubbles up inside me, but I stamp it down. This pampered ass playing at the bad boy wouldn’t know hell if it stole his fancy car. I know hell. After what I’ve been through, I’m pretty certain I could run the place. But laughing in Alec’s face right now will only bring down trouble, and I’ve had enough of that to last two lifetimes.
“Let go of her.”
Alec stiffens. I don’t have to turn around to know who spoke those words.
Eli.
I don’t drop my gaze from Alec, but I watch Eli out of the corner of my eye as he stands beside me, broad shoulders casual, that half-smile tugging at his mouth like this is no big deal to him. His arm brushes mine, and it’s all I can do not to fling myself at him; that’s how safe he feels.
My Stolen Life: a high school bully romance (Stonehurst Prep Book 1) Page 5