Beaten: A High School Bully Romance (Athole Academy Book 2) Read online

  beaten

  Book 2 in the

  Athole Academy Series

  by Vi Lily

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental, except in the mention of public figures such as celebrities, bands, authors, et al.

  © 2019 Vi Lily, Library of Congress Registry Pending.

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away, as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise — without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, at “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  HEA Publishers

  PO Box 591

  Douglas, AZ 85608-0591

  [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  ME

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  HE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  ME AGAIN

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  HE AGAIN

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  ME TOO

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  HE TOO

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  WE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  ME

  Chapter 1

  K ARMA, THY NAME IS BITCH.

  I’m sure it wasn’t supposed to be in my destiny to be the girl who smelled bad, looked dirty, dressed funny. The girl who avoided everyone, who hid in the back of class, away from the looks of utter disgust, the snickers of disdain behind perfectly manicured hands, the scrunched-up noses and overdone gasps of breath.

  I’m a social pariah.

  In a long-ago life, one almost forgotten except for in the dark night when I cry myself to sleep, I was the popular girl. The girl who everyone wanted to be friends with, even though I now know most of those “friendships” were totally fake and superficial.

  My family was among the super rich. I was considered beautiful and funny and smart. I was the girl who most envied, some hated, but the girl everyone wanted to be. I was that girl, the one everyone loved.

  And when everything fell apart, I became the girl everyone loved to hate.

  I suppose it’s a bit of justice that’s come into my life to bite me on my formerly designer-clothed butt. Ashamed to admit there were times in my long-gone privileged past when I had been one of those who snickered behind her hand at some unfortunate soul.

  Karma, thy name is bitch.

  My unwanted life, the one that’s been dropped on me like a crop duster unloading a belly full of cow manure, is built on avoidance. I avoid the other kids in my school, the ones who are quick to make sounds of repulsion whenever I pass by. I avoid the teachers, who aren’t much better than the kids at the snobby academy I attend. I avoid talking. I avoid participating. I avoid my brother.

  But mostly, I avoid Alex.

  Alex Johansen, the biggest jerk in Athole Academy. Alex is a mountain of a man — and I say man, because there really isn’t any way to call someone his size a “boy,” regardless of his age.

  He also has a crappy attitude that matches his size.

  Alex hates everyone and everything and reminds me of the mangy dog in town, the dog who is chained to a tire he drags around like a giant scarlet “O”, for “Obnoxious.” The dog who snaps and snarls at the chain-link fence whenever I pass, trying to take a chunk out of my flesh for daring to get too close to the kingdom he guards. The kingdom of broken furniture and discarded car parts.

  Honestly, Alex is probably worse than that dog.

  He’s never even looked my way, thankfully. But the day he does, I’m pretty sure he’ll pound me into the pretentious European tile that lines the floors at Athole.

  It sucks, realizing a guy his size would use his strength on those smaller, weaker. I probably would have argued against that myself, if I hadn’t seen him grab Beth Hanson in the dining room and pull his fist back, ready to shatter her face all because someone tripped the poor girl and she’d splashed her food on Alex.

  Beth had been saved by Ben Penn that day, thank God.

  After that, I’ve really gone out of my way to avoid the blond giant, afraid he’ll one day notice me and destroy me just for existing, and for daring to breathe the same air as he.

  It isn’t hard to avoid him, because he’s so easy to spot. He’s as big as Ben, the academy’s Samoan soccer star, maybe even bigger. But Ben is nice, sweet even. Alex is… not. He prowls the halls like an invading Viking marauder, looking for the next abbey he can torch, the next victim he can torment.

  To be fair, I’ve never seen Alex actually pick on anyone. In all honesty, he seems to avoid others almost as avidly as I do. But God help anyone who has the nerve to cross him in any way. Then, I’m sure the pin would be pulled on an extremely lethal and large grenade.

  Athole Academy doesn’t have a football team. Our town is all about soccer. If we did have a football team, though, I’m pretty sure Alex could be relied on to be the entire defensive line.

  He is the Academy’s heavyweight wrestler though, and we’re favored to take State this year mostly thanks to Alex. I think the other wrestlers stepped up their “game” just to keep from dragging the rest of the team down and pissing Alex off.

  No one wants that.

  There have been stories going around, rumors. Tales of Alex moving to our town of Bearing because he’d been kicked out of a boarding school in the UK after almost killing a teacher. And it had been like the fourth school that had happened at.

  Who knows, though. I don’t put much stock in the stories. Rumors are like the plague; they destroy lives and are spread by rats.

  Thankfully, I only have a few more months of avoiding everyone at school before I get a break. Then school will be out, my junior year will be under my belt, and I’ll be able to hopefully work fulltime for the summer. Lord knows I need the money.

  It’s funny in a pathetic, sob story kinda way, that I’m attending one of the most exclusive schools in the country — and the school with the country’s highest tuition. And no, I’m not here on a scholarship. Athole is too freaking snobby to offer scholarships; they wouldn’t want their million-dollar tile being smudged by dirty less-thans.

  What’s seriously funny is that I’m the chief of the less-thans, smudging the tile with my dirty, too-small shoes. I’m also soiling the upholstery on the fancy student desk chairs with my two-sizes-too-small school uniform that’s always just this side of filthy. And my barely-washed body stinks up the place where the beautiful people pretend people like me don’t exist.

  I have the “privilege” of going to the most
exclusive high school in the country because four years’ of tuition was paid in full at the beginning of my freshman year by my super rich parents. So, even if the administration and student population wished I didn’t get my dirty cooties all over the Academy, there isn’t a damn thing they can do about it. They’re stuck with me.

  During winter break of my freshman year over two years ago, my parents disappeared. The Academy doesn’t know that, though. The town of Bearing doesn’t know that. The state doesn’t know. No one except my brother, Devon, and I know.

  Mom and Dad went on vacation to some island I’ve never heard of and just never came back. Their cells went straight to voicemail and eventually the numbers became someone else’s. Devon and I had no information about a hotel, airlines, or anything at all to track them.

  Dad was a trust fund kid and never worked a day in his life. Mom had made millions as an independent investment broker, before retiring at the ripe old age of thirty-five. Neither had employers, employees or family. Other than Devon and me, there was no one to look for them.

  We didn’t put a lot of effort into searching, honestly. At first, we tried, but then Devon decided that the search was just going to get the authorities involved and neither one of us wanted to end up as rich foster kids.

  “We’re better than that, after all,” Devon reminded me with all the snobbery he’d been born into poured all over every syllable like sticky caramel.

  It wasn’t hard to keep up appearances, not at first anyway. Mom and Dad weren’t well-liked — even the rich drew the line at my parents’ level of snobbery — so they didn’t have any friends we’d have to answer questions for. The mansion we lived in had been paid for in full, just like our education at Athole. We had our parents’ cars, also paid for. Thanks to my father sucking at hiding things — like the combination to the safe — we even had access to their money. The safe contained cash, credit cards, bank cards and the passwords to everything.

  Devon and I lived high on the hog with no supervision for a good seven months. But about a year and a half ago, things changed. Devon, recently graduated from high school, got hooked on drugs. Cocaine, I think. The rich’s drug of choice.

  He became moody, broody. I started going out of my way to avoid him. He was too aggressive, too temperamental… and bruises are hard to hide.

  My brother became the favorite friend of every drugged-out creep for a hundred miles. He was the life of the party. Hell, he was the party. Our mansion was always filled to brimming with people I would have crossed the street to avoid.

  Devon liked showing off too. He bought plane tickets for him and twenty of his closest “friends” to go to Amsterdam on vacation, where they must have lived like doped-up kings for over a month, because while they were gone the electricity to the mansion was shut off when there was no money left in the account to pay the bill. Then the gas went. Then the water.

  When Devon finally came dragging back home, looking like a strung-out hippie from the sixties, I hadn’t had any food for three days. That was when Devon started dealing as well as using.

  That was when I started seriously fearing for my life.

  Chapter 2

  I T’S FRIDAY. A few weeks after the first day of spring. Which is kind of laughable, considering we have six inches of snow on the ground and the forecast is calling for another twelve or more over the next three days.

  The kids at the Academy are all hyper, excited. Talking about where the parties are, who’s hooking up with who. There is so much talk like that, it makes me wonder if there are any parents at home on the weekends. But then, rich parents are frequently absent from their kids’ lives. I know mine were. Probably why I’ve never missed them.

  Can’t miss something you never had.

  As I walk toward the parking lot, I laugh to myself when I hear some kids complaining because Ms. Rey, the science teacher, has scheduled a field trip for tomorrow. It’s a Saturday, which really sucks for the kids. A field trip on a weekend is a major teacher faux pas.

  I stop when I overhear that bitch, Raine, talking to Aleen Seals. She’s giving Aleen the riot act about something. I move to a wall and lean against it, unnoticed by most, as usual. I’m not really close enough to hear everything they’re saying since we’re in the Commons Area and there are too many kids and noise around.

  But I catch enough that it makes me worry.

  “You better not say anything, or you’re going to regret it,” Raine hisses. Yeah, hisses, just like the snake she is.

  Aleen murmurs something about it being wrong, and something about Beth. I frown and try to move closer. No one really notices me — the smelly, dirty invisible girl — so I can usually eavesdrop unnoticed. I do this for no reason in particular, other than it amuses me to hear the stupid things rich people talk about… and worry over.

  It sickens me that I used to be one of them.

  “I don’t care!” Raine says, her voice carrying much farther than Aleen’s. “You’ll do it, or you can forget ever having a chance at popularity, because I’ll make damn sure you always have to sit next to that nasty skank Ariel!”

  I reel back at hearing my name coming from Raine’s lips. I honestly didn’t think she knew my name and wonder if she was talking about someone else. Of course, there aren’t any other “Ariels” in the Academy that I know of.

  And the “nasty skank” part fits me to a tee.

  Aleen apparently agrees to whatever evil plan Raine has come up with, which disappoints me more than it should. I shouldn’t expect more from her, but after she stuck by Beth when that horrible video was sent out showing Beth and Coach Penn having sex, I thought she was better than the others. Everyone else in the Academy — present company excluded — turned on Beth like she was solely responsible for Coach getting fired.

  Like the dude had tripped and accidentally fell into her body. Or Beth, a teenager half his size, had managed to rape him. People are dumb. But the whole damn town had freaking ostracized the girl. It was like watching some movie about the Victorian era.

  The girls leave and I frown. Whatever they’re planning, it involves Beth. Since I don’t have a phone, I have no way to contact her, even though she gave me her number at the beginning of the semester, when she’d first transferred to Athole.

  She’s sweet. Of course, her family is new money, so they haven’t learned how to be douches yet. Except for her brother. He’s almost as bad as Alex, but only toward Beth. Honestly, it really sucks when a brother is so damn mean to his sister.

  I can most definitely empathize.

  I’ve wasted enough time that the parking lot is mostly empty when I get there. Of course, the parking lot is rarely full, since most of the rich kids have limos that deliver them to and from school. I remember those days. You never know what you had until it’s gone.

  But I like driving myself to school, even though I have to park my mom’s old Navigator far away from the other cars, which on cold days like today, sucks. I’d like to park it behind the school if I could get away with it, but I tried that once and got told off by security. In the student parking lot the Navigator has been scratched — I’m sure with keys — and someone even carved the word “skeezer” in the driver’s door.

  The Navigator is “old” by Athole standards but in reality, it’s only five years old. But now that it’s been vandalized, it looks a lot older. Thankfully, the blue color happens to match a nail polish color, so I was able to lightly sand the insult and color it back in. You can only read the word in certain light now.

  I’m shivering by the time I get into the SUV. Unfortunately, the heater doesn’t work. The air conditioner quit working last summer, and I guess whatever is wrong with it affects the heater too. Still, I’m thankful to have a vehicle to get to school, since there aren’t buses to the Academy.

  Affording gas for the big SUV can be tricky sometimes though.

  The only reason Devon hasn’t sold the Navigator along with almost everything else we used to have is because
he knows I have to get to school somehow. If I quit going, someone will come looking. Not like anyone at the Academy cares, but there is a truancy law and I’m not eighteen yet, not for another five months anyway.

  And then I’m not sure what I’m going to do, since there won’t be any legal threat protecting me any longer.

  I used to have a lot of dreams. At one time, I wanted to be a dancer. Not ballet — I’m too short to have the long limbs required to look graceful. Back when my parents were still around and we had money to burn, I took every dance class I could. I’ve been trained in everything from ballroom to capoeira. And I was good.

  My favorite though, is street and house dance; you know, like the stuff you see the good dances in clubs doing. My mom used to say it was “gauche” and refused to let me “shake my body like poor people.” Little did she know, I’ve won competitions doing just that.

  Not any more though. I haven’t danced in nearly two years, after the money ran out for such luxuries as dance classes. All the money went up Devon’s nose.

  I doubt that my brother was able to spend millions on his habit, though, not even when he was buying for all his so-called friends. Devon claims that Mom and Dad didn’t have as much money as we thought. He has a theory that they owed more than they had and were “offed” by the mob or something stupid like that. Makes no sense to me; why would you kill someone who owes you money? If you did, then you had no chance of ever getting it back, right?

  I make my way down the winding road that leads from the top of the mountain where the Academy sits to the town of Bearing. Thankfully, the town keeps the road to the school sanded during winter months, which is good, since I don’t actually have my license and wouldn’t want to get into an accident.

  Especially since I don’t have insurance.

  While I hate driving without either one, I have no choice. Again, I have to get to school. And again, there’s no money for such things. I know how to drive, though, thanks to Rutger, the only one of Devon’s friends that I’ve liked. He taught me how to drive on back roads when I was fifteen, not long after the disappearance. Rutger must have known something then about Devon, because he said something I’ll never forget.