Tormented: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Elginvale High Book 1) Read online

  I look towards the door and finally see Liam coming out. He’s talking to another guy, but still smiles at me and I can’t help smiling back, my cheeks flushing slightly. The pair are about to make their way past the group of boys — who are still staring at me — when one of them bends down and spits right in Liam’s path.

  What the hell?

  Liam doesn’t retaliate. He just keeps walking towards me while they all look in our general direction.

  “Hey,” I call as he approaches, trying to pretend as if that didn’t just happen.

  “Hey babe.” BABE? “This is Brad. Brad, meet Lacey,” Liam introduces us, and I stick my hand out towards Brad before catching myself and quickly letting it fall again.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say to Brad.

  “Got yourself a little girlfriend, McGuinness?” a boy in the group shouts over.

  “Fuck yourself, Calvin!” Liam flips him over his shoulder with a sigh and an eye-roll.

  The group snigger, and my eyes are drawn to the tallest one who is staring straight at me, his face deadly serious.

  “Pay them no attention, Lace. You ready?” Liam asks.

  “Yeah!” I turn around, away from the boys. “Thanks again for the lift.”

  “Not a problem, my cars this way.”

  Liam says his goodbyes to Brad, and we head over to the car park. I can’t help noticing the group of boys are still staring at me as I get into his bright red BMW X5.

  “What’s their problem?” I ask Liam once we buckle ourselves in.

  I watch him tense and swallow, clearing his throat before he answers, “Don’t concern yourself with those guys, honestly.”

  I nod; it was obviously a touchy subject for him. I decide maybe a change of subject will be better.

  “So this party, I asked Stevie if she would come with me… I hope that’s ok?”

  “Of course. I mean… I had hoped you’d be coming with me,” he says, flashing me a smile, “but I can meet you there, it’s no big deal.”

  “Great. I just feel like I need… well a friend. For like, girl talk and stuff,” I say through a smile.

  He chuckles. “God, you’re cute as hell.”

  I run my fingers through the ends of my hair, feeling my cheeks redden. It’s a nerves thing. Like I can’t sit still. Pull yourself together, Lace. I try to think of something to say, anything to take my mind off what he’s just said to me and calm my flushed cheeks.

  “Will Brad be there?”

  “Yeah, he’s coming. He can babysit Stevie!”

  I giggle, and he turns to watch me, his lips coming up at the side.

  “Eyes on the road, Liam,” I tease.

  Liam shrugs. “It’s difficult, I admit.”

  God, he is smooth. And I love it. Stuff like this just doesn’t happen to me. The journey home isn’t long, but by the time I get out, my armpits are warm — so warm — and there’s butterflies fighting in my stomach. I say another quick thanks, and he offers to meet me here in the morning, which I gladly accept. I hate getting the bus. I need a car of my own ASAP.

  Chapter 2

  Shaun

  I knock three times and wait outside the door for him to call me in. A few moments pass, and I shift nervously from foot to foot. I hate this. No matter how old I get, the man still makes me feel as if I’m five years old again.

  “Shaun,” he shouts from behind the door. I turn the handle and push it open, stepping inside and waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. Cigarette smoke fills the air, turning the warm glow from the lamp at the back of the room hazy.

  “You wanted to see me, Sir?” I stand there like a spare prick while he watches me. Calvin’s father, Frank, sits in a leather chair opposite him — he doesn’t look at me but I could pick out that bald head in a lineup. A woman sits on my dad's knee, and that woman isn’t my mother. I look her up and down and can’t help sniffing in disgust as I realize she’s likely not a day older than I am.

  “Aye,” he says, sliding a photo across his desk and sitting back in his chair to watch my reaction. I take a step forward and pick up the photo, feeling all three pairs of eyes on me. It’s a girl — a wee blondie. Likely a holiday shot from the sunglasses and bikini she’s wearing. She’s smiling and her blonde hair is blowing across her face slightly. I place the photo back down on his desk and take a step back.

  “You know the girl?” Frank asks.

  “Lacey Tyler,” I state. I don’t know her, though I know who she is.

  My dad puts a cigarette between his lips and the whore flicks open his Armor and lights it for him. My ma gave him that lighter for his Christmas, and I want to singe his fucking eyebrows off with it.

  “What do you know about her?” He asks, exhaling his smoke right in the lassie’s face.

  I shrug. “Should I know something about her?”

  “Answer the fucking question, Shaun.” His tone changes and he sits forward in his chair slightly. The girl averts her eyes when I stare at her.

  “She started at my school today. Only saw her the once; she was getting into Liam’s car,” I tell him, wondering where he is going with this.

  “Should have known the little shit would be all over her,” Frank says to my dad.

  My dad nods and takes a long draw of his cigarette while the whore fiddles with his collar. He looks at me and says, “Her father works with McGuiness.”

  “All right,” I say. I’m trying my hardest not to give him attitude, but I detest when he does this. It’s like a game he plays where he feeds me snippets of information and watches how long I take to connect the dots.

  “Her father is Laurence Tyler,” he continues. I’m tempted to pull my phone out and see if Google can give me a clue here, but that would be cheating.

  “He’s some ridiculously shit-hot industry expert?” I guess. My dad smiles, though it’s not a warm one.

  “You’re on the right track, son. He’s one of the best. And he will interfere with our plans for McGuiness.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you, though? See I’m not getting a warm, fuzzy feeling from you,” my dad smirks.

  “You want him gone?” I guess.

  He nods, flicking his ash into the glass on his desk.

  “You want me to scare the girl away?”

  “I want you to make her life hell,” he states.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Use your fucking imagination, for once.” He spits the words at me like venom and I swallow. Sensing this is all the information he’s going to give me, I spin on my heels to leave. I’ve had enough of his shit for one day. I’m almost at the door when he calls me. “Oh, and Shaun,” I pause and half look over my shoulder in his general direction to signal that I’m listening. “Tell your ma I’m working late tonight.”

  “Aye, Dad.”

  I leave his office and make my way out of the warehouse and into the night. My car bleeps and lights up the street with its white LEDs, and I’m already texting Calvin before I’ve even switched the ignition on.

  “I need you to find out what Lacey Tyler is doing this weekend.”

  I pull out of the street and head for Bankston. I heard Lacey had moved into a house there, and since it’s only a street long, I figure it’s worth a shot. My phone vibrates against the leather passenger seat and I pick it up, half reading his reply and half changing gears.

  “Liam’s new Mrs?” he replies. Gold star for Calvin.

  “That’s the one.” I type back.

  “Heard Liam’s going to that party at Kelly Glover’s house.”

  Interesting. We don’t normally do parties… well not the type Kelly fucking Glover would throw, anyway.

  I get bored waiting for the lights to turn amber and risk it. There is barely a soul on the road at this time of night, and even if there was, Tony’s dad is the chief of police.

  “Get us an invitation,” I state.

  “Mate, Kelly hates my guts…”

  I sigh, fighting b
ack the urge to type “use your fucking imagination.”

  I use my own imagination for a minute instead.

  “Sure Doeboy had a thing with her last year. Get him to sort it.”

  “Will do, mate.”

  I lock my phone and flick it back on to the passenger seat, slowing the car down as I enter the street. There is more money in this single street than there is in some whole towns nearby. We’re in Oil and Gas County now. The flashiness of it sets my teeth on edge. They all have garages, but they like to sit their cars on the driveway, regardless.

  My dad is an oilman too, but not this type.

  I follow the bend in the road and to my left I clock a Discovery with the registration TYL3R1. Fucking bingo. The cunts all have them. Never been one for a personalized reg myself — seems tacky. But old Mr Tyler obviously favors them. Not wanting to draw attention to myself, I don’t stop the car. I do, however, take a mental note of the door number. Might come in useful, depending on where this task takes me.

  On the drive back to my house, I wonder how this girl will react to being the focus of my attention. Most girls in our school avoid my attention, knowing the trouble it might bring to their door if things went wrong between us. The only ones who don’t are those already involved in the trouble, the ones who fucking revel in it. Lacey falls into neither of these categories; she has no prior knowledge of anything and nothing to fear.

  Yet.

  I hope she’s smart, for her own sake, and gets the fuck out of this town before it comes to that.

  Chapter 3

  Lacey

  “You cannot be serious,” Stevie says, her face turning up in a mock look of disgust.

  “I think it looks fine?” I turn around in her mirror and flick my leg up at the back, checking how my bum looks.

  “You look like a fucking meringue,” she rolls her eyes, sipping on her glass of wine from her place on the beanbag.

  “It’s Dior!” I argue. I warned her I had nothing to wear. She promised she had things I could try, but it had felt a bit entitled to show up empty-handed. The Dior dress from a cocktail night last year was the best I could come up with.

  “Exactly! You’re going to a house party, not a runway in Milan. And it’s doing your tits no favors at all,” she says as she looks straight at them.

  I look down. She’s probably correct.

  “Do you have any suggestions?”

  She hauls herself up from the floor, her hand stuck up high so as not to spill a drop from her glass. “Here, hold this.” She pushes the wine at me and wanders over to her wardrobe. She’s still in sweatpants and a crop top herself, her dark hair piled high on her head. I glance at the clock on her dresser, a pang on nerves running through me. I really don’t want to be late for Liam.

  “What about this one?” she says, holding the garment up.

  “Absolutely no way!” I don’t even have to look twice at it. It’s bright-fucking-pink for a start.

  “The color? The cut? Give me something to work with, Lace,” she says, holding it up against her body.

  I take that second look before I reply. “Both.”

  Stevie shrugs and places it back in the wardrobe, rummaging around looking for the next one.

  “Aha! This one?” She turns around with a smirk on her face and my eyes wander over the dress. It's a nice dress. Black, with a hundred tiny beads and sequins embroidered on the body in a kind of foliage design. The straps are tiny. I prefer a covered shoulder, but it’s not a dealbreaker. It just looks… really grown up.

  “It’s lovely, but…”

  “But?” she says, raising her eyebrows.

  “But I’m not sure if Liam will like it?”

  “Fuck Liam! You’re going to look so smoking hot in this dress that slimy Liam will be bottom of your to-bang list!”

  Her foul mouth makes me giggle.

  “I’ll try it on?” I suggest.

  “That a girl! Don’t look in the mirror until I’ve done your make-up though. We need to pull the whole look together. I’m thinking super sultry dark smokey eye and a nude lip, extra liner.”

  She hands me the dress and retrieves her glass of wine, taking more than a sip. I decided earlier to go easy on the drink tonight. I’m not a big drinker, having never had more than a couple of glasses at one of my father’s work events before. I’ve seen drunk people though, enough of them to know how easily you can make a fool of yourself.

  I don’t want to make a fool of myself in front of Liam.

  I slide out of the Dior dress, folding it carefully and laying it on Stevie’s bed.

  “Do you have shoes that’ll go with this?” I check.

  “What size do you wear?”

  “A four,” I tell her as I pull up the zip on the black dress. It’s snug at the boobs and more than a little short for my tastes, but it seems to fit okay. She darts back to the wardrobe and holds out a pair of high black strappy heels. When she clocks sight of me she does her best version of a wolf whistle and I can’t help giggle at her.

  “Can I look please?” I ask her.

  “Not yet! I promise, it’ll be worth it.”

  She does my makeup and makes me flip my hair upside-down while she sprays it with hairspray that smells overwhelmingly like strawberries. By the time she’s finished, I feel like my hair is the size of a house and my face is inches thicker than it should be. A whole hour passes before she finally lets me see the result of her efforts.

  “I don’t even look like me?” I tell her as I look over my reflection in the mirror.

  “I know, right? You look fucking insanely good.”

  “Gee, thanks!” I say sarcastically.

  “Oh… I don’t mean it like that. I mean, of course you’re always pretty!” I see the flustered look on her face and smile at her, putting her out of her misery.

  “I look… old,” I tell her.

  She shrugs. “So? High School boys are so overrated anyway. If the party is shit we can head into town. It’s not great for choice but there is a couple of decent places. We’ll find you a nice twenty-something,” she tells me, matter-of-factly.

  I laugh off her comment about finding myself an older man. It’s not as if I’m desperate to find a man. I mean, I’m not specifically looking. I just thought Liam was quite nice. And he seems to be interested in me, too.

  “You look great too, by the way,” I tell her, looking at her reflection in the mirror. The tan she applied when I arrived has developed into a warm golden color which sets off the rose pink bandeau dress, and she’s given herself the best Chelsea blow-dry I’ve ever seen.

  “Thanks,” she replies. “Okay, one more glass for courage and then we can go.”

  “I think you’ve hand enough for courage, don’t you?” I say, my tone light.

  “Not yet. I want to be tipsy when we get there.” She wiggles over to her bedside table and fills up her glass before pouring some more into the empty glass that would have been mine. “You should have one. You’ve been on edge all night.”

  I shake my head and sit down on her bed. “I don’t want to be all ditzy when I see Liam.”

  She screws her face up. “Liam, Liam, Liam. You’re like a broken record. And anyway, guys love all that ditzy shit. Just don’t have too many. Keep your wits about you.”

  “Says the girl who’s on her fourth?” I tease, taking the glass from her and trying a sip. I wrinkle my nose. It’s not pleasant.

  “I can handle my drink, thank you very much,” she says through a giggle while she fiddles with her iPod dock. A few moments later, and Sigala is blasting through the speakers. I take another sip of wine and this one goes down slightly easier than the first one.

  “Do you have the number for a taxi?” I shout above the music.

  Stevie nods and gestures for me to pass the phone over to her. She punches in the number and hits call before handing it back, and I scramble to turn the speakers down so they can actually hear me. When I’m finished, I see a notification pop up at
the top of the screen from Liam.

  “Where are you, babe? X”

  There’s that babe again. My heart does this weird flutter thing and I take another sip.

  “Just ordered a taxi. X” I hit send and stare at the screen until I see two blue ticks appear.

  “Great. I’ll see ya soon.” Wink. I can’t help smiling down at the phone and quickly stop myself when I realize Stevie is watching me.

  It’s not long before the taxi arrives and the pair of us finish our glasses and do a final check in the mirror.

  “Where ya’s off tae the night then, girls?” the driver asks as we pull away. His accent is thick and unmistakably Scottish. They can’t seem to be able to say the word “girls” properly. I decide to let Stevie answer on our behalf and the pair of them chat away using words I barely understand. I smile and giggle politely at all the right intervals, but my head is a million miles away.

  Six months ago, I never would have believed I’d be sitting in a cab, with an actual friend, on our way to meet a hot popular guy at a party. Never mind the fact that this hot popular guy is calling me babe.

  ❖

  We arrive at the party, and it’s clear that Liam’s idea of “nothing too crazy” differs completely from mine. We can hardly get through the door before we get hit with a sea of people in the hallway. I turn back around and look at Stevie for guidance, but she just nods her head towards the end of the hall and ushers me through the crowd.

  I make it to the kitchen and there is finally some room to breathe, even though each breath feels like I’m swallowing vibrations as the bass thuds in my chest. I scan the room, hoping to catch Liam but I can’t pick him out, and there are already girls swarming over to us and saying sickeningly sweet hellos to Stevie. They’re hugging us and telling us we must do this more often.

  “I thought you kept away from the groups in school?” I mouth to her over the music when the girls disperse.