Sins: A Dark High School Bully Romance Read online

  I stood in the downstairs living room, before a wall of pictures. I spotted a few with Astrid in a wedding dress, some of her and her new husband. I didn’t miss the pictures of Daddy. If I never saw Daddy’s face again, I’d be more than okay with it. Sometimes being Daddy’s little girl meant awful things.

  It wasn’t the pictures of my mother and her new husband that drew my gaze, though. It was the pictures of my stepbrother.

  A stepbrother. I had a stepbrother—the words still didn’t sound right when I thought them. Ever since being born, I’d been an only child, the sole focus of my parents. How did having a sibling change a family’s dynamics? I guess I shouldn’t wonder too much, because after the last five years, the dynamics of my family were bound to change anyway.

  Zane. What kind of a name was that? It sounded like something out of a book, some villainous character who you shouldn’t trust. It was a strange name to encounter, but I actually liked it. Besides, trusting was never my issue. My issue had always been and will always be the thing inside of me, tucked away so deeply that no one knew it was there. The thing that was wrong with me.

  And there was something wrong with me, there had to be.

  Zane came into the living room, holding onto a glass of ice water. He’d asked if I was thirsty, so I told him the truth. I was always thirsty; my thirst was never sated, never satisfied. Dimples lined his cheeks, and as he moved to my side to offer me the glass, I couldn’t help but be struck by his looks.

  I might’ve thought the cop was cute, but Zane was on a whole different level. Zane put the sex in sexy. He was the pinnacle of manliness, a few years older than me. No young chub, no immature lines on his face. Everything about him screamed sex on two legs.

  Some people might claim those thoughts were inappropriate, especially for a girl like me to think. Those people wouldn’t understand everything I’d been through, kidnapping aside. When it came to sex and the male body, I’d lost my innocence a long time ago. I didn’t even remember what being innocent, being a virgin, felt like.

  I took the glass from Zane, and our fingers touched. Just a quick, soft caress, and still I felt a warmth, a tiny jolt of electricity travel up my arm from the mere touch. I made sure to look away, not wanting him to see the warming in my cheeks—because surely it had to be obvious. I was paler than pale, my white skin was more like untouched porcelain than anything else. I had no tan lines, because I had no tan.

  My gaze returned to the pictures. So many of Zane, almost double the amount of Zane than Astrid and her new husband—Ollie. In half of them, Zane was smiling, grinning his dimpled grin and loving life. In the other half, I quickly noticed, he was more solemn. Somber. As if the camera-holder could not get him to smile for the life of them.

  It was as I stared at the picture that a strange feeling rose within me. I felt…a familiarity. Almost as if, somehow, I’d seen Zane before.

  My eyebrows creased, and I looked back at Zane. He was busy studying me, but when my gaze met his, he said, “We should get some pictures of you up there.” His voice came out gentle, and yet…yet there was more to it I couldn’t pin down.

  I needn’t have spent much thinking about it, for within another moment, Astrid strolled into the room, busy on her phone. “All right, when I take you shopping tomorrow, we’re also getting your hair done, because you look like you just crawled out of a sewer.”

  Zane’s dimples made another appearance, and he glanced at me. He was waiting for my mother to notice the fact that I wore his clothes and not hers.

  I felt better in them, and even though I wore no bra or underwear beneath them, it wasn’t quite as noticeable as it was through the sheer fabric of Astrid’s blouse. And even though the clothes were clean, I could smell him in them. Musky, manly, some type of body spray. I didn’t know. All I knew was that they smelled good.

  Astrid froze the moment she saw Zane, and her eyes only widened into saucers when she saw me and the clothes I wore. “What—Zane, I explicitly asked you to make yourself scarce like your father. You should be out of the house! I didn’t even—”

  “I know,” Zane said, standing tall, not afraid of my mother. I wasn’t either. I wasn’t afraid of anything anymore. “Don’t worry, I introduced myself, and I was nothing but gentlemanly.” Over his shoulder, he tossed a dimpled smile my way, and I felt my stomach heating up all over again.

  He was almost too cute to be real.

  Astrid didn’t look like she believed a word Zane said, and she sighed as she muttered, “I guess I can call your father back, then. I can only imagine when the press will get word of this—if the police show up, they are not to speak with Celeste alone. She is seventeen and underage.” My mother’s stare moved to me, and I knew exactly why she didn’t want me talking to the police alone.

  The Chambers family was good at one thing, and that was secrets. Mommy dearest had some secrets of her own, and she feared I would spill the beans.

  No. I wouldn’t tell the police about what I knew, even if it would change everything. I’d gone this long keeping it a secret, so why not go a little longer? Why not keep it to myself until the day I die? That would be the only way to make Mother happy. If the world found out her secrets, if her new husband knew what she’d done, her happy life here would be over.

  I was Celeste Chambers, her only daughter, and she’d moved on from me, even if she’d kept all of my things. I wouldn’t fit into her new life, and she knew it. It was why the first thing on her agenda was to take me shopping and get my hair done—if she made me pretty, at least I’d look like I fit in.

  Dress up a monster all you like. Splatter makeup on its face and highlight and cut its hair, but deep down, it was still just a monster.

  At least monsters weren’t liars, though. At least I wasn’t like her. Astrid wasn’t a monster; she was simply the weakest person I’d ever met.

  I hated her.

  Chapter Five – Celeste

  Astrid had actually cooked, and the weirdest part of it was that the food actually smelled good. Some kind of casserole, with steaming buns, yellow beans, mashed potatoes and side salads. It was a lot of food, but maybe she thought she had to fatten me up. I didn’t know why. He fed me well the last five years. My hair might be way too long and scraggly, but my body was in decent condition.

  We sat together on the same end of a long table. Ollie sat at the head of the table, Astrid on his left. I sat beside my mother, while Zane took the other chair beside his father. If someone were to peek in the window, they’d think we were a family. In a way, we were, but in another way, we weren’t.

  Ollie seemed like an okay sort of guy. In his mid-forties, with black hair that was greying and eyes a washed-out blue. He was what Zane would be in twenty years—but that wasn’t a bad thing. Ollie was a handsome enough man, though his body was nowhere near as muscled and toned as his son’s.

  Ollie was busy looking at my mother, asking, “Did you take her to the hospital to get checked?”

  Astrid set down her fork, practically glaring. She didn’t want me talking to the police, so why would she have taken me to another place where they’d only ask question after question? Ollie clearly didn’t know that, though. “No. She’s fine. She just needs to readjust.”

  Funny, considering she didn’t even ask me what happened. Maybe she didn’t want to know the details, or maybe she thought my life had already been terrible before, so how in the world could a kidnapping make it any worse?

  Giving her a strange look, Ollie said, “I don’t think that’s a decision you should make. You should take her to the hospital—they have tests to see if—” Though he meant well, his thoughts were misguided.

  “I wasn’t raped,” I spoke into my plate, moving around my food. Ollie’s voice stopped immediately, and suddenly all three pairs of eyes were on me, including Zane’s. I didn’t look up, because I hated the attention. “If that’s what you’re worried about. I wasn’t raped, and I didn’t have any babies.”

  “Oh,
dear lord,” Astrid muttered, reaching for her wine glass, needing to take a sip.

  To me, Ollie said, “That’s good, but you should still get checked out. I’ll make the call if your mother won’t. Don’t worry, Celeste, we’re going to take care of you.”

  Zane’s eyebrows lifted, and I wondered which part of his father’s speech made him incredulous, or maybe it was because of my mother.

  The table grew silent, and as everyone ate, lost to their own thoughts, something else came to me. I couldn’t stay here with my mother forever. To spend so much time with Astrid was…bad for my health, certainly. “What about school?” I asked. I had no desire to see anyone I’d grown up with, but a high school diploma was practically mandatory in the United States. You really couldn’t do shit without it.

  I might be a famous girl, but I was a famous girl that wouldn’t ride the media for as long as it would have her. There would be no book deals, no movie deals. I didn’t want to do any interviews or any of it. I just wanted to blend in with the crowd, be a normal person again.

  Although, the harsh truth was, I was never normal.

  It was a while before Astrid said, “I’ll look into getting a private tutor. Homeschooling will surely be better for you—”

  Zane cut in, having a penchant for interrupting my mother, “I think that should be Celeste’s decision, don’t you? If she wants to go back to school, let her.” I adored how confident he was while talking to her.

  Astrid was unimpressed by his suggestion, saying simply, “She’s missed the last five years, Zane. She can’t just walk into Midpark High as if she was never gone.” A pause, a quick glance at me before adding, “She’s too far behind.” She was evidently still miffed about Ollie saying I should be checked out at the hospital; this was a hill she would die on.

  “Astrid is right,” Ollie remarked.

  My hands fell to my lap, and I closed my eyes before saying, “I don’t think I’m behind.”

  That caused my mother’s blonde head to whirl in my direction. “What?”

  “He gave me textbooks, workbooks. Math, science, history.” Though I tried not to remember those days, because it only brought a wistfulness I could not fight, memories flooded my brain anyway. I’d be in bed, or watching TV, and He’d sneak in with a backpack for me. One time I asked Him why He was doing it, why He kept bringing these things to me, and all He did was hold a finger before the mask, right in front of the rabbit’s mouth.

  Shh.

  He did the same thing anytime I asked Him a question He didn’t want to answer—which was often, since He never spoke to me. He never spoke, but He always watched. When He was with me, when He watched TV with me, He was usually only watching me.

  “Why would he do that?” Astrid asked, sounding…insulted, strangely enough. No one knew what my mother was thinking besides herself, but her tone caused Ollie to glance at her sharply.

  “I’ll call the school, see if there’s some kind of test you can take,” Ollie said, trying to smooth things over. He was acting more parent-like than my actual mother. It was kind of funny, and maybe it was because he was so clearly aggravating Astrid that I had the balls to ask something else, ignoring my mother’s question altogether.

  I met my mother’s curious, annoyed stare, and it was as if the rest of the dining room faded away. “What happened to Daddy?” She’d said he left her, but she didn’t say how. I wanted to hear the details, and I wanted her to say it.

  “One day I came home and found his stuff gone. He left me a note saying he was leaving me for his secretary. Under the note there were divorce papers, already signed.” Astrid turned her stare to Ollie, and she reached for him. Together, they clasped hands on the table, sharing a meaningful look with each other. “It’s how I met Ollie, actually. He was my lawyer.”

  I held in a chuckle. “You got lucky.” And she did—Astrid never would’ve lasted long in this world without a husband to dote on, to meld her personality to his very essence. She was clingy in the worst way.

  “I know it’s not the same,” Ollie spoke, turning his aged blue eyes to me, “but know that I’m going to do my best to be a father to you, Celeste. You are my daughter now.” His lips turned upwards into a smile, but I wasn’t reassured. Being a daughter didn’t mean anything these days.

  I said nothing, mostly because there was nothing to say. I finished up my plate and was the first to leave the table. I went upstairs, plopping myself down on my bed. I had a small lamp on the nightstand switched on, not the big light. I stared down at my hands, picturing how they were stained with red not too long ago. The police had taken swabs, for evidence, to see if they could run it through their database and catch the man who had me.

  But that blood…it didn’t belong to him. It was someone else’s. The man who had me never hurt me, so why would I hurt Him? If I were to hurt someone, it would be because they deserved it, because they earned a visit from the terror dwelling inside of me.

  Astrid hadn’t seen me covered in blood, and she’d never asked me what happened during the last five years. She just didn’t want me talking to the police, telling them things they didn’t need to know. Mother was selfish, and she would bring everyone down around her as long as in doing so, it kept her head above the tumultuous waters of her life.

  It wasn’t long before someone stood at my doorway, hesitating before he entered. I looked up, seeing it was Ollie. He wore a suit, clean pants, the suit jacket unbuttoned. He’d untucked his shirt, looking a little messy. I couldn’t help but wonder how good Zane would look in a suit. There was something about a man wearing a nicely pressed suit that made me hot in all the wrong places. Even though I’d just met Ollie, seeing him was no different. Daddy used to wear suits, too.

  He gave me a warm smile before walking in, and I sat up on my bed, watching as he gingerly sat on the edge. “I’m taking you to the hospital in the morning, before your mother takes you out. When they ask you about what happened, what you went through, be honest with them—they’re only trying to help you.”

  Advice from a man. I didn’t like taking advice from men I didn’t know.

  I nodded, causing his smile to widen. It seemed like a genuine grin, but I knew you couldn’t trust the masks people wore. He might not wear a rabbit mask like my captor did, but he could be hiding something, too. We all decided what we chose to hide and what we revealed. I was no different.

  I said I didn’t remember, but I did. I remembered it all. It was just easier to lie and tell everyone I didn’t know.

  Knowing was half the battle, but the other half was acceptance. What happened to me, even before the kidnapping, was not something I could change. My life had been one of never-ending despair, one of horrible actions and creeping sin, but I couldn’t change it now. Everything that happened made me who I am today.

  Who was I? At this point…I didn’t even know. Broken. A shell of what I should be. A piece of paper, torn up and hastily taped back together. I didn’t even feel like a real person sometimes, like I was just standing by, watching things happen around me. It was hard to feel, even harder to care sometimes. I hated admitting that to myself, and I would never admit it to anyone else.

  “I want you to know,” Ollie spoke, reaching to set a hand on me—on my leg, of all things. “You’re safe here. No one is going to get you.” The hand gripping my leg held on a little tighter, and I couldn’t help but be transported to a time long past.

  This man was not Daddy. I had to remember that.

  “If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to let me know. Or even Zane. I know he can be a bit of a troublemaker, but he’s…a good kid,” Ollie stated, sluggish in taking his hand off me and getting to his feet. He loosened his tie as he left my room, tossing me one last smile before he went.

  I didn’t think Zane was a kid, but that was beside the point. If Zane was a kid, what did that make me? A baby? A child who thought she knew the world, but in reality didn’t know what she was doing?

  I let
out a shaky breath, collapsing onto my pillow. Who knew getting out would mean that my life was only going to get harder?

  Chapter Six – Celeste

  To my surprise, I actually fell asleep, at least for a little bit. It wasn’t a good sleep, though. It wasn’t undisturbed and uninterrupted. It was fitful, and full of a dream I shouldn’t have.

  I was back there, in my room, with my bed and my TV. With my toilet and my tub, my desk and my tiny lights. I was in bed, the TV on for background noise, trying to sleep. The door to my room opened, and suddenly He was there with me. His face wore a rabbit mask, and the only part of Him I could see were His hands. I was slow to sit up, wanting to stand to greet Him.

  The moment I got up and stood on my bare feet, He moved before me, and my breath caught in the back of my throat.

  I felt like…like I missed Him. Like I hadn’t seen Him in ages. Years, as silly as it was, as stupid as I was. I knew I shouldn’t feel anything in my heart when I saw Him, but I did. I did, and I knew it was wrong, but it was what it was. I felt what I felt.

  I had to crane my neck back, not remembering Him being so tall. Maybe it was because I was usually sitting down when He came in, I just never noticed. Or maybe I noticed new things about Him, because I missed Him so. Either way, I knew this man, whoever He was, had a piece of me no one else could. Not Daddy, not Mother, not anyone else.

  He could be old, disfigured. He could be anyone under there, but I didn’t care. Not a single part of me cared as I reached for His hand. His hand was smooth and warm—it didn’t feel like the hand of a man who was sixty years old. No wrinkles, no sunspots. No scars to be seen. I ran a finger over His knuckles, watching as His chest rose and fell with even, slow breaths.