And now she wanted me to start selling drugs to the kids at the sorry excuse for a school I was forced to attend. She wanted to put me in the firing line for dealing and no doubt let me take the fall for it if I was caught. No fucking way.
That was it. I was done. Four months without a word from the boys I'd once called mine. Not a note, a phone call, or even an email sent to my account which I'd managed to access again in the school library. They knew where I was. I'd given them the benefit of the doubt, waited to see if there was some long game being played here.
But the only one who'd been played was me.
They made me believe I meant something to them. They made me think I mattered. They made me think they loved me.
And I sure as hell had loved them. But that love had been betrayed, rejected, cast aside. Just like I had. I guessed some lessons had to be learned the hard way because I would never give my heart to anyone ever again after them. I'd never cry over anyone and I'd never care for anyone like that either. I was done, broken beyond repair and sick of waiting on this half hope based on nothing that made me think they might be coming for me. They weren't coming. They'd forgotten me. And as much as I wished that didn't kill me, I died a little bit more every day when they didn't show up.
Tonight I was taking the few clothes I owned and leaving this shitty place. I would get on the first bus to arrive at the station and figure it out from there. If they didn't know where I was then I didn't have to face the agony of kidding myself into believing they were going to show up one day.
I was turning my back on all of it. All of them.
It didn't matter anymore anyway.
But one thing was for certain. My love for them had rotted in these past four months, decaying inside me until it felt like my heart was withering and all the love it held had festered into hate. And I hated the Harlequin boys unlike I'd ever hated anything in my entire life. They were a poison that had infected my veins and destroyed any good parts there were of me. If I never saw them again it would be too soon.
But if I did, if fate ever put me in their paths, then I was going to make them suffer for what they'd done to me.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and all that. And I'd been burned four times over.
I breathed my hate for them.
I drowned in my hate for them.
And I'd bleed my hate for them too.
Fuck the Harlequin boys, fuck Sunset Cove and Sinners' Playground and all of it. I was done with them.
And I'd only go back there over my dead body.
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Sinners’ Playground will be out November 13th 2020 – read on to preview chapter 1 based ten years after this novella when Rogue returns to Sunset Cove…
I’m not dead.
I gasped as those three words resounded through my skull and the memory of Shawn’s hands locked tight around my throat threatened to drown me in terror.
I’d seen my death in his eyes, watched as the bright blue colour of them seemed to flare with energy and excitement as he pinned me to the wall and choked the fucking life out of me. “Sorry about this, sweetcheeks. I’m really gonna miss that ass of yours, but I can’t have witnesses. You understand.” Those were his last words to me as I fought for my motherfucking life, thrashing and scratching and gouging at his arms as his grip never faltered. The last words I ever should have heard as he squeezed and squeezed until my ears were ringing and darkness closed over my vision and I fell into the deepest depths of oblivion. I’d thought I was dead. Hell, maybe I was.
But then why did my throat hurt so fucking much? My head was pounding and there was a heaviness to my body unlike anything I’d ever felt before.
I groaned as I opened my eyes but all that escaped my lips was a hoarse croak which felt like fire burning up my throat. Even with my eyes open, the darkness didn’t let up. It was pitch black and the air I sucked into my lungs was stale and left the scent of damp earth coating my tongue.
“Shawn?” I rasped, but it barely even sounded like his name and he was the last fucking person I wanted to see anyway. But my mind was a fog of confused, disjointed thoughts and memories and he was the only person my malfunctioning brain could latch onto right now.
I tried to lift my arm to push my hair away from my face, but I found it trapped against my chest.
As I sucked in another breath, some rough, scratchy fabric was drawn against my lips and my heart leapt in fear as I realised the heaviness I felt wasn’t in my body – it was on my body.
There was a weight pressing down on me, pinning my arms to my sides and trapping me in the dark. That damp earth smell surrounded me, drowning me in it and a croak of fear escaped my lips as a terrifying thought occurred to me.
I wasn’t dead. But I was buried.
With a cry of alarm which sent more pain through my tender throat, I yanked hard on my arms and I almost sobbed with relief as I managed to drag them up my body until I was shoving hair away from my face and pressing shaking fingertips to the rough material I’d been wrapped in. It felt like some kind of heavy duty sack or sheeting.
Panic dug its claws into me at the thought of being underground and a shiver of fear passed through my skin as I wondered how much air I even had left down here. Every breath I sucked in seemed thin, full of that damp earth scent which made me want to heave. But puking right now seriously wasn’t going to improve my situation and I really needed to improve my fucking situation, or I was pretty sure this dead girl was about to get a whole lot deader.
I pressed my palms against the sack in front of my face and tried to exert pressure against the weight above it as I began to wriggle my legs.
As the heaviness above me shifted, the weight on my chest suddenly increased and a hoarse shriek of terror escaped me as I started thrashing and kicking with more vigour. I cursed and kicked and clawed at the rough material which was wrapped around me until my fingernails managed to tear through it.
Cold, damp soil poured through the hole the moment it was created and I screamed a broken, shattered sound of pure terror as the dirt spilled over my face.
I kicked harder, clawing huge clods of dirt into my hands and somehow managed to shove myself into a vague sitting position as I tried to hold my breath, and dirt cascaded over me in a never ending torrent.
I scrunched my eyes up tight and fought with everything I had as I dug and crawled and fought my way towards the surface.
My lungs ached with a desperate, urgent kind of need and the fear pressed in on me almost as tightly as the dirt I’d been buried in. But just as my body felt ready to give out on me, my hand thrust through the surface and balmy air washed over my palm.
With a snarl of determination, I kicked harder, clawing the dirt away from me until I managed to push my head free of it and I sucked down a shuddering breath of relief.
I coughed and heaved as I pressed my cheek against the cool earth, still half buried beneath it and suddenly lacking in all energy as I just fought to calm my thrashing heart.
The dim, pale blue light of dawn fell through the trees which surrounded me and I slowly cracked my eyes open as I tried to get my bearings. The sound of gulls calling out to one another and the tang of salt in the air told me I was near the sea and I groaned as I tried to figure out how I’d ended up here.