CHAPTER TWO | CHERRIE
CHAPTER TWO
CHERRIE
I’M SUDDENLY SIXTEEN and standing over the scattered remains of my vandalized books. The only one left in my hands is my history textbook while the rest were slapped and trampled by LJ, Lloyd Junior Lawson, the town quarterback and the biggest prick to walk the halls of Jefferson High. Him and his gang of fuck faces drunk on their parent’s influence in the town.
“You should watch where you’re going,” Susan Bergeron screeches, her pretty face twisted into a sneer.
My papers tumble down the sidewalk, and I let them because my fingers are hard knots around my textbook.
“Are you going to cry?” Hana Horovitz squeaks.
I am. Tears of fury blur their crowding bodies. Their bright clothes bleed together, and I can’t see their smiles anymore.
“What a little bitch,” Susan spits.
“Dumb, little orphan. Maybe if God loved you, your parents wouldn’t be—”
I hit her.
I slam my textbook into her perfectly constructed nose. Hana screams as blood explodes from both nostrils in a crimson fountain.
I hit Susan next.
She’s so horrified by her friend’s injuries, she doesn’t see the book until it cracks into her forehead, sending her sailing backwards across the sidewalk.
I’m breathing hard and I think I’ve won when hard, blunt fingers twist into my shoulder and I’m spun to face LJ and four of his goons.
“You broke my girlfriend’s new nose!” he snarls.
One of his friends wrenches the book from my hands and pitches it into the street. It hits the concrete and is at once run over. The driver doesn’t even stop.
“Let’s see how you like it.”
I’m ready to go down swinging. My fingers are balled, and I know I’m not going to win but I’m going to fuck them up as much as I can.
“Lawson.” The voice silences Hana’s shrieks and stops the fist LJ is about to ram into my face. We all turn to the trio crossing the street. Stepping over my crushed textbook.
Callum Braun. Tieran Winslow. Milo Foster.
The Jefferson Rejects.
The reason bad shit happened to good folk, according to the fucked-up people of Jefferson. The trash, outcasts shunned to the fringes of society because they don’t follow the rules. They’re wild, violent, and dripping with sin.
If something goes missing, they most likely stole it.
If someone turns up at the hospital a town over with broken bones, they did it.
If anyone’s caught with illegal substances, it was definitely bought down at the abandoned bridge separating the holy part of town from the ... the other place.
Unafraid and wild, and all the things girls were warned to stay away from.
Everyone except me because I have no one to give me such wise wisdom. But even if I did — my eyes momentarily lock with Milo’s sharp, silver ones and my stomach tightens — they are the closest things I have to friends.
The trio crowd into my space. My arm is captured by Cal and I’m moved behind him so he stands toe to toe with LJ in my place.
He doesn’t say a word. His usually warm, brown eyes are all pupils. He stands a head taller and broader than LJ’s six feet with his fingers twisted into fists.
“This isn’t your business,” LJ sneers, showing teeth where his lips curl back. “That bitch broke Hana’s nose.”
Cal’s arm shoots out when Tieran makes to go for LJ’s throat.
“You owe us money, Lloyd,” Cal says darkly. “Five K for the product you picked up for your party last weekend. You’re late.”
I’m all but forgotten as LJ glances at his goons who won’t meet his eye. Hana and Susan are no longer squealing like pigs but stand clutching each other as they watch Cal tower over the guy who terrorizes everyone in school.
It’s very clear that no one’s coming to LJ’s rescue. No one’s that stupid, or suicidal.
“Look, I told you—”
“I don’t care,” Cal breaks in with a calm that hums with warning. “Pay up or we start collecting interest.”
His friends start backing away. Even Hana with her beautiful face bloody and swollen looks on the verge of running.
“Mon chérie?” Tieran’s soft, hazel eyes slid sideways to me, taking me in, sending soft currents down to my toes when they land on my crumpled papers under our feet and harden. “Did they hurt you?”
I’m starting to shake my head when gentle fingers touch my arm on the other side. I snap my head to Milo who presses my books and papers into my hands. Even my flattened history book.
“Go home, baby,” he says quietly to me. “You don’t want to see this.”
I don’t argue because I’m not getting in the middle of whatever bad choices LJ has made. Everyone knows you don’t owe the Rejects money because if they have to find you to collect, you’ll owe double the hard way.
Books clutched tight to my chest, I move out of the triangle I’d been standing in and continue in the direction I’d originally been heading in. But not before I make the mistake of glancing back to find all three watching me in that familiar way that makes my stomach hurt for days and my heart race. It’s the same focused attention they give me every time we cross paths.
Every time I sit with Tieran to do our French homework and we spend the majority of it goofing off until I’m laughing so hard I’m crying. Every time Milo sits with me under our favorite tree to hear me read my book out loud to him because he likes the sound of my voice. Every time Cal puts himself between me and whoever is messing with me, making it painfully clear that I’m under their protection. That look is there and I ache. I throb and my panties are soaked, and I want them so bad I would crawl on my hands and knees if they asked.
But the Rejects are feral wolves, everyone knows that. They don’t know how to be normal, gentle. They destroy and devour. They consume and leave nothing but destruction.
And I’m the prey. Their prey.
They circle me, taunt me, but never take. For years, I tried to get more. A touch. A kiss. But they draw back into the shadows, and I was left questioning my sanity because I knew ... I know they want me too. I may not have all the experience in the world, but the way Milo can’t take his eyes off me in the hours we sit and talk about books. The way he watches me like my words are gospel and need to be burned into his soul.
And the way Tieran catches me sometimes with his fingers digging into my sides and he pins me under him a little too long, his breathing too shallow. The way his eyes leaves mine to find my lips and his jaw tightens like he’s battling all the forces not to kiss me.
And Cal ... Cal never takes his eyes off me. If we’re in the same place, his only focus, his vigilance is on me. He may be the reason no other guy ever comes near me. Cal is terrifying, big and broad with hard, dark eyes and a poker face that could make most men cry. He’s hard and mean, and the one who will finish a fight, but then our eyes meet and his are the softest shade of brown. They’re so gentle and warm, and I want to climb into his lap and snuggle into his chest.
All three are so different and they fill different voids inside me. They make me whole. Make me feel wanted.
Like the time LJ grabbed my tray from my hands and dumped my food into the trash in the cafeteria. Milo brought me a fresh tray with all the same items, set it down in my hands and walked away, but not before dumping LJ’s tray into his lap.
Or when Cal found me sobbing on the steps of the school after just being informed I no longer had parents to go home to. Of the three hundred kids attending Jefferson High, he was the only one who stopped. He sat with me until I could find the strength to get up and walk to Grandma’s house. I never even realized at the time that he held my hand the entire way, but I never forgot how he held me tight in the folds of his arms and let me wail my agony into his chest until Grams got home.
Or the blistering winter Tieran found me huddled on Grandma’s porch, shivering and half frozen because Grams had gone to bingo and accidentally locked me out. He’d climbed the side of the house and crawled in through the upstairs hallway window a little too effortlessly to let me in.
The list is miles long and spanning back years. So many I don’t even know when we fell onto each other’s radar, but we simply did, and my life has been a little less lonely with them in it.
Rejects. Unwanted filth.
My Rejects. My filth.
“ARE YOU TWO OUT OF your fucking minds?”
The man watching me says nothing to the irate figure standing just in the opening leading behind the desk. I can barely make him out when all I see is the white plastic peering down at me.
“Okay?” Tieran murmurs to me, his hand gentle brushing my hair off my cheek.
My mind is reeling with the realization. I’m breathing hard from my orgasm and my shock.
“What are you doing here?” I say instead.
“Hiding?” he says with a touch of amusement.
I struggle under him. With the adrenaline wearing off, my arms and back are beginning to ache.
“Can I get up, please?”
Tieran shifts and pushes up and I hastily drag myself to my feet, brushing my tangled hair back from my flushed face and straightening my clothes. I’m doing my best to act like Tieran didn’t just check off one of my fantasies off my bucket list.
He and the two behind him are clad entirely in black. Almost matching, except the masks.
Cal, the taller of the two, has a Scream mask pulled over his face. Milo’s is also white, but with scratched, black X’s over the eyes and a sharp, jagged grin across the mouth. I’ve seen all of these on a certain online platform. Majority of my feed consists of thirst traps, but never would I have imagined being in that situation, especially with men I’ve had many a dirty fantasies about that easily got me off.
Universe, if this is your way of apologizing, you’re forgiven.
“We don’t have time for this,” Cal cranes his neck and searches the empty parking lot. “They’ll eventually realize we didn’t get very far and come back. Your closed early sign will throw them off for a few more minutes. We need to go and you’re coming with us.”
I blink. “I’m doing what?”
He moves past Tieran to stand miles above me. A delicious mountain of motor grease, pine, and Old Spice body wash. He smells rough and manly, and his hands are massive holding my tiny coat.
“In,” he says. “Now, or I’ll put you over my shoulder.”
“Don’t you mean your knee?”
Did I just say that? Out loud? My horror could never out match my mortification when Milo snorts. Tieran rubs a hand over the back of his head and Cal ... Cal doesn’t move, but I can feel his warm, brown eyes burning holes in the mask, watching me.
“In,” he bites out just loud enough for me to hear. “Now, Cherrie.”
I do as he says because the way he growls my name is a promise and a threat. I turn my back on the wolves and slide my arms through the sleeves. He drags the material up. Sets heavy hands on my shoulders. Hooks my hair from the collar with long, warm fingers. Grazes my neck. Liquefies my knees. Warms my back with his chest. My ear with his breath. Then the hand twists in my strands. It jerks my head back. My guttural cry is silenced by his husky promise straight into the skin of my jaw.
“I’ll have you over my knee. Then on yours, sweetheart. Just fucking wait.”
My stomach is on fire. My pussy is a liquid mess of heat. My panties are rendered useless as I feel my tights grow damp in the crotch. My whimper of his name is met with another tug of my hair and hot sparks of arousal pooling down to my stomach.
“Move,” he growls.
I’m released. He stalks back to where his friends stand watching us. Neither speak and my face burns because what the duck is wrong with me? What is happening? I’ve known these three nearly my entire life. Twenty-two years. They were always so kind and gentle with me. Attentive. Protective. But this ... this is something else and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I know I should be terrified because they’re all so much bigger and stronger than me and there are three of them, but I have wanted this ... them for so fucking long I want to run headlong into whatever this is and let them have me.
“Come here, baby.” Milo reaches for me and takes my hand. The leather encasing his fingers is cool against my damp palm. I don’t protest because I trust them. I know I’m safe.
With my free hand, I grab my purse. The strap is slung over my head as I let Milo guide me towards the back.
Behind me, I feel Tieran brush into me. His fingers graze the back of my coat when we slip through the staffroom door. Touches my arm when he’s guiding me around a stray box of straws that needs to get put out. I don’t mind. I almost reach for him, but uncertainty stops me; we dry humped on the floor. Doesn’t mean we’re a couple now.
“Where’s your car?” Cal asks when we join him at the backdoor. He has one gloved hand on the door’s push bar. His head is turned to us.
I actively stare hard at the do your best poster pinned on the wall. “I don’t have one anymore.”
Three sets of eyes anchor to me. I think. I can’t really tell through the face coverings, but they’re still and silent and their heads are cocked in my direction.
“Where’s your car, Cherrie?” Cal demands.
It does dawn on me that I can easily tell them to duck off. I don’t answer to them. I’ve been alone and taking care of myself for so long that I shouldn’t feel embarrassed about my decisions. Still, I find my arms crossing over my chest and my gaze dropping to a dime sized hole in the linoleum by the toe of my sneaker and I’m reminded I left a whole pile of dimes on the counter that Hahn will definitely not be happy to find in the morning.
“I sold it,” I say evenly.
I had needed the money to pay rent and eat that month. The car — a relic from back before my grandfather died — was a Frankenstein held together by glue, tape, and prayers. I almost felt bad for taking the guy’s nine hundred dollars, but he needed a car, and I needed a roof. It seemed like a good trade.
“You’ve been walking to town, along a dangerous highway in the middle of the night on foot?” Milo murmurs with an edge that makes me wince.
I stall facing them until I have no choice. Even then, I keep my arms folded like I don’t see the problem.
“I’m a big girl.”
Tieran shifts and I’m suddenly very aware of them. All three of them. Crowding me. Blocking my only escape and, God, they’re so big. So ... dark and dangerous, and they smell so good. My already sated body is all too ready for round two, especially when Cal exhales a deep, infuriated snarl that melts my kneecaps.
“You’re in a world of fucking trouble once I get you alone is what you are.”
Well, duck. All the ducks. A flock. I don’t think this is the rewards of Jesus sweet Mrs. Carter was talking about when she told me to let the Holy Ghost save my soul, but I’m beginning to see why those ladies rush to church every Sunday.
Milo catches my fingers again, but his hold is tighter. Possessive. Like he’s pissed but trying not to hurt me. I tilt my face back but all I see is the gleaming mask and the X’s over his gray eyes.
It’s irritating how badly I want to explain my reasoning to men I don’t owe an explanation to, but my gut is in knots thinking they’re angry with me.
The wind is sharp, angry spikes cutting through clothes to stab into flesh. They rip into my thin tights and shove up my thinner coat and I gasp and hunch against the assault, but it grabs my hair and claws at my cheeks. I know the weather was supposed to take a nosedive overnight, but I’m still not prepared.
A warm weight drops down onto my shoulders and envelopes me in the heady scent of grease and pine. My head jerks up to find Cal boring down at me. His jacket hangs over my tiny frame, nearly past my knees and he’s standing before me in a long-sleeved top and cargo pants.
“Cal, no...” I begin, but he’s shaking his head.
“Let’s go.”
I lock up. Hahn and I aren’t seeing eye to eye at the moment, but I’m not going to let the station get robbed on my watch. I pocket the keys in Cal’s coat until I can return them — if. I’m still not sure what the plan here is, but I’m going with them. I let Milo take my hand and guide me after the other two in the direction of the woods in a snowstorm.
The Ford pickup, gleaming an inky black in the frigid night, is parked fifteen minutes away from the station, down an isolated road behind a clump of naked bushes. I have never been so happy to see anything as Milo takes my elbow and helps me into the back. Tieran gets into the front with Cal behind the wheel. Milo joins me in the back. All three tear their masks off the second they’re seated. The bits of plastic are chucked under their seats, but the cabin is dark, and I can only just make out glimpses of their gorgeous faces from the lights on the dashboard.
Cal wastes no time cranking the engine and putting the truck in reverse, but instead of heading for the highway, he delves deeper into the woods. Away from civilization.
“Where are we going?” I ask, teeth chattering despite being the only one in two coats. I have snow in my shoes, soaking my socks and the hem of my tights, but how can I complain when Cal had made the hike fully exposed?
“Home.”
Milo scoots closer and places a hand high up on my thigh. I groan at the contact and the heat of his touch. He wiggles closer and I burrow into his side with my arm looped through his. Hugging the muscles to my chest as my head finds a spot on the curve of his shoulder.
In the rearview mirror, I meet Cal’s eyes lit only by the soft glow of lights coming off the dash. They lock with mine and I find myself giving him a little smile.