Rival’s Pledge (Hollowbrook Academy #1)

Prologue

One Year Ago

Consciousness evades me. Slipping in and out like smoke, drifting through my twitching fingers. Each time I try to grasp where I am, why the surface beneath me is rumbling, I float back into the daze I’m forever trapped in.

I come to again, cataloguing the few facts I know. The darkness is endless. The sting of cold air bites against my cheeks. The rhythmic thud of tires over uneven roads. The taste of blood flooding my mouth, warm copper coating my tongue until I gag. I’m no longer whole.

My skull has been left cracked open beneath a stadium light, still lying on the pitch where I was slammed into the grass. Agony blooms behind my eyes in blinding bursts, white-hot and sickening, every jolt of the car dragging a whimper from my throat.

I try to lift my hand, to press it to the wetness seeping from my hairline, but my arms won’t respond. Nothing responds. Not my body. Not whoever is in the driver’s seat. Not whoever my silent pleas are trying to reach. I fade out again.

When I come back around, hands are dragging me out of the trunk.

My feet hit gravel and fold beneath me, knees buckling as nausea rolls through my stomach.

I dry heave, not having enough substance in me to throw up.

That’s what happens when someone lives on protein bars and adrenaline.

My abductors curse, fingers digging into my arms as they haul me upright.

My vision swims, the world breaking into fragments.

Iron gates, yellow porch light, a looming house that can only be hiding monsters.

I try to scream then. Or at least, I think I do. My throat tears open but the sound comes out thin and broken, swallowed by the night before it can form into anything useful. Somewhere far away, a dog barks. Somewhere farther than that, my old life keeps moving without me.

Inside, the overwhelming smell of home cooking slammed into me. I heave again. Through the dull thumping in my ears, the whistle of a pan screeches and a moment later, a huge brute in an apron attends to it. The normality before me is worse than the fear.

Flowers sit upon a small table in the hallway, framed photos lining the stairs. Not the scene for a man bleeding from the knuckles to be dragging a half-conscious girl through the front door, streaks of dirt trailing her filthy sneakers.

My jersey sticks to my skin, stiff with sweat and blood and whatever I landed in when I stopped bothering to fight back.

It was a lost cause anyway. Damp patches of material pull against my ribs, the collar stretched from the fist that twisted in it earlier.

I want it off. I want to crawl out of my skin and disappear into the void.

And that’s before I’m dropped at the feet of a man standing in the dining room.

He is older than I expected, the whole mafia vibe being lost in translation against his thin, pale frame.

Black hair has been styled back from his face, a glint in his shrewd blue eyes that twists my gut into knots.

Braced in a pinstripe suit with his hands clasped in front of him, he stands as if he’s been waiting for a dinner guest instead of a kidnapping target.

“I’ve waited so long to meet you, Megan.”

Comprehension slams into me like the blade of a knife carving through my chest. I recognize his face from the internet, a late night drunk version of me seeking out the identity of my biological father. The man I never intended to meet. Fredrick.

“F-f…” I force through my throat, the burn following the words tasting like acid. “Fuck…you.” The hand on my arm becomes crushing, a rough shove causing my mind to slush back into mush. Vaguely, Fredrick’s stern voice cuts through my ears.

“That’s enough.” The grip on me loosens and I almost fall to the ground, relying on pure stubbornness to will my legs to stiffen.

Blue eyes fill my vision once more, something horribly familiar peering back at me.

The shape of his mouth. The angle of his brow.

A ghost of myself reflected in a stranger’s expression.

“We have a room ready for you, Meg. Shower and change. Then we’ll talk. ”

“N-no.” The word falls out of me. It is barely a sound, barely more breath than defiance. A flicker of pain passes through Fredrick’s eyes, as if I’ve disappointed him. Schooling his features, he forces a pinched smile onto his face.

“You’ll feel better once you’re clean.” The room tilts.

I reach out for the table to steady myself, my nails scraping against the wood.

“Harrison, take her upstairs. Stay outside the door.” My body reacts, jerking back, panic exploding beneath my ribs.

The goon left holding me, Harrison apparently, twists my arm hard enough to make me gasp.

There’s another growled exchange of words but I’m no longer listening.

Specks of black coat my vision, my head throbbing.

Weakly, my body is tugged and directed upstairs.

I’m thrown into a room, my knees giving out before I make it onto the bed.

Instead, I flop against the edge, the mattress jarring my ribcage.

A scream escapes me and darkness takes over once more as my body crumples into a heap on the floor.

I don’t know how long I lie there. Long enough for my limbs to go numb against the wooden floorboards.

Long enough for me to wonder how this could possibly get worse.

Worse than being taken. Worse than the blood drying in my hair.

Worse than meeting a father who looks at me as if I’m some kind of prize to be obtained.

I think about fighting again. I envision a mirror I could smash, a chunky shard braced in my hand. Whatever it takes to survive the version of a girl I never wanted to become. A victim.

But then all I can think of is the jersey clinging to me like a second skin, slick with blood.

My stomach lurches. Needing it off me, I half-drag myself to an adjacent bathroom, slapping the shower on with a hand that doesn’t respond properly.

Collapsing into the bathroom, I lay there, the spray of warm water bouncing off my exhausted body.

Since when has it been this difficult to stay awake?

The water swirling the drain runs red, my jersey and leggings becoming sodden.

I can’t fathom how long it takes me to drag the heavy material from my skin, every movement costing more energy than I have available.

Impossibly, by the time Harrison throws open the bedroom door again, I’m perched on the bed, fully dressed in soft gray, much like a prison outfit.

My hair drips onto the floorboard, my arms just about holding me upright as my bare feet hang limply.

With his unwanted aid, I manage to move through the house, a numbness taking over my brain.

This is compartmentalizing on a new level, deadening myself to the exterior world.

Being planted in a chair, I focus my vision on the meal before me.

Soup steaming in a bowl. Bread torn open on a plate. A glass of water placed in reaching distance. Fredrick stands briefly when I enter, almost smiling as he takes his seat opposite. Harrison lounges near the sideboard, his arms crossed and mouth curled in open contempt.

“I apologize for the methods used to bring you here,” Fredrick says, his sharp gaze flicking to Harrison who, in my peripheral vision, shrugs. “Some old habits die hard, but rest assured, you’ll be able to settle soon. This is your home now.”

My brows twitch, not able to fully frown. Everything before me feels like a vision, a fake reality that I’ll wake up from any moment. Fredrick continues to smile, as if his politeness can patch over the bruises lining my ribs, and the gash in my scalp that is still trickling with sticky warmth.

At my silence, Fredrick reaches for his soup and gestures for me to do the same.

The heat from the soup touches my face, and my stomach cramps.

I don’t know if I’ll ever feel hungry again, so I look away.

The clatter of Fredrick’s spoon being tossed aside sounds just after, and I hate myself for flinching.

“Look, I know this isn’t how you imagined meeting me,” he begins, propping his elbows on the table and interlocking his fingers. “There were circumstances beyond my control that prevented me from being a father, and for that, I am truly sorry.” To both of our surprise, it’s not me who answers.

“Don’t apologize to her,” Harrison spits and a fresh wave of terror slices through me. He stands to his full height, foreboding and commanding. “It shows weakness.”

“Can a man not be weak in front of his own daughter?” Fredrick shoots back, a tight glare in his features that doesn’t bode well.

I shrink back in my seat. Regaining his attention, Fredrick tilts his head, pity written all over his bony face.

“We can start fresh now, Meg. We can build something from here.”

Start fresh? The words bounce around my skull, refusing to settle.

My gaze slides to Harrison, who is watching us both with disgust in his scarred face. There is blood in the seams of my fingernails. My blood. How could I ever start fresh under the same roof as the man who abducted me, and the man who ordered him to do so?

“You’re all insane,” I whisper, eyes sliding back to Fredrick's disappointed frown.

“Shut it,” Harrison snaps, the back of his hand cracking against my cheek.

I save myself just short of falling off the chair, touching a hand to my face as if it’s the worst injury I’ve sustained tonight.

Spoiler alert, it’s not. Beside me, there’s a scuffle.

I brace myself for the next hit that doesn’t come.

Instead, Harrison gains the upper hand and grips Fredrick by the throat, shoving him back against the table.

“All those years locked up inside and this is what you crawled out for? A fucking family dinner?” His cold eyes flick to me before returning to Fredrick’s icy glare. “Some former cellmate you are. Fredrick Walters, feared by everyone, full of big talk. Now look at you. Pathetic.”

It occurs to me, through the pounding in my head, that Fredrick has stopped fighting back.

His head rolls to the side to look at me, his arm outstretching.

I stare at his hand warily, confused by the simple notion.

This is what he wanted. All he wanted. A second chance at connecting with one of his daughters.

His other one, Avery, suffered greatly at his hand.

The very same hand that’s reaching for me now, pleading for forgiveness.

For some unexplainable reason, maybe through self-preservation to get out of here, I lift my arm, my fingertips just brushing his when a bang detonates in my ears.

A violent white flash jolts through my entire body, the world is hurled into silence and blood spatters across my bowl of soup and my face.

I don’t recognize the glint of metal until Harrison pulls back, holding the gun in his hand with a heavy rise and fall to his chest. On the table, the man who was seeking forgiveness, the man whose DNA runs through my veins, is staring through wide, glassy eyes, a bullet hole in the side of his head.

Drowning in shock and confusion, the hand I’d quickly withdrawn to cradle against my chest lifts, fingers touching my cheek.

They come away red. Then, as if in slow motion, Fredrick’s body slides and slumps onto the floor, taking the soup bowl and tablecloth with him.

The splash of soup, the finality of the thud, the splatter across my lips, it all hits me like a freight train.

I scream. A curdling shriek that tears out of me, and once it starts, it won’t stop.

I scream at Fredrick on the floor. I scream at Harrison standing over him.

I scream at the blood on my hands, on my face, in my mouth.

I scream because my father, the man I only met for the first time today, is dead.

My chair crashes backward as I scramble away, falling and hitting my hip hard against the floor. I try to crawl, even if I don’t know where I’d go. Away is the only direction that matters.

Not missing a beat, Harrison catches me by the ankle and I attempt to kick him in the face. My heel glances off his shoulder before his grip tightens enough to drag me back across the floor, my fingers clawing at the rug, nails tearing as I fight for purchase.

“Let me go!” I cry out, the words mangled by sobs, terror, and the ringing in my ears. “Let me go, let me go, let me go!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Harrison snaps, a new furious edge to his tone.

He hauls me up under the arms, and I thrash so hard my skull bursts with pain, black spots eating at my vision.

Harrison drags me through the house kicking and screaming, my bare feet striking walls and furniture, anything in my reach.

I fight as if I still stand a chance against this brute and his intentions for me.

Eventually being flung over his shoulder, I look up just in time to catch one last glimpse of Fredrick sprawled beside the table he prepared for dinner, and whatever tiny part of me that was trying to understand what was happening here collapses in on itself.

I am not coming back from this. Something has been torn wide open, and even if I live, even if by some impossible miracle I crawl out of this alive, I know with bone-deep certainty that I will never be whole again.