Cocky Bully: The Enemies to Lovers Romance Box Set Read online

  I looked around me to see if anyone had noticed. Nobody was looking, but I thought it best to finish exploring this package in the only place that I could get any privacy. It was time to take a shower. I grabbed a towel from a box under my bed and wrapped up the money in it, hurrying to the shower room.

  I didn’t see hide of hair of the butch girl who had given me the package, and I didn’t recall ever seeing her around the school. Did she even go here? I had so many questions, but I was also excited. I couldn’t wait to count how much money I had gotten.

  I felt like a kid on Christmas with this much cash in my hand. It wasn’t like I had never seen large amounts of money before, but that was the past. For the last six months, I had nothing at all, and bayside left me with not a single dollar to my name. It was nice to see cold, hard cash again.

  I slipped through the shower room door and dashed to a stall. I slammed the door shut, unwrapping my package eagerly and throwing the towel over the side of the stall. I eyed the cash greedily, pulling at the tape that surrounded it to free it from its wrapping.

  The money sprung out with a few hard pulls, and a piece of white paper drifted to the ground, landing on the wet floor. I bent over and peeled it off the moist tile, turning it over to see the message written in blue ink on the other side.

  I recognized the handwriting immediately. It was from my father.

  I quickly read through it, amazed that he had managed to get this to me.

  Dear Samantha,

  I hope you’re doing well at Bayside Academy. I hear it’s a tough school, but I believe in you. Please don’t go down the same road I went. Crime doesn’t pay in the end, but this time, it does. Enjoy this money responsibly.

  Love,

  Dad.

  My heart thumped in my chest as I read and reread the message. My face was flushed, and I felt tears coming to my eyes.

  Come on now, Samantha. He told you to be strong, and you’re going to cry?

  I wiped a tear from my hot face and read the note again. It hadn’t been that long since I had seen my father, but it felt like a lifetime. I hadn’t been allowed to speak to him after he was sentenced, but he swore he would let me know that he was okay. I guess this was his way of doing that.

  I sniffed, trying to keep the ugly crying from happening, but it was no use. All the stress, anxiety, and sorrow that had pressed its weight against me was coming out, flowing out of my body in a river of tears. I was glad I was in the shower and not back in the barracks where someone would see me.

  I placed the money down at the far side of the shower, making sure that it was covered with the plastic wrapping so that it wouldn’t get wet from the faint sprinkle of the water as it bounced off my skin. I placed the note beneath the stack and began to undress.

  I pulled off my clothes and placed them over the plastic wrapping, returning to the center of the shower to turn the water on. I jumped when I turned it on, as it was quite cold. For some reason, the water here took ages to get warm, so I had gotten used to taking cold showers to save time. I didn’t like hanging out for ten minutes just so the shower water would warm up.

  I grabbed a generic bar of shared soap and rinsed it under the water before using it. I hated that we didn’t get our own soap, but perhaps this money would change that for me. I already knew that there were black markets around here. I just had to find the right person to introduce me to them.

  Trent. He would know all about them. The only issue was that he would also know that I had money now, not that he didn’t already believe that before. I suppose it might not hurt to ask him. If I didn’t let on how much it was, I could get away with it.

  I scrubbed my skin quickly and rinsed off, trying to hit all the essential areas of my body quickly before turning off the water. It was too cold to stay in for very long. I liked to keep my shower under a minute these days. Bayside had changed me, in some ways for the better. I would be a lot tougher coming out of here if I survived.

  I turned off the water and grabbed my towel, patting my body dry and wrapping up my wet hair. My hair was shoulder length and sandy blonde, but it dried quickly because it wasn’t very thick. I always wished I had thicker hair, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  I was gifted with a pleasant face and a passionate drive in life, so I couldn’t complain too much. I never had much trouble making friends or going places in life. Bayside may have hit me hard at first, but I wouldn’t let it get the better of me. Besides, I now had one of the most important tools that a person can have – money.

  I grabbed my old clothes and put them back on, realizing that I hadn’t brought fresh ones to change into. It didn’t matter that much. I could change into my pajamas when I returned to the room.

  Despite not having been especially active today, I was acutely tired after everything that had gone on. Fortunately, there was an assigned bedtime at the school, in which lights had to be turned off, and students had to be in their beds. I wouldn’t be kept up by other girls talking and arguing amongst themselves.

  I returned to my bed, taking care to keep the money that I had received hidden under my bed without looking too suspicious while putting it under there. Everything I did from now on had to be sneaky. Tomorrow, I would be transporting a package for Trent and talking to him about the black markets at Bayside. Tonight, I was hiding money from the prying eyes of other students. I now knew what it felt like to be a criminal.

  Crime doesn’t pay, but this time, perhaps it would. Thanks, dad.

  Chapter 5

  Thank god we didn’t have trumpets to wake us up in the morning. Some students set alarms, but most of them just waited to be woken up by the other students who were scrambling to get ready for classes. Once people started to wake up and move around, it was impossible to stay asleep.

  My eyes popped open before most others. It had taken me a while to start sleeping through the night because of how paranoid I was, and even now, I found it difficult to sleep after the first person woke up. I wasn’t the kind of girl to let my guard down because I knew I wasn’t nearly as much of a fighter as some of the others here. I wouldn’t last in a physical confrontation and I knew it.

  I snatched my bookbag from under my bed and stuffed the cash inside of it, also taking the bag that Trent had given me to transport the package he wanted inside of. Having two bags would only be awkward if I carried them both with me. My plan was to keep the extra one inside of my bag until I needed to swap it with Trent. That way, I wouldn’t look suspicious carrying two bags around the school with me.

  I brought all the cash, as stupid as that may have been because I didn’t want anyone to look through my stuff and find it. It was unlikely, but not impossible. Occasionally, the administration did bed checks and would uncover contraband in the room. I couldn’t risk getting caught with this kind of money.

  I stuff it toward the bottom of my bag and placed a few things over it. Nobody would see it even if I opened up the bag in class to remove my books. It was safe for now, but I needed to find a better hiding spot. Perhaps there was somewhere around the school that would work. I could spend some time searching today after I did the task that Trent had assigned to me.

  I quickly got dressed and slung my bag over my shoulder, hurrying out of the dormitory before most of the other students did. Trent had told me that the package would be dropped off overnight, so I wanted to grab it before anyone occupied the bathrooms in the morning.

  The metal detector that I was required to pass through as I entered the main school building stayed silent as I breezed between the tall plastic sensors on either side. A single guard nodded at me as I passed through, but I ignore him. It was best not to make eye contact. Trent had told me that. Occasionally, they would do random searches, and that could be avoided if you looked like you had somewhere to be.

  I sped down the hallway, my black sneakers squeaking against the linoleum floor as I made a sharp turn around the corner. The bathroom that I was heading to was at the far e
nd of the school, which meant I had to be quick if I wanted to get to class on time. Detention and the subsequent solitary confinement weren’t especially appealing to me right now.

  I tried to keep my pace reasonable so that I wouldn’t arouse suspicion, but I was on a mission, and it was difficult for me not to get excited about it. This was the most fun I had experienced since I came here, even if it did involve working for Trent. I could overlook that if I was getting some thrill out of it.

  I arrived at the bathroom and rushed in. The lights took a moment to flicker on, but because it was dark when I arrived, I knew that I was alone. Good. I didn’t need anyone disturbing me while I retrieved the package.

  I maneuvered to the last stall in the room. It smelled like cheap apple-scented cleaning products and bleach in the bathroom, so much so that it stung the inside of my nose as I entered the final stall. I wasn’t a fan of the smell, but it was better than it being dirty, especially since I would be touching things to get the package.

  I spotted the ventilation cover on the wall near the ceiling. It was a foot to the left from the toilet, an easy location to access if you stood on top of the toilet bowl. I sprung up on the white porcelain and reached for it, easily pulling the metal grate out of the wall. It made a slight screeching sound as I pulled it out, but not too loud to alert someone outside of the bathroom to what I was doing.

  This was easy. I placed my hand into the hole and pulled out a small cardboard box that was wrapped in silver duct tape. It was smaller than the one I had received from the butch girl in the dormitory and could have been hidden in my pocket if I wanted to.

  I returned the vent to the hole in the wall and stepped down off the toilet bowl. The zipper on my bookbag slid open smoothly, revealing the other bag that I had inside. Inception. I stuffed the package into the second bag, zipping them both up and throwing my bookbag back over my shoulder.

  Mission accomplished. Well, mostly. I still had to deliver it to Trent, but that wouldn’t be too difficult. He wanted me to meet him in the hallway near his locker after my first class. This was shaping up to be the easiest thing I had done. It was even simpler than the visits my father used to send me on.

  I kicked open the dark-blue graffitied door of the stall with overt enthusiasm and strode out of the bathroom, confident that my mission was going to be completed soon. I would have the information that I craved about Emily’s death. Trent had better hold up his end of the deal.

  When I arrived at my first class, it was raining outside. The classroom had two long windows with thick black bars on the outside, but I could still see through them into the courtyard well enough to tell that the rain was coming down hard. We had to go outside to get back to the dormitories, so I hoped the rain would at least slow down by the end of the day. I hadn’t brought a jacket.

  I didn’t sit in the front of the class this time. I sat in the middle row, hanging out just far enough away so that the teacher wouldn’t notice me. I didn’t want to be noticed today. Maybe I should have worn something grungier like the other students then.

  I was dressed in a cute pair of high-rise black jeans and tall black boots. I wore a white sweater because it was a bit chilly this morning and a black bow in my blonde hair. I thought I looked wonderful, but I stood out like a sore thumb. That wasn’t unusual, though. Maybe that’s why everyone assumed I was rich.

  I sunk deep into my seat, glancing up at the board as class started. I could barely see anything at this distance. I felt like my eyesight had gotten so much worse in the past two years, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it now.

  Contacts. Those would work. With the money I had in my bag, I wondered if it was possible for me to obtain them. Nobody would know, and I wouldn’t have to wear those stupid plastic glasses that the school handed out for the visually impaired. I wasn’t about to become the easiest target at Bayside Academy just because I couldn’t see well.

  I didn’t open my bag to take out my books during the lecture. I couldn’t risk having someone spot the items I had tucked away inside of it, even though nobody would see them. I hadn’t done anything this risky since I was peddling dope for my father, and I was paranoid about getting caught. I didn’t wasn’t to disappoint the man who had raised me.

  I traced my fingers along the etchings in the desk. I never noticed how much crap was written on them until now. Maybe that was because the desks at the front of the classroom weren’t littered with crude drawings and profanity. They were too close to the eagle eyes of the teacher to risk messing them up.

  I read the messages on the desk. There were a few pictures of penises and breasts, but also random symbols. I spotted a pentagram and inverted crosses before I arrived at something that piqued my interest. It was THE KILLERS etched in with what appeared to have been a knife or blade of some sort. The cuts in the dense plastic were too deep to be done with a pen.

  I felt the deep grooves with my fingers. There was something about it that excited me. Was I beginning to like my new association with Trent’s gang? I barely knew any of the members except for him, but I felt myself getting drawn to the Killers, nonetheless. Maybe it was the thrill in an otherwise dull existence that was doing it.

  I looked up and around me at the other students. Some of them were doodling in their notebooks, while others stared out of the rainy windows, probably thinking about home. Anywhere would be better than here.

  I looked back down at the table and got the idea to leave my own mark on it. I tried to do it with my painted black nail at first, but the plastic was too hard for me to hope to leave a mark. I gave up, not wanting to break my nail, and instead bent over to my bag and opened the small pocket on the front of it, pulling out a pen.

  Without bothering to remove a notebook to make it look like I was taking notes instead of defacing school property, I began to scribble in a message beside the Killers’ etching. I wrote SAM, the short form on my name underneath the gang’s declaration. Symbolically, that brought me closer to them.

  Once I was satisfied with my work, I returned my pen to my bag and waited for class to end. It passed faster when I was zoned out and not paying attention. Maybe that was a better way to do it after all. It wasn’t like I was going to fail just because I didn’t pay attention. The only way to fail was to not come to class at all and to refuse to do the sparse homework that was assigned.

  When the bell rang to signal the end of class, I jumped up with the other students and rushed to leave. I nearly had to elbow my way out of the room with so many people trying to get ahead of me. It was always a mad rush at the end of each class, but I was sitting in the middle of the room this time, so I got it worse than when I was in the front.

  After spilling out into the hall, everyone went their own ways. I headed straight for Trent’s locker, weaving through the idling students to get there. I spotted him standing right next to his locker as I came upon it, and he flashed a winning smile when he saw me.

  I swooned. I shouldn’t have, but his smile was as dazzling as the way he was dressed today. He had opted for the typical white t-shirt and ripped jeans, but he seemed so much more put together. It took me a second to realize that it was because he had his hair slicked back and neatly parted. I wondered what provoked the change.

  “How was class?” he asked as I sauntered up to him.

  “Boring as always, but I did see your gang’s etchings on my desk,” I said, coming to a stop a foot away from him. I could smell his cologne from here, and it made me feel even more drawn to him. I wanted to step closer to get a better whiff, but I hung back. I wasn’t going to act like a fangirl over an asshole like Trent.

  “They’re in all the desks,” he stated. “Check it out sometime and see for yourself.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed,” I replied.

  “You must not be paying very close attention. You’d do better to keep your eyes open,” he said, removing the bookbag off his broad shoulders and placing it on the ground in front of him.

&
nbsp; I jumped into action as he did that. I had nearly forgotten that we were supposed to swap bags. I took mine off, opening it up and pulling out the twin bag he gave me, setting it on the ground. I could see that he wasn’t entirely happy that I hadn’t just brought one bag, but I didn’t think it was all that more suspicious.

  I looked up at him and smiled, fully aware that my sweater had dropped down far enough to show my cleavage. I was putting on a show, and so was he. Why else would he look so nice today when he knew that he was going to see me?

  I stood up straight. “Are you going to tell me about Emily now?” I asked.

  “I need to check the bag first, but I can’t do it here,” he said with a shrug.

  I crossed my arms. “You’re going to tell me what I want to know, or I’ll take it back.”

  “Relax, Samantha. You’ll get exactly what you deserve,” he said, taking a step closer to me.

  Trent was just inches away from me, and his energy was more powerful than the last time we had been together. He stared into my soul as though he owned it, a flicker of a grin on his handsome face. He was clean-shaven, another rarity, and his aftershave was like gasoline on my flames of lust.

  No, I shouldn’t have been thinking that way. It would only get me into trouble.

  “So, when are we going to meet up again?” I asked, my voice a lot drier than I had expected it to be.

  “After school, in the graveyard,” he said, speaking in a soft and deep voice.

  “There’s a graveyard?” I asked, feeling puzzled.

  “Yes,” he replied, looking amused that I didn’t know about it. “There used to be a church as part of this school until it got burned down. The graveyard is still there, though.”

  “Who would burn down a church?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. Any one of the students at this school looked like they were capable of doing it.