Beautiful Fiend: Chapter 17

“And please go to bed early tonight,” Dickie insists before sliding into his car.

This has been the most awkward conversation of my life. He’s been eyeing my bruises all week without saying anything, too focused on training me. Tonight, he finally asked. And I had to explain that, no, I haven’t been attacked. Rather a boy I had sex with left hickeys on me.

I’m not even sure if it was a lie or not. I’ve had rough sex before, even though that was more than that. That was Caden not holding himself back. It hurt, it was violent, and I enjoyed it much more than I should have. But at the end of the day, I still can’t process whether I was attacked. I don’t feel like it, and a part of me is ashamed of that. A part of me wants to say I was and that the fact that I didn’t have a choice means it was wrong. It didn’t feel wrong, though. It felt fucking fantastic. The only thing that felt wrong was the guilt because I didn’t warn him NSC was planning something. Now his dad is dead, and his nieces were put in danger.

“Hey,” Dickie says before closing his door. “You’re going to be amazing. Get some rest, I’ll see you tomorrow, Billie Unbeatable Scott.”

I smile at him, but my stomach twists. It’s always like that the night before a fight. I feel sick and useless, praying for the best. I will only feel my confidence returning once I’m in the cage.

Tomorrow is my last fight before Killer Clover. I’m fighting some girl from the south bank. It’s going to be in the nice gym and it’s probably going to be packed. The further I get to the finals, the busier the fights get. It’s still a small amateur gym, although the feeling differs from the North Shore. It’s more official.

I’m scared since I know I haven’t trained to the best of my abilities recently. But Dickie has faith in me, and Taylor will be watching, so I’m going to give it all I have.

I just wish my mind wasn’t always so distracted by Caden. The last time I saw him was Monday night when he sneaked into my mom’s trailer. It’s Friday, and I haven’t heard from him since then, but I know the Kings have been busy sorting out the funerals.

His father died because of my family. Murders between the Kings and NSC happen. They’re not exactly common, but when one crew tries to take over the other, it’s bound to lead to serious shit. I wish it hadn’t been Caden’s dad. Even though he hated him, a cold-blooded man like him must feel emotions from time to time. Caden’s not a psychopath. He is a man made of an intricate tapestry of feelings. He simply taps on the damaging ones more often than the sympathetic ones. And by more often, I mean most of the time. Always, actually. Regardless, I know there’s more to him.

I get in my car and grab my phone before leaving just to look at our conversation. I’ve sent a few texts since Monday, but he’s not responded to any of them. I wanted to check on him, to see if there was anything I could do for support. I know I shouldn’t expect a reply; we’re enemies, after all. Despite that, I’m dying to share something special with him. Something more than him just fucking me and throwing me away. Something that would mean he’s forgiven me for not warning him NSC was coming after his family.

I hit my head against my headrest. Every time I think this way, I want to slap myself. Caden never apologized for the wrong he did to me, and yet here I am, feeling like shit for something I didn’t even do.

I start my car and head home to my dad’s. I need a hot tea and a calm night.

“Fuck my life,” I mumble as I push my front door open. There’s a raging party going on in my house. It’s the first time I’m back home this week and I fully intended to run to my room and avoid everyone.

I’ve been sleeping at my mom’s house and ignoring my sister’s and Xi’s incessant calls. Spending more time with Mom than usual has been nice, and her meds have been doing her some good now that she’s getting used to them. She’s been lovely to hang out with, and we enjoyed some much-needed mother-daughter time together.

“Whoa.” Some guy’s eyes widen as he sees me. His name is Logan, and one of Xi’s dealers. “Did you get beaten up or something, Billie?”

Another small dealer is with him, Nolan. He looks at my bruises, and a smile consumes his face. “Damn, is that from boxing?”

My grimace is from confusion until I remember I’m still sporting Caden’s hickeys. No one except my mom and Dickie has seen me this week. Since I can’t see the bruises, I tend to forget about them.

I slap my hand against my jaw and shoulder him out of the way, hurrying to my room without stopping for anyone. The music is loud as fuck, and I find Murder on my bed, her head buried under my pillow.

“Hey, girl,” I say as I close my door. The bass makes the window tremble, and she barks out a whimper. “Aw, no. It’s nothing. It’s just music, baby.” I put a knee on the bed as I rub her back and she finally pops her head out. “Hey!” I smile at her. She is so happy to see me, her tail wagging as she jumps on me. “Oh yes, that’s a big girl. I missed you too!” I laugh.

I jump when my door bursts open and Xi strides in. He grabs me by the upper arm before I can react and slams me against the wall by my bed, my head hitting the window behind me.

‘What the fuck is wrong with you!” I rage.

“Let me see,” he growls low. He grips my jaw brutally and turns my head to the side. Xi is so much taller than me, and he doesn’t even realize I’m balancing on my toes as he pulls me up to see the bruises up close. “Was it Caden? Did he hurt you?”

“Xi, you’re hurting me,” I try to say past the pout he’s forcing my mouth into.

“Answer me, Billie. Or I swear his house on fire will be the least of his worries.”

“It wasn’t him,” I lie. “I…”

“You’re so full of shit,” he hisses. “You were protecting him so he wouldn’t hurt you, and look where that got you.”

“I’m not scared of him,” I tell him again. They’re all so sure he’s been threatening me and I’m too scared to tell. Yes, of course, he has. But I’m not afraid anymore. I’m protecting him for other reasons now.

It hits me just now that I’m protecting him because I want him out of here. Because we share that need to leave this godforsaken town, and we understand each other. Which isn’t something I have with Xi.

I’ve only ever shared sexual tension with my stepbrother, and now that I have found something deeper with Caden, I don’t want Xi to touch me. Not even out of protection.

“Let go,” I grunt as his grip squeezes. “Xi…It wasn’t him.” I keep lying.

He yanks my head again so I can look him in the eyes. “Who, then?”

I try to shake my head and that pisses him off even more.

“Fine. Don’t tell me. Maybe you’ll tell your sister.”

He lets go of me only to grab my wrist in a deadly grip and drag me through the hallway and the living room. Nolan catches us again and waves at me. “In trouble, little Scott?”

“Bitch-ass snitch,” I spit back. I can’t stay long enough to say anything else because Xi hauls me to the kitchen, where Emma is making out with some random girl.

He pulls at the girl’s shoulder and points at the kitchen door. “Leave and close the door.”

She turns to Emma, and my sister nods her encouragement.

Fucking great.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Emma gasps as they crowd me.

“Stop it!” I snatch my wrist from Xi’s grasp and shove past them before resting myself against the counter. “I need you two to let me fucking breathe for a second.”

They don’t. They corner me where I am, firing a hundred questions at me.

“She says it’s not Caden, but I know it’s someone from their crew.”

“When did that happen?” My sister asks.

“Was it after the fire?”

“Talk, Billie,” my sister orders seriously.

I look them in the eyes. One after the other, and keep my jaw shut.

Emma is six years older than me, and Xi never went to high school, meaning none of them ever saw the girls walking around our hallways with Caden’s mark on them, showing everyone he had fucked them.

I’m sure they’ve seen some around the North Shore, but it would have been rare since we don’t usually cross paths with the Kings. Even if they did, they wouldn’t know what it means anyway.

“Call Lik,” Emma finally says. “You’re gonna talk, Billie.”

Xi turns around and grabs his phone. It won’t take long for Lik to show up and he’ll know what this is. I’m fucked. I’m so fucked I’m starting to go back to hating Caden. He did this on purpose so that I would end up in this exact situation.

Emma keeps asking questions, shouting at me, unable to control her anger. I know it comes from a caring feeling. I know she’s trying to protect me. I’ve made up my mind, though. With my arms crossed and my chin up, I stay quiet, my jaw aching from the way I firmly hold it shut.

But when Lik enters the kitchen with a girl I know too well, and he asks what’s going, I lose my patience. She’s tall, pretty much Lik’s height, and he’s just below six-foot. My eyes narrow on the girl the entire fucking planet falls in love with every time she crosses their path. Rose White disappeared for almost two years, but she hasn’t lost that beauty everyone falls at her feet for. And she hasn’t lost the danger in her eyes that tells everyone to not fuck with her.

But I don’t give a shit. I don’t like her, and she is definitely not welcome in this house.

“What the fuck…” I start.

“….is that?!” Lik cuts me off.

“Fuck’s sake,” I whisper to myself when I understand I’m not getting out of this mess anytime soon.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Billie!” Lik shouts at me. He’s clearly also had a long night, and I can understand why if he spent it with the stubborn girl he brought here.

“Do you know who did this?” Emma asks him. I can hear how worried she is, and it distorts my mind with guilt. She’s so focused on my problem, she’s not even registering the fact that the girl she once fucked walked into the room.

“She won’t talk,” Xi tells his brother, making sure we don’t lose the topic of the conversation.

“It’s none of your fucking business!” I fight back.

For once, the attention is on someone other than Rose, and it makes me feel fucking uncomfortable. I need her to take it back.

I barge against Emma and walk toward Lik. “Bringing her here? Do you want me to commit a homicide tonight?” I ground out. I need everyone to focus on this problem. Not mine. It’s embarrassing to be scolded like a five-year-old in front of her.

“Yeah. I know.” Lik can see right through my attempt to change the topic, and doesn’t bite.

“We know it’s a guy from the Kings crew, Bil’s,” Emma says gently. She’s attempting a new approach. “Just tell us which one. He’ll be dead before you know it.”

Lik is on me the next second, grabbing me the same way Xi did earlier. He pulls me up and looks at the horror on my face closely.

“Are you for real?” he whispers. I’m not sure if the others can hear or not, but the pleading in my eyes is loud enough for him to understand.

Don’t do this. Don’t tell them what it truly is.

My gaze darts to the side when his hardens, and I can feel my cheeks warming from the embarrassment. This is all Caden’s fault. Again.

“Your guilty King is Caden,” Lik says loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear. “And he didn’t hit her. These are love bites. He leaves them on every girl he fucks.”

Fucking traitor.

He finally lets me go, and I cringe at the silence from my sister and Xi trying to swallow the news. I just want the ground to open up and swallow me. Spending eternity in hell would feel less awkward than this situation. But then again, Caden would probably show up at some point, and I want nothing but to see him again.

The only thing that breaks the long silence is Rose’s mocking laugh. It shatters the tension into pieces as everyone turns to her.

“This shit is just too funny,” she mocks. “Who knew you could fall any lower, Billie.”

“Bitch, shut the fuck up!” I shout back. I try to push past Lik. I need an outlet for my fury and I have decided it will be her.

Lik grabs me by the arms and stops me, a stern look on his face. “Worry about yourself.”

“Billie!” Emma barks with a ferocity I’m not used to hearing from her. “What…” She lets out a long huff. “What is wrong with you?”

“I thought Sam scared him?” Lik says, trying to turn this into a helpful conversation.

“Yeah, he tried,” I retort. I’m about to add that this whole fucking plan was a shit idea and that I was right all along. Only Rose is quicker than me.

“And it looks like he was successful,” Rose jumps in with her unwanted sarcasm. Her gaze falls on me, and she smiles brightly. “She loves going for guys she can’t have. It’s a pattern,” she taunts some more.

Of course, she was going to bring this up. I dated her twin, Jake, briefly when I was in junior year. The last guy I had sex with—the foster kid who ended up in Stoneview. What I always try to forget was that he was using me to get over his ex-girlfriend, and it was never going to last. They were meant to be, and he and I weren’t. I hate to admit it, but the bitch is right. I always seem to go for the guys I can’t have.

I’m about to retort something, but instead Lik cuts in. “We’re leaving.” He pushes Rose out of the kitchen at the same time as he says, “Shut your mouth,” to her.

As soon as they’re gone, Emma and Xi turn to me again.

My older sister walks to me, skimming the bruises along my jaw with her thumb. “Was it consensual?” she murmurs softly. Like she’s afraid to break me.

It’s not until now that I have to downright force myself to think about that. I pinch my lips together, digging deep into my heart and soul. I coax my mind to face what happened on Monday night and tell the truth to the people who love me enough to compel it out of me.

I grab my sister’s hand by my face and hold it tightly when I answer in an even quieter voice. “Yes.”

The hand I’m holding turns into a fist, and she snatches it back. She does her best to control her anger, to not rage at the fact that I had consensual sex with our life-long enemy. Because any other answer would have been worse. Now she’s frustrated at me, even if she doesn’t want to be. I can see it.

“I’m glad,” she says through gritted teeth. She spins around and walks out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

There is only Xi and me left. He’s looking at me like I just killed a puppy in front of him. Slowly he approaches me and shakes his head, clearly not understanding my feelings. “I could have given you everything you wanted,” he says low.

I peer up at him, a sob constricting my throat because we will never be the same way we once were. “But not everything I needed,” I ultimately say. I realize that with unbreakable conviction. Only Caden can give me what I need, when what I need is him.

Him and the way he doesn’t care when he forces me. Him and his dirty mouth and brutal tendencies. Him and his beautiful face and body. Him and the way he softens for me, turning away from the violence to open up to me.

My savage enemy.

My beautiful fiend.

Xi nods, noticeably dejected but not pushing it, and leaves the room too.

I let out a long sigh. Everything is fucked, yet somehow I feel lighter than ever now that they know I have been wanting Caden’s attention.

I grab my phone from the pocket of my jeans, and my heart explodes when I see I have multiple messages from Caden, except my focus is locked on the last one.

The message was sent fifteen minutes ago, and I quickly type out a response.

I shake my head, smiling. He’s turning into such a stalker.

I wonder where Kay has gone now and how livable his house is after the fire. Did it burn the whole house? Surely not if he’s inviting me over.

Three dots appear again, and my heart squeezes from knowing he wants my company and no one else’s.

My lower stomach tightens with need, but I roll my eyes anyway, as if he could see me. I have to pretend his crude words didn’t turn me on. Less than half an hour ago, I never wanted to see him again because of the situation I was in with my family.

Look at me now, virtually ready to give in to his request.

Feeling like a dick because he did mention his dad, I add.

He doesn’t reply, and I feel worse, but I can’t let anything hinder my success. Not even my need for Caden.