Cruel Read online

  “What are you doing out here?” he asked. She ignored him, her gaze fixed on the wall in front of them. Annoyance sparked through him and he moved closer to tower over her.

  “I asked you a question,” he growled, not one to be dismissed. He got enough of that at home.

  Slowly, she cocked her head back to meet his eyes, an odd expression on her face as she stared at him.

  “What?” she barked at him as if he was interrupting her thoughts.

  “I asked what you’re doing out here. Are you in trouble?”

  She looked at him and for a moment, he thought he saw a glistening of tears in her eyes. Without answering, she turned her head back toward the wall and Marcus felt his irritation grow.

  “Hey! I asked you a question!” he growled.

  “Go away,” she muttered, still not meeting his gaze.

  “Not until you tell me what you’re doing out here.”

  Her jaw twitched and Marcus could see her trying not to look at him through her peripheral vision but she was failing.

  “I know you can hear me!” Marcus gritted out, bending down to get in her face. A little voice in his own head told him to leave her alone but at that age, he didn’t have the good sense to heed it. She crunched her arms tighter against her small chest and didn’t answer, her lips becoming a fine line.

  For the first time, Marcus noted her expensive clothes, her Parasuco jeans and Ecko t-shirt, a pang of anger shooting through him. He’d wanted a similar t-shirt himself but he knew better than to ask by now. Any extra money coming into the Preston house was going toward his father’s extracurricular affairs.

  “If you want something, Marc, you’re going to need to earn it,” Robert Preston told him while twirling the keys to his brand-new Mustang around his fingers. “You can’t expect me to pay for everything of yours. It’s about time you learned the value of a dollar.”

  This one gets whatever she wants though, doesn’t she? He thought with intensifying bitterness as he gazed at the redhead. She just bats her eyes and I bet it appears.

  “Hello!” he barked, his voice taking on an edge. “Are you deaf or something?”

  Defiantly, she threw her head back, her lips parting to retort but before she could say a word, the door to the office opened and a tall blonde in a tight tube top appeared, her breasts almost spilling out of the top. Momentarily distracted, Marcus focussed his attention on the spectacle in bright red, the click of her stilettos entrancing him as she moved toward the redhead.

  “Come on, Ellie,” the blonde instructed, her voice tight. She, too, ignored Marcus as if he wasn’t standing there. “We have to go.”

  Elyse, Marcus remembered. That’s her name.

  She was on her feet but Marcus didn’t want her to go without having the last word.

  “Ellie,” he chortled. “That’s a cow’s name, isn’t it?”

  Her head whipped around and she glared at him but her mother yanked on her arm and hauled her down the corridor before another word was exchanged between them.

  “Marcus, why are you standing in the hall?” Mr. Thompson demanded. “I’ve been waiting to speak with you.”

  Guiltily, he turned his head to address the principal, the snotty redhead forgotten momentarily.

  “I’m coming,” he grumbled sullenly, following the older man into a room next to his office. To his chagrin, he saw his father waiting.

  Damn. This isn’t going to be good.

  “Come and sit down, Marcus.”

  Reluctantly, he did what he was told, ambling slowly into the inner room where his father joined him.

  The door closed behind them with finality and Marcus knew his goose was cooked.

  “Listen, if this is about what happened last week in gym class—” he started to say but Mr. Thompson shook his head.

  “No, it’s not, Marcus.” He turned to Mr. Preston and sighed. “Your father is here to take you home.”

  Marcus swallowed the panic bubbling in his throat.

  “Why?” he demanded. “Am I being suspended again?”

  “No, nothing like that, Marcus,” Mr. Thompson assured him but his eyes were fixed on Robert who had yet to volunteer any information.

  “Mr. Preston?” Mr. Thompson urged.

  “I’ll tell you on the way home, Marcus,” Robert decided suddenly, rising from the chair like he’d just had an epiphany.

  “Mr. Preston,” Mr. Thompson started to say but Robert was already pulling open the door, heading out as if he couldn’t hear the principal’s words.

  “Dad?” Marcus called, looking warily at Mr. Thompson. The principal lowered his bespectacled eyes and shook his balding head like he was admitting defeat. Marcus had no choice but to chase after his father who hadn’t slowed to see if his son was behind him.

  “Dad?” he called again and only then did Robert slow down. He eyed the boy through his peripheral vision and exhaled in a whoosh of breath.

  “What’s going on?” Marcus demanded, his pulse roaring in his ears.

  “Everything is going to be fine,” Robert began and Marcus knew inherently that it would not. Anytime his father or mother began a conversation like that…

  “Is it Mom?”

  Robert finally came to a full stop, just before the front doors and met his son’s eyes.

  “Yes,” he replied. “It is.”

  Apprehension flooded him.

  “Is she—what happened?” he stuttered, a million terrible scenarios racing through his head.

  “Your mother and I are separating, Marc,” Robert explained, his tone strangely flat. “And she didn’t take the news well.”

  The words weren’t shocking and yet Marcus couldn’t help but feel scandalized. He had seen it coming, probably for as long as he could remember.

  “W-what does that mean?” he managed to choke out. “What happened?”

  An odd expression crossed over Robert’s face and he shook his head.

  “She was taken away in an ambulance earlier today,” the senior Preston explained. “She’s had some kind of mental breakdown.”

  It was in that moment that Marcus realized that no matter what happened in his life going forward, he would never reclaim whatever innocence he’d had left in his childhood.

  Silence fell between them and after an awkward moment, Robert sighed again, pushing his way out of the school. Marcus debated turning back and running into the sanctuary of the school, but for what? There was nothing waiting for him there that would make it better. His parents were divorcing. His mother was losing her mind.

  As they walked toward Robert’s Mustang, Marcus caught a glimpse of Elyse sitting in her mother’s bright blue Miata, the two females in some kind of heated argument. He tried to catch her eye but if she saw him, she ignored him the same way she had inside the school.

  She’s stuck up, he thought furiously. I bet they’re arguing about where to go on a shopping spree or something.

  “Are you coming?” Robert barked, making Marcus realized that he had paused to stare almost wistfully at the redhead.

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “I’m coming.”

  Chapter 6

  Twelve Years Ago

  There was alarm in Dr. Sheenan’s face as she peered at the results, shaking her ivory white head in dismay.

  “Elyse, what have you been doing?” the cardiologist demanded, looking at the little girl accusingly.

  “Nothing,” Elyse insisted defensively, a hot blush of guilt staining her face. Dr. Sheenan looked at Irene questioningly.

  “Have you been following my instructions?” the physician insisted. “The diet and keeping her activity to a minimum?”

  “She’s a seven-year-old girl, Doctor,” Irene said haughtily. “It’s not healthy for her to sit out in gym class. All the other kids make fun of her.”

  Elyse opened her mouth to argue that wasn’t true but she wisely pursed her lips together again, knowing that there was no point in fighting her mother’s perception.

 
“Irene,” Dr. Sheenan growled. “Elyse has a hole in her heart. If you won’t consent to surgery, you’ll need to adhere to my instructions. Too much activity could…”

  The doctor trailed off, noting her own excited tones.

  “You know what could happen if she over-exerts herself, Irene. This is not a joke.”

  Irene waved her hand dismissively, more confident in her liberal arts degree than the cardiologist’s medical one.

  “All kids get these childhood things,” Irene insisted. “I’m not going to let my little Ellie miss out on her youth because you’re paranoid.”

  Dr. Sheenan gaped at the older Halston, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “Irene, this isn’t me being paranoid, this is a fact. If you’d just look at her results—”

  “Aren’t you the one who told me that these holes close themselves in children more often than not?” Irene cut her off.

  “Well, yes, in some instances but—”

  “Then we’ll wait for the hole to close itself. There’s no reason to keep hyping this up, is there?”

  “Irene…” Dr. Sheenan tried again, looking desperately at Elyse as if the little girl was going to help speak sense to her mother. Elyse sighed and looked away, long ago learning that arguing was completely futile.

  “We’ve heard enough of your alarmist nonsense today, Dr. Sheenan,” Irene said crisply. “I don’t know why you insist on seeing us so often if you’re just going to keep giving us bad news. Call us when you have something positive to say. Come on, Ellie.”

  Elyse rose, shooting the doctor an apologetic look. She was too young to understand the full magnitude of her condition but she liked the doctor.

  “Your mother knows you better than some quack,” Irene insisted as they left the medical building. “If you looked sick or you acted sick, then I’d be worried but you’re a completely normal little girl, Ellie, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  Elyse swallowed her own comments and nodded in agreement. It was just easier to concede whatever her mother said, even if she wasn’t sure. Dr. Sheenan had certainly seemed convinced but her mother was her mother.

  “We should get a third opinion,” Irene grumbled when they found their way to the car. “After CWS got involved last year…”

  She paused to steel her breath and Elyse shuddered at the memory of the Child Welfare case workers who had come to the house and school. It hadn’t been that the agents were so bad but Irene had been a nightmare.

  “YOU CAN’T TELL ME HOW TO RAISE MY DAUGHTER!” she screamed. And she had been right—the case workers had determined that she couldn’t force Irene to consent to medical procedures but she had gone to the school and informed all the teachers about Elyse’s medical condition. Principal Thompson had intervened, restricting Elyse’s gym participation and Irene had been furious.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Halston, but—”

  “It’s Ms. Halston,” Irene had demurred as if that was the most important issue at hand.

  “Ms. Halston,” Mr. Thompson had corrected. “But if something happens to Elyse on school grounds…”

  “You’re worried about a lawsuit?” Irene had yelled back indignantly before Mr. Thompson had asked Elyse to wait in the hall. But before she made her way out there, she heard the principal’s response.

  “No, Ms. Halston. We’re worried about Elyse’s health and safety. And you should be too.”

  It was all Elyse could do to stop herself from running out of earshot. She didn’t need to stick around to hear Irene’s response.

  On one hand, Elyse understood her mother’s point. It was hard to be popular if she was sitting on the sidelines all the time. The teachers tried to find gentle activities in which she could be included but for the most part, Elyse spent her time in the bleachers, reading or doing homework, facts she didn’t tell her mother after school.

  Abruptly, Irene turned and looked at her, eyes narrowing.

  “You feel fine, don’t you, honey?” Elyse’s heartrate picked up slightly but she nodded in agreement. It was just easier than enduring an afternoon of herbal teas and coconut oil back rubs.

  “Yeah Mama.”

  Irene nodded and smiled.

  “I knew it. Goddamn alarmists. Money hungry, big Pharma-employed assholes,” Irene went off. “That’s all doctors are, you know?”

  Elyse didn’t ask why her mother continued to take her to the doctor if she believed that.

  “Let’s go get smoothies and hit the beach,” Irene suggested.

  “I-I would like to go back to school, Mama,” she murmured. Irene eyed her in wonder.

  “You see? And the doctor is trying to worry me that you’re sick. If you were sick, you’d be whining and laying in bed.”

  Irene winked, a sly look overtaking her face as she leaned in closer to her daughter.

  “Is it a boy?” she teased softly. “Is that why you want to go back to school?”

  Unbidden, the thought of Marcus Preston popped into her head, but she couldn’t be sure why. Over the past year, she’d run into the bigger boy several times and every time she did, he called her a cow or made mooing noises. Elyse always ignored him, physically turning her back and raising her chin as if he wasn’t there. It was the way her mother had always taught her to deal with bullies.

  Irene had insisted that if one didn’t give a bully any attention, they would eventually move on to people who would give them a reaction. Unfortunately, it seemed to Elyse that the more she ignored him, the more he saw her silence as a challenge.

  In any case, he was hardly the reason she wanted to get back to school.

  “No,” Elyse denied. “I have a math test.”

  Irene’s smile faded slightly but she maintained a half-smirk on her face. It was clearly not the answer she was hoping for but it was better than admitting she had a sick child on her hands.

  “Well…I guess that’s okay,” she agreed. “I’ll take you back.”

  On the drive toward school, Irene prattled off more complaints about Dr. Sheenan but Elyse was only half listening. She knew her mother had complaints about everyone. In Irene’s mind, she was the only one who did right.

  “You can take the bus home, right?” Irene asked when she stopped at the drop-off zone.

  “Yes,” Elyse agreed, hurrying to grab her knapsack from the backseat. It was still lunch time but there was only a few minutes until the bell and she didn’t want to be late, even if she had a good excuse.

  “Okay, honey. Love you!”

  “Love you too, Mama.”

  She scrambled out of the front seat and grabbed her bag before she stepped onto the sidewalk as Irene pulled away.

  “You know you’re supposed to ride in a booster seat in the back like a baby, don’t you?”

  She didn’t even need to turn around to know who was mocking her. She felt the familiar stiffening of her spine as she adjusted the straps of her backpack and ambled away from the sound of Marcus’ voice.

  “Are you really deaf, cow, or are you just pretending you can’t hear? Is that why you don’t go to gym class? Because you’re too dumb to learn the rules of games?”

  Indignation forced her to turn her tiny shoulders and glower at him but she would be lying if she said she wasn’t intimidated by Marcus. He was much bigger and while he’d never put his hands on her, she’d seen him in a few fights. If he wanted to, he could hurt her.

  “You don’t know anything. You’re stupid.”

  Marcus seemed stunned that she had answered him for once and stood there, momentarily lost for words. Feeling confident that she had finally silenced him, she spun around to stomp toward the side entrance, but before she could move far, she heard the pounding of footsteps approaching quickly behind her.

  With alarm, she paused, turning her head slightly to take in the group of boys who had approached not her, but Marcus.

  “Hey jerk-off,” one of the older boys taunted him. “You like beating up on people?”

  A fi
ssion of alarm shot through Elyse and suddenly, she forgot her urgency to find her own class as she watched the scene unfold.

  “What do you want, Ryan?” Marcus growled as the bigger kid advanced on him, his posse encircling Elyse’s bully.

  “You beat up my brother last week,” Ryan retorted. “Kevin? He still has a shiner.”

  “He’s two years older than me and he was being a—”

  Marcus didn’t have a chance to finish his defense, a punch to the mouth silencing him. Without realizing it, Elyse had fallen back from the group, her heart thudding dangerously as she witnessed the half dozen boys advance on Marcus.

  A gasp fell from her lips, realizing how unfair the fight was but she was frozen, peeking out from behind the tree as they took turns hitting and kicking at him. She desperately wanted to intervene, but the stress of watching was enough to cause her to feel lightheaded.

  Go find a teacher! Something in her head screamed. Go tell them to leave Marcus alone.

  But she did nothing, her body paralyzed, all but her racing heart which was moving much too fast. For a moment, she could see Dr. Sheenan shaking her head, warning her that this was too much stress for her.

  Suddenly, Marcus looked up from where he lay, his eyes locking on hers and time seemed to stand still as they stared at one another.

  There was a misery in Marcus’ face that made her feel sick to her stomach and yet, there was nothing she could do but stare at him, her mind crying out an apology that she could do nothing to stop it.

  Why do you care? A cruel tone in her mind demanded. He’s a jerk and he’s getting what he deserves. You should be happy, not upset.

  Abruptly, she turned and bolted away from the fight, her breaths escaping in short, dangerous rasps.

  No matter how much she disliked Marcus Preston, she didn’t want to see that—no matter how karmic it might be.

  Chapter 7

  Present Day

  Her mother had called twice and left two texts to call her back but Elyse’s day had been full with the aftermath of the previous night’s party.