Bully King - J.A. Huss Page 0,12
it worse.
“I’ll be right back.” And then I go after Cadee Hunter.
The back door leads to a stairwell and I go up three steps at a time until I reach the landing of the fourth floor. Then push through into the hallway and travel down to the end where the door to her apartment is wide open.
When I reach it, I listen for noise. But it’s completely quiet.
Just great. If she’s not here—if she went out the front instead of coming upstairs—I’m fucked. And there’s no way to tell if she will keep her mouth shut about everything that happened three years ago or not.
I don’t know what’s going on with her and my father. Hell, maybe he is infatuated with her? Maybe that’s all this is? Some dirty old man who wants a sweet young thing?
Jesus. That makes me want to barf.
“Cadee!” I call up the stairs.
No answer.
I go up. Find her standing in the middle of the living room. Not an empty living room, but… it’s definitely been emptied of her things. The way my cottage was this morning.
Is there a connection?
But before I can try to convince myself there isn’t, Cadee whispers, “It’s gone. It’s all gone. He wasn’t lying.”
“Look,” I say, sighing. “I don’t know what’s going on. But—”
“My stuff is gone! All our stuff is gone! He put it on a truck to North Dakota!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“This was not my mother’s idea! We had no plans to move!”
I think she might be getting hysterical. And the last thing I need today is Cadee Hunter getting hysterical. Not after what happened last night. I can only take so much.
“Cadee,” I hiss, “I have a fucking hangover. My head is pounding. I got no sleep last night, I’m not on my way to New Zealand for the summer, I got kicked out of my cottage, and I have to move home. I really… like really do not have space inside my brain for your petty little problems.”
She turns to me with a look of complete disgust. “Fuck. You.”
“That’s it.” I look around, find a piece of orange baling twine discarded on the floor, and pick it up.
She smirks at me. “What do you think you’re gonna do with that?”
I don’t answer her. I attack. Grab her by the shoulders, push her down on the couch, pin her in place with my knee on her ass, and tie her fucking hands together.
She screams and wiggles the entire time, but I don’t care. I’m done. I pull her up on her feet, take my shirt off, and then stick it in her mouth like a gag.
Her eyes are wide and her feet kicking. Which is not a smart move on her part, because she falls to the floor. And then, finally, she stops being a problem. Because she gives up and starts crying.
I need a minute, so I go back down the stairs, pull the door closed behind me, lean my back against it, and sink down to the floor so I can text Lars.
He and Ax appear through the doorway at the other end of the hall a minute later. “What’s going on?”
“She’s being a bitch,” I say. “So I tied her up.”
Ax laughs, then holds up another discarded string of baling twine. “Great minds,” he jokes. “I was ready.”
“Can one of you just…” I massage my temples with my fingers, trying to will this hangover headache into submission. “Just… go talk some fucking sense into her? Please. She needs to do what she was told. We all just need to do what we were told.”
Ax’s smile falls, his jokes gone. “Fuck. I’ll do it.”
He’s probably not the right choice. But I’m not going back up there. And Lars doesn’t volunteer.
I move aside so Ax can get through the door.
“What the fuck happened to your shirt?”
I look down at the Valcourt lions rampant tattoo that spans my entire chest and briefly wish I could go back to that day and never have it done. But wishing doesn’t change anything, so I just look up at Lars. “I gagged her with it.”
We both laugh. We can’t help it. It is kinda funny.
He slumps down next to me, sighs. “Are we fucked? Or what do you think is happening?”
I side-eye him. “Did you really think it was going to be that easy to get out of here?”
He shrugs. “I was kinda hoping, ya know?”
“We should’ve seen this coming. There’s no way you’re getting out. You’re an