Preppy, The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater: A King Series Trilogy Read online

  “Shit,” I said as panic washed over me. My ticket was in my bra, which was now somewhere below the water tower. “I don’t…” I started, when my dad interrupted.

  “I’m not sending you another one, Andrea. This is your last chance. I love you, but you need help and I can get you help, but you have to be on that bus.”

  I’d find that ticket if it was the last fucking thing I’d ever do. “I will be. I promise. I’m coming home. For real this time.”

  “No more lies.”

  “No more lies,” I choked out.

  “Andrea, one more thing,” he warned. “If I go to the bus station to pick you up and you’re not there, then this is done. Over. No more excuses. I’m too tired for any more excuses. No more calls. No more chances. If you’re not on that bus, then this isn’t your home anymore, and I’m not your family.” The threat was a well deserved one. The result of a classic case of the-girl-who-cried-heroin, one too many times.

  “I promise. I’ll be there,” I agreed. I looked over at Preppy, who held his hand out for the phone, an unreadable expression on his face. “I gotta go. I love you. I’ll see you soon.”

  “So, that was one request. What’s next?” Preppy asked, taking the phone, shoving it into his pocket. He flashed me a smile that told me he was up to something. It was all too easy. One minute, he wanted to kill me and the next, he wanted to help me? Maybe he had no intentions of letting me go.

  It didn’t matter. I meant what I’d told my dad. I was going to be on that bus this time. No matter what.

  Even if it meant I had to kill the man who’d saved my life.

  5

  PREPPY

  Dre’s demands were not at all what I’d thought they’d be. She didn’t even ask for money, and I was so sure she would that I’d have bet my left nut on it. First, she wanted to use my phone to call her dad, which I handed her without hesitation, as a sign of trust.

  “I need you to keep one of them alive. Conner,” she said, looking to her hands and fidgeting with her fingers.

  “Why?” I asked, irritated by her request. “He your boyfriend or something.”

  “No,” was all she said.

  “Well, he had to do something to earn that kind of loyalty.”

  “He didn’t. But I did. I owe him,” she said.

  I didn’t push her for more because it didn’t matter. I helped her down from the tower, found her clothes, shoes, and retrieved her bus ticket from a tree. I even gave her a ride to the bus station to boot because I’m a chivalrous motherfucker.

  Even if it was all bullshit.

  The only place I was planning on letting her go to, was to lead me back to the other two douchebags. Asking for me to spare Conners life showed me that she had some sort of loyalty toward him, so when she said that they were probably heading to Coral Pines to meet with their dealer, it wasn’t exactly like I was going to take her word for it. She could’ve been sending me right into a trap.

  The second we pulled up to the station, Dre opened the door before it was even in park. “Hey!” I said, thinking she was about to jump out and make a run for it, when she leaned over and puked onto the pavement.

  H withdrawals are no joke.

  When she was done heaving she sat up slowly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She got out, and I leaned over the seats to shut the door behind her. She turned around to me and flashed me a sad smile as she stood there clutching her only possession, her bus ticket, to her chest like it was a precious newborn baby.

  “Is your dad a good guy?” I suddenly asked, surprising even myself. “A good dad? Like does he spend time with you and take you places? He put food on the table and send you to school?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “There are a lot of people out there whose dad’s don’t do any of that, or wouldn’t give a shit about getting their junkie daughter home, so when you get there, try and go easy on the guy,” I said, as if I really believed she was going home and not heading back to the male drugged-out-version of the Olsen Twins.

  Maybe I did believe it. There was only one way to find out.

  She smoothed her hair out of her eyes. “Maybe you’re Dr. Phil after all,” she said, before disappearing under the shadows of the awning, heading toward the empty bus benches.

  If she felt as bad as she looked, and she really was getting on that bus, then it was going to be one fuck-of-a-long bus ride to wherever it was she was going.

  “Not fucking likely,” I muttered as I pulled back onto the road, and as soon as I cleared the next block, I turned down the dirt road that used to act as the service entrance to the old motel. I parked in the back of the bus station which wasn’t really a station at all, just a small brick building with a flat roof and a ticket window facing the street with a few scattered benches. The light overhead where Dre was sitting was flickering on and off, casting the grassy area in spastic shadows.

  Shit, maybe she really was getting on that bus. And for a second, I was happy that the kid was going to be reunited with her father. I wasn’t messing around when I told her that most people didn’t have dad’s that cared enough to give her an ultimatum like he did. I was about to pull back out when I saw the headlights of a bus pulling into the station. I‘d just decided that I was going to wait for her to get on the bus before I headed to Coral Pines, when suddenly her feet stopped tapping and retracted back into the shadows.

  Not like she stood up, not like she pulled them back.

  Like she was being dragged.

  I pulled my gun from my boot and got out of the car, shuffling to the side of the building, my eyes adjusting to focus in the dark, until I spotted Dre across the lot.

  She was being dragged all right. By her hair, through the parking lot, toward the old motel where the neon sign was blinking between VACANCY and NO VACANCY. The man dragging her was almost as thin as she was, but you didn’t have to be big to overpower someone as small as Dre. One of the motion lights clicked on and gave me a better view of Dre, whose black eyes were open, but glazed over and unfocused, she was foaming out of the side of her mouth.

  “You shouldn’t have left,” the man muttered, pulling Dre up and over a parking curb, her legs scraping against the ground as he huffed and grunted through his exertion. “You think you can just leave me? You owe me Dre. Remember that. You can’t just go home,” he said, to a semi-conscious Dre who looked a million miles away. “If I can’t go home, then you can’t go home. I’m sorry, I…I’m sorry I did that to you,” he said more quietly. “But I just gave you some of my new stash, so you should forgive me. It’s good shit, the best, and I saved it just for you.”

  I crouched and ran through the shadows from the back of the bus station to the overhang of the motel. As much as I wanted to blow the motherfucker away just for dragging her, I had to wait, each second was like a decade with my hand already twitching against the trigger.

  “I’m here, Dre. Conner is going to take good care of you like this from now on. I promise. You’ll see. You just can’t try and leave again because we are having such a great time and you’ll ruin everything!” he yelled. “But that’s what you do! You ruin things!”

  This was Conner? The one she’d wanted me to keep alive?

  He took a deep breath, fixing the awkward smile back onto his face. He wiped his forehead with the back of his ratty sleeve before hauling Dre up from underneath her arms, his hands against her tits so he could lift her awkwardly up over the curb. He opened the door of one of the rooms. “I mean, I’m so sorry, Dre.” Conner sniffled. “I mean, I think even though you were mad, that you really did like what we did to you. I think they were good screams. When Eric get’s back…” Conner’s voice faded abruptly as he kicked the door shut. The 9 marking the room number fell off one of its nails, becoming a swaying 6 before clambering to the sidewalk.

  Maybe it was his words. Maybe it was the way he treated her, like he owned her. Maybe it was that this was the guy she’d wanted me to save, but all I knew w
as that I was going in.

  Fake promises be damned.

  What happened next played out like a violent video game, a halo of blur around the edges of my vision as I advanced on the motel room. The gun in my outstretched hands in front of me as I kicked open the door. Conner was crouched low on the floor over Dre, who was lying on her stomach, face down on the faded blue shag carpet. Her shorts down over her naked ass while the dirtbag fisted his little pecker in his hand. The slam of the door against the wall had Conner looking up with surprise, his reaction delayed by whatever shit was running through his veins. “Who the fuck are you? Get the fuck out…” he said, before zoning in on my gun. “What are you gonna…?” Conner started to ask, his face paling and his bloodshot eyes widening. “Wait, I know who you are…”

  “Good, introductions can be so boring and all,” I said. “You know,” I scratched my head with the barrel of my gun, “junkies like you give drugs a bad name. You’re the very reason some of my favorite party enhancers will never be available and marked down at a discount on the shelves of my local neighborhood Wal-Mart at good-ole-American, made-in-China prices.” I aimed my gun at his chest. “Move away from her or I will end you right fucking here.” Conner stood up with his shoulders hunched forward, his softening little pecker hanging out of his zipper as he raised his hands and did as I commanded, stepping back from Dre. I spotted the open bathroom door. “Back, through there. Stand in the shower.”

  “Please. Please don’t shoot me,” he begged as he shuffled backward. I spared a glance at Dre, kneeling down I made sure she was breathing. She was. I flipped her onto her back and turned her head to the side so she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit if she started puking again. I followed Conner into the tiny bathroom where he tripped over the rim of the tub, landing on his ass in the shower, pulling down the beige plastic curtain over the top of him. “I’ll do anything. Anything,” he said, glancing at my crotch.

  “Dude, have some fucking self respect,” I said. “Unless that’s your thing. You a gay man, Conner?”

  He shook his head, his lower lip trembled.

  “Listen, I respect anyone’s choice to fuck the way they want to fuck and fuck who they want to fuck, but since you’re telling me that you’re a straight dude, then you’ve seriously just sank to the very last rung on the junkie ladder my friend, which in case you haven’t guessed it, is offering to suck another dudes cock.”

  “I’ve just…I’ve got a problem,” he said, his feet dangling over the edge of the tub.

  “Yeah, you fucking do.” Noticing a fingerprint on my gun, I huffed some air onto it and buffed it off on the rolled up cuff of my shirt.

  “I just need help. I promise, I’m really not a bad guy…” he stammered.

  I rolled my eyes. “Conner, stop your babbling. I believe you, buddy,” I said, using my most reassuring voice. I crouched down so our eyes were level. Instant relief filled Conners eyes.

  “You…you do? You believe me?” His hope at getting out of that bathroom alive was downright fucking tangible.

  I nodded. “Absolutely, I do.” I leaned over and pinched his cheek hard. He flinched but smiled awkwardly. “I think you’re just a confused kid who made some big BIG mistakes.” I turned my gun so it wasn’t facing him. Conner’s eyes nervously followed my every move. I stood up and leaned my hip against the sink, crossing my legs at the ankles. I turned the faucet on and let it run for a second or two before turning it off again. Wiping the grunge off the mirror with my closed fist, I gave my reflection a once over and straightened my bow tie.

  “Thank you! Thank you!” Conner stammered, attempting to sit up in the tub. “I’m really a good person. This junk’s got me all fucked up. Makes me do stupid shit. Man, I’m so glad you’re not gonna shoot me in the fucking head.”

  “Don’t be silly, Conner. I don’t shoot people in the head. You know how much blood and gunk gets sprayed around when you go all gangsta willy-nilly and start shooting people in the head? Let me ask you something, Conner, you ever see a watermelon explode?”

  “Uh, what I meant was. I mean. Just thank you for not killing me.”

  “When did I say I wasn’t going to kill you?” I straightened my posture, turned back to Conner, and raised my gun, aiming it straight at his chest. I watched the confusion pass through his eyes, followed by realization, and then fear.

  “W…wa…wait!” Conner studdered. The sound of water bouncing off plastic caught my attention as he pissed himself on the fallen shower curtain.

  “I really fucking hate it when that happens,” I muttered, the scent of urine immediately unbearably strong in the tiny room and made my eyes water.

  “No, please no!” he cried, holding out his hands in front of his face, even after I told him I wasn’t going to shoot him in the head. It was almost like the fucker didn’t trust me. “You said… you believed me. That…that you didn’t think I was a bad guy!”

  I let out a long breathy sigh, which turned into a yawn. Not because I was tired, but because Conner and the whole will-I-or-won’t-I-kill-him situation was growing boring as fuck. “I don’t think you’re a bad guy at all.” I cocked my gun. “But, unfortunately for you…” I squeezed the trigger three times, sending pops of bright red splattering across the dull beige shower tile. “I am.”

  6

  PREPPY

  Sometimes, we as humans set out to do things with purpose and clarity. Other times, we carry the unconscious heroin addicted thief back to the very house where she’d helped steal your weed plants from, because the woman who lives there is a nurse.

  Humans. Weird fucking animals we are.

  I carried Dre in through the back door as quietly as I could. I’d wake Mirna shortly, but Dre wasn’t showing any signs of overdose so there wasn’t any rush. I carefully shifted the girl in my arms through the door of the guest bedroom, and that’s when I noticed the scar on the side of her face, right in front of her ear. It was a faded pink color so it wasn’t super old, and I wondered what could have happened to this girl to cause a scar like that.

  I shuffled her into the bathroom and set her on the floor. I turned on the shower and propped her against the side of the tub.

  The deja vu feeling that I knew the girl was overwhelming.

  Maybe she was in porn?

  No, because then I’d probably know her name. And bra size. And what her specialty was.

  I lifted her shirt and the bruises I’d seen on the tower looked ten times worse under the harsh bathroom lighting. I knew first hand that addicts had a tendency to be bruised up. Either from the marks, from the needles, getting into fights, or just stumbling around. But these weren’t those kinds of bruises. They weren’t from a fight.

  They were from a beating.

  My eyes drifted down to the bruised and bloodied space between her legs that both thrilled and sickened me.

  They were from a rape.

  I swallowed hard and willed my cock to stand down. I tucked her panties into my back pocket for safe keeping and lifted her into the tub, turning the shower head on spray mode so I could wash the dirt and blood from her body.

  I never gave a shit what twisted thing turned me on. Some people got off on the vulnerable, it was a thing, I googled it, but I never before in my life wished those oddities away before that very moment in that very bathroom.

  And I had no fucking clue why.

  I tried to concentrate on washing her, pausing the cloth occasionally to wipe the sweat from my forehead or palm my cock through my pants, but managed to finish washing her and carry her to the bed without coming in my pants.

  I pulled the blanket over her and she stirred. Her legs fell open, revealing everything to me, and I groaned at the sight.

  My cock pulsed. I licked my bottom lip at the thought of what she tasted like.

  I needed to know.

  Just one little lick and I’d go.

  I crawled onto the mattress fully dressed, but slightly damp. I hovered over her and leaned down between h
er thighs. I inhaled deeply. She had the sweetest smelling pussy. My cock throbbed and my balls ached. I wanted to bottle that shit up and wear it.

  Pussy perfume.

  I pressed a closed mouth kiss over her small buttony clit before flattening my tongue and dragging it over her pussy opening. It was just supposed to be one little lick, but it had turned into a deep kiss. My tongue darted just beyond her pussy lips. A little more and a little more I took, pushing the tip of my tongue inside her tightness, holding in a groan when I could fully taste her on my tongue. Holy fucking shit. Good wasn’t a word for how she tasted. Epic. Her pussy tasted EPIC.

  I shamelessly dry humped the bed, my cock finding little of the friction I needed against the mattress.

  I pulled back a little, feeling a bite of anger toward whichever of those fuckers had hurt her magical pussy, and hoped it was the one who was no longer breathing and being sent out to the swamp by Smoke and his clean up crew.

  I gave her one last long kiss with my tongue, as if I could heal her with my mouth. I sat up on my knees and released my cock from my khakis, groaning at the sensation of it hot and heavy in my hand. I stared down at her spread thighs, her pussy glistening from where my mouth had just been, her taste still fresh on my tongue.

  I imagined pounding into her with every inch of my cock. As I stroked from root to tip and back again, I wondered if she could take all of me or if I’d have to ease up on her and give her little by little.

  Then I imagined what she would look like with my hands wrapped around her throat. What she’d sound like gagging on my cock.

  I pumped harder, faster. I teased the tip of my cock and just as I felt like I was about to explode, another thought hit me. It was what sent me spiraling over the edge, my balls drawing up tighter than they ever have, and my spine damn near breaking when I came so fucking hard I thought I was going to fall off the fucking bed.

  I’d imagined how she’d looked up on the water tower, right before she jumped. Battered and broken, yet free. There was something so sexual about the way she’d accepted death that turned me on something fierce.