Fractured Things (Folkestone Sins Book 2) Read online

  Fractured Things

  Folkestone Sins Book Two

  Samantha Lovelock

  Copyright © 2020 by Samantha Lovelock, Folkestone Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Opulent Designs

  Editing by Brandi Zelenka

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-7772534-5-5

  Print ISBN 978-1-7772534-3-1

  Created with Vellum

  When it feels like there are never enough hours in the day, that everything you are goes unnoticed and unappreciated, and you’re afraid that you can’t go on.

  Take a deep breath.

  Remember everything you’ve conquered to get here.

  Be brave. Be strong. Be fierce.

  You are so much more than you believe, and you are not alone.

  I see you, and you’re fabulous.

  Contents

  Poe-logue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Playlists

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Samantha Lovelock

  About the Author

  Poe-logue

  My hands grab for my father’s shoulders in an attempt to pull him off Callum before he throttles the fucking waste of skin. A loud disharmonious racket of voices assaults my ears, and it’s distracting as fuck. Made up of fury and outrage and peppered by the sickening spikes of gleeful laughter from the deranged buffoon in the middle of it all, I have to imagine this is what hell sounds like.

  Amid the noise and confusion choking the room, my mind half-registers Callum’s wife gliding smoothly, quietly, and seemingly unnoticed by anyone but me to hover at my mother’s side. Dropping into something resembling a macabre curtsey, she gracefully retrieves the discarded martini glass from where it landed on the plush carpet earlier. With a sort of detached disbelief, I watch as she somehow snaps the stem off, her hands now dripping bright crimson. Eerily calm, she approaches the man she married and jams the glittering jagged end deep into the soft flesh just beneath his ear.

  All movement stops, and time seems to stand still, frozen in a single horrifying moment. Then, just as quickly, the moment is shattered by the burbling shriek that slices through the room as Callum starts to jerk like a marionette missing a few strings.

  My father stumbles, and I lose my hold on him while Mrs. Torsten calmly returns to her seat and folds her bloodied hands demurely in her lap. Hali stands next to her mother, head cocked at an odd angle as she calmly observes the scene in front of her, disbelief etched across her pretty face. The air quickly fills with a thick, hot, metallic scent, and Callum’s cruel mouth makes awful sucking sounds as he starts to drown in his own blood.

  Of course, my mother being the asshole she is, tries to use the situation to her advantage and slink away in the chaos. Luckily, Raff and Payne aren’t intimidated by either her threats or her bared teeth and refuse to let her escape the mess she had a heavy hand in creating.

  The need to make sure Stella is okay suddenly pounds through my veins and I swivel my head around to see her standing alone at the edge of the shitshow. Our eyes meet, and my breath catches when I see the fire in hers has gone out. Her features are a waxy, expressionless mask, and her skin even paler than usual. It all combines to give her an almost ghostly translucence, and my heart and throat squeeze painfully.

  She looks broken.

  Empty.

  I start towards her, but my attention is yanked back to Hali and the strange high-pitched keening noise she starts making. Her screams are somewhere between a wail and a laugh, and they’re the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard, making all the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up in response.

  Catching a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye, I turn to see an empty space where, just a few seconds ago, the girl I’m already half in love with was standing.

  No, no, no.

  Shoving my way through the men crowded next to the monster bleeding to death on my living room floor, I look wildly around for Stella. My pulse stutters and jumps when I realize she’s no longer in the room.

  Where the fuck is she?

  Blindly I run for the entranceway, a sick feeling building in my gut. Just as I get there, the latch of the massive front door clicks shut, echoing through me like thunder.

  Fuck no.

  My shaking hand fumbles briefly with the slick handle before I manage to throw open the door. Stella climbs into the passenger side of Sunday’s waiting silver Range Rover without looking back, and I lose it. Almost tripping over my own feet, I run down the front steps yelling her name to the wind as they pull away.

  Leaving me all alone in the darkness watching their taillights disappear from view.

  Chapter One

  It’s been two weeks since Eleanor Torsten finally had enough of her viciously abusive husband and decided to end him in the middle of my living room.

  Two weeks since Stella left without a word and took the still-beating heart she ripped out of my chest with her.

  Two weeks of alternating between wanting to crawl into a hole and drink myself into oblivion or fuck my way through all the girls in the senior class just to punish her for leaving me.

  I’m self-aware enough to know neither option will fix a damn thing or make me feel any better, but this is a twisted little town, and what can I say? I’m a product of my environment.

  Folkestone has always fed on secrets and muddy half-truths. They’re the fuel that drives the dark engine of this town, so of course there would be long-standing contingencies in place to clean up any potentially damaging scenarios. It’s the only reason I can think of to explain how life around me went back to normal so damn quickly.

  The Founding Families and their collective money and power efficiently and quietly swept everything under the proverbial rug. Residents outside of our bizarre and entitled circle are oblivious. They believe the party line that the Torstens are experiencing marital issues, and Callum and Eleanor decided to take a little trip to try and sort out their relationship.

  In reality, Mrs. Torsten is recuperating from her stabby little breakdown in a facility somewhere deep in the wilds of Oregon. There were no cops, no courtroom, and no trial—nothing but a short ride on a private jet and a lovely room in a hospital resembling a fancy hotel. It turns out Callum had been regularly beating the shit out of his wife. Twenty years of his violent attempts to mold her into an obedient, hollowed-out shell appeared to be successful until she finally snapped on his sadistic, psychotic ass.

  We all have a limit—an invisible line that, once crossed, pops the lid on the Pandora’s box of rage and fear and pain we secretly harbo
r. Hearing her abuser boast gleefully about what he did to Catherine Bradleigh all those years ago finally pushed Mrs. Torsten past hers. When my father found out the extent of the horrors she experienced at her husband's hands, he personally arranged everything for her extended stay at The Pines.

  Somebody in the older generation of the Heirs made the almost comical decision to let Eleanor’s sister know Hali would be without parental supervision for a while. Hali’s aunt and uncle flew up from Palm Springs to stay with her and keep her on the straight and narrow. I’m guessing they didn’t know their niece very well before they got here since their arrangement lasted a total of four days. They finally got the hint their presence wasn’t wanted when Hali threw everything they brought with them into the middle of her driveway and set it on fire.

  Her little tantrum finally opened our parents’ eyes to what the rest of us have known for years—that she’s a heinous, nasty, cruel individual. Which proves she takes after her father, I guess.

  Speaking of her father, Callum, the fuckhead, is still alive somehow. Since the night he was gored by his wife, he’s been in a coma in a private hospital funded by the Founding Families. Not trusting he won’t suddenly wake up and lose his shit, Payne’s father’s security firm has him under guard twenty-four hours a day.

  His partner in crime, my mother, otherwise known as Satan herself, has flat-out refused to leave the house since that night. She’s hammered whenever her eyes are open and seems even more determined than usual to drink herself to death. That arrangement works just fine for me; the quicker she pickles herself and shuffles off to hell, the less chance there is of me sending her there myself.

  My father is around a lot more since the big revelation, which, I admit, I kind of like. We were super close when I was younger, and I’ve missed having him around the past few years. Can’t say I blame the guy for wanting to stay away though, given the woman he married. When he found out what his wife and Callum did to the love of his life, the wounds ripped in his psyche seem to have aged him twenty years overnight.

  Out of all the Heirs, Payne and I are floundering the most in the girls’ absence. The frustrated hurt we’re feeling over essentially being ditched is almost tangible, and it sticks to each of us like burrs. Throw in the awful information we learned that night, and neither of us wants to be alone much—it's too easy to get lost in our own heads. So we spend a lot of nights driving aimlessly, down at our hidden beach, or at my place drinking.

  “How the fuck can I miss somebody this bad when I’ve known her for all of five minutes?” I take a swallow of my beer, clenching my fist around the long neck and feeling the beads of condensation slide between my fingers. My other hand rakes through my thick hair for the hundredth time tonight, stirring up the dark mess of spikes and whorls even more.

  Stella and Sunday haven’t spoken to either of us. Not a damn word since they pulled out of my driveway without a second thought. Roxy and Aylie finally admitted yesterday they’ve spoken briefly to Sunday, but they refuse to break the girl code and tell us where they are. Every time we ask, they parrot the same infuriating answer: hoes over bros, dude. While part of me respects their loyalty, it doesn’t stop me from wanting to knock their heads together until the answer I need falls out.

  “Bro, I get it. It’s weird as hell, but it’s there. We all saw what was happening between you two, and somehow she just fit. It’s like we were all waiting for her without even knowing she existed.” Payne leans his forearms on his knees and stares down at his hands, absently flexing and unflexing the fingers of the hand not holding his beer. “They have to come back, right? I mean, shit, Sunday’s whole life is here. And Stella wouldn’t just up and leave Miss B, would she? Not after everything that’s happened.”

  “Fuck, after everything that’s happened, would you want to come back here?” I bark out a miserable half-laugh. “I’d run. I’d fucking run and find someplace where nobody knows me and never look back.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I picture Stella doing precisely that and it twists my guts into knots.

  I need her to come back.

  Hell, I just need her.

  Period.

  It’s utterly ridiculous to feel this way so soon, but she’s the antidote to my darkness, and I crave everything about her; her touch, her scent, her laughter. The thought of never seeing her again scares the shit out of me, and it pisses me right off that it scares me so much.

  “How do we find them?” Payne asks flatly.

  “I don’t think we do, dude. If they wanted us to know where they were, they would have called. Or Sunday would have at least answered one of the hundred and seven texts I know you’ve sent her.” The embarrassment flares briefly across his face as my guess proves correct, and the asshole in me smirks.

  Misery really does love company; who knew?

  “What the hell do we do then, wiseass? We can’t just keep sitting here doing nothing at all!” Payne’s tone echoes my frustration.

  “We drink; that’s what we do.” Reaching over, I clink my bottle against his and finish the rest of my beer in one long swallow.

  Classes at Woodington have taken on a strange vibe. People have definitely noticed the lack of a particular silvery haired student, and a handful of them seem intent on filling the vacuum left by her absence with boatloads of bullshit. There have been too many whispered comments comparing it to when she ‘disappeared’ for six weeks during our sophomore year.

  It infuriates me to hear the shit jealous people say about Sunday, but there’s nothing I can do other than tell them to shut the fuck up. The real story isn’t mine to tell. If I started punching every idiot with an opinion, my hands would look like raw hamburger pretty damn quick.

  Hali’s behavior has gotten even worse since her aunt and uncle turned tail for home, and students and teachers both keep their heads down when she rages through the halls. Even her agents of chaos, Laina and Carissa, have started to distance themselves from her. The cafeteria has become a hunting ground and the entire freshman and sophomore classes jam their lunch in their faces as fast as possible, hoping to escape before becoming her next target.

  Halfway through lunch, Payne elbows me in the ribs. He tilts his chin in Hali’s direction as she verbally abuses some mousey girl I don’t recognize in the cafeteria at lunch.

  “Isn’t that chick a junior?” he asks. “Looks like bitchface got bored toying with the young ones.” Payne shakes his head. “You dodged an even bigger bullet than we thought with her. Can you imagine Eunice getting her way and you having to marry that?” He visibly shudders at the thought, throwing in a few gagging noises for effect, and my skin crawls in response.

  “There’s way more going on there than garden variety high school mean girl. The rotten apple didn’t fall far from the crazy tree there, did it?” My words are flat as I watch the latest victim try to shrink into herself and disappear entirely. Finally, I’ve had enough of the floor show. Shoving my chair back, I drop my fork on my plate and stride across the room. Dropping my arm casually over the girl’s shoulders, I feel her startle, but she doesn’t push me off.

  “What the fuck are you up to now, Torsten?” My voice is low and clipped, meant for only the three of us, and I keep a frosty smile on my lips the entire time.

  “Nothing to do with you, Halliday,” she bites back. “Why do you even care?” Crossing her arms, she narrows her eyes and tosses her long brown hair in a huff.

  “Well, see, I don’t think anybody deserves to be subjected to your shitty attitude even on a good day, and you haven’t had a good day in a while now, have you?” I raise an eyebrow mockingly at her, and she puffs out a big, fake laugh before increasing the volume of her voice to include everybody around us in the conversation.

  Always have to be the center of attention, don’t you, you spoiled bitch?

  “Oh, come on, Poe. You can’t be the martyr and the fucking hero! Pick one and stick with it—indecision is so unattractive.” She chuckles nastily and juts out h
er bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. “Oh wait, I get it! Your skanky little whore took off with her tail between her legs, so now you need a new project.”

  My temper rages instantly, and I feel my control over my mouth fraying just as Raff steps in, his attention focused on the girl still tucked under my arm.

  “Well, hi there, darlin’. What’s your name?” he asks her with interest and fist bumps my hand that’s dangling loosely from her shoulder. I remove my arm, and he replaces it with his own.

  “Anastasia,” she mumbles while her cheeks burn pink under his attention. With a little wink at his shy new friend, Raff turns to face our shared adversary full on.

  “Fuck off, Hali.” His grin is huge.

  Damn, you gotta admire the guy’s timing. And his balls.

  “Why are you always sticking your nose in other people’s business, Rafferty?” Hali snarls, actually stamping her foot in frustration.

  “If you weren’t so damn determined to be cunty every time you open your mouth, I wouldn’t need to, would I?” Anastasia snickers under her breath and tries to cover it by clearing her throat, but she’s not quick enough. Between being laughed at by a lowly junior and Raff calling her a cunt, Hali’s eyes nearly bulge out of her head in rage.

  “Come on, darlin’. Let’s go find your friends, shall we?” Ever the gentleman, Raff leads Anastasia away from the nasty bitch who’s preparing to twist the quiet girl’s head right off her little neck. Hali takes a step to follow them, but I block her path, still seething from hearing Stella being called a whore.