Trapped (Bullied Book 4) (Bullied Series) Vera Hollins (best large ereader txt) 📖

was getting hard to ignore it. I went for roasted veggies, thinking about my calorie intake.

I thought about what Susan had told me before. I understood it better now, and it wiped away some of the shame I felt for craving unhealthy food.

“You’re stressing yourself over whether you’re eating the right or wrong foods, which can have bad consequences for your health. Food isn’t your enemy. So instead of depriving yourself of the foods you like, think about balance and moderation.”

Okay, maybe pizza contained extra calories, but I’d feel even more miserable if I had to deprive myself of every single food I liked. Maybe I should finally give that balance thing a try, instead of giving up on all the foods I liked.

I repeated one of Susan’s mantras to myself, feeling more comfortable about it: all choices had consequences, but instead of regretting them, I should take responsibility for them, enjoy them while they lasted, and then see how to continue from there.

“What?” I asked Mel when we brought our trays to our table and sat down.

“You like Blake,” she stated, no hesitating whatsoever.

A stupid blush covered my whole face. “No, I don’t,” I denied quickly.

I’d told Sar about my feelings for Blake because she’d been through the same thing and could understand me better. Mel, on the other hand, was not so understanding or tolerant, having been anti-Hayden until only recently. She would never approve of Blake.

“And now you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not.” Another lie.

“Look, it’s pointless to deny it. The sooner you accept it, the better for you.”

My jaw almost dropped. “You won’t criticize me? Not that I’m interested in him or anything.” I wasn’t a good liar at all.

She sighed and rested her face against her hand, picking at her French fries. “I did that a lot with Sar, and what good did it bring? I just want you to be careful. Blake is not a good person. He can seriously hurt you.”

Her words were the truth, but my chest ached nevertheless. “And how do you know that?”

“Because I’ve seen how brutal he can be. I can show you, if you want, so you’ll see it firsthand too.”

“Show me what?”

She bit into her fry. “His life in the gang.”

Gang. Yet another proof of how wrong I was to like him of all people. I didn’t know much about that aspect of his life, but it was enough for me to draw a conclusion that he lived extremely dangerously and was associated with all kinds of lowlifes.

“You want me to see him fighting?” I was surprised she would suggest something like this.

“Actually, I’m talking about racing. There’s this race on Thursday Steven won’t stop talking about. It will bring the first three places a tidy sum. So, we can go there, and you’ll see for yourself what kind of life Blake leads. Maybe it will change the way you see him.”

I doubted it would make a difference since I already saw him in bad light.

I bit at the cuticle on my thumb. “Are you sure it’s safe for two high school girls to go out there all by themselves?”

She snorted. “Please. I used to go there all alone and drag Steven out of their lairs, so this is nothing. Sarah also came with me once before Hayden got jumped out. Besides, no one will even notice us at the track. People there only care about the racers and their cash.”

I shuddered at the thought of getting jumped out. I could only imagine what Sarah had gone through the night she witnessed Hayden take a beating from several gang members, which happened only a month after he got out of coma and recovered from a serious car accident. She wasn’t the same after that, spending days in the hospital next to Hayden, who had been in a critical condition.

If Blake wanted to leave the gang, he would have to get jumped out too. I inhaled a deep breath as a pang of concern hit my chest.

“Fine. You’ve convinced me.”

“Good. I’ll use this opportunity to keep an eye on Steven.”

“Why?”

“Because that idiot could be risking his life with the way he’s acting right now. He’s dead set on racing this Thursday. I argued with him and tried to knock some sense into his empty head, but he’s like a train in motion. I can’t stop him.”

She frowned and crammed a few fries into her mouth. Only now did I notice she looked like she hadn’t slept a wink the previous night.

“What’s with the sour mood?” I asked her. “You don’t look good.”

“Tell me about it. I stuffed myself with energy drinks until I was ready to die from diarrhea.”

I giggled. “Oh no. Not diarrhea.”

“Everyone’s worst enemy.” She ran her hand through her hair and exhaled a sigh of exhaustion. “Steven and I had a huge fight last night.”

“Why?”

“I found coke under his bed and flushed it down the toilet.”

“Oh gosh.”

She ran her hand across her face. “He went crazy and acted like he was ready to be admitted to a mental hospital.”

“I can’t believe he’s using coke.”

“Coke, heroin, LSD…you name it. He’s getting worse, and it’s scary. Up until now, my mom always gave him big allowances, but now that she bought us a new house, we have to cut down our expenses a lot. So she finally refused to give him more money.”

I swallowed a piece of broccoli. “Finally.”

“Yeah, but—surprise, surprise, Steven doesn’t like that. He can’t spend a day without drugs, so he’s in a pinch. He needs to find cash, which brings us to that race on Thursday.”

I took another bite of the vegetables. “Does your mom know about it?”

“Steven threatened me and made me promise not to tell her anything.”

“He threatened you? How?”

“He said he’d run away from home if I ratted on him.”

“I’m so sorry, Mel. I wish I could help you.”

“I know. You should’ve seen him last night. It was worse than a horror movie. He was terribly aggressive.”

“How aggressive?”

“He hit our mom.”

My