Hate So Good: A High School Bully Romance (The Hate Series Book 2) Nina Lincoln (latest novels to read TXT) 📖

After everything we’ve been through, our end comes to this. It’s a painful feeling because I know we had so much more to experience together. I love him, oh, how I love him.

I don’t know how long I lay in the dirt, shaking so badly my muscles are clenching painfully when someone steps into the clearing. With dread, I glance that way and see Tiffany standing at the edge of the trees, looking me over miserably.

She looks terrible. Her hair’s a tangled mess on her head, her eyes bloodshot and droopy, even her face sags, as though she gave up, that or she’s been on a long bender. Pale and shaky, she stands before me with a blank stare.

“Tiffany?”

Snapping out of her daze, she gives me a mournful look and turns, and with confusion, I watch as Teddy rolls into the clearing in his souped-up wheelchair, the high terrain wheels driving over the bumpy ground smoothly.

For a moment, I feel a pulse of hope, but it fades as I search his expression because he’s staring at me with a maniacal smile that withers my heart, leaving a hollow feeling of despair.

“Teddy?” I whisper.

“Surprise!” he says, his lips stretched in a fanatical smile.

“Wh-what?” Every single encounter passes before my eyes as he rolls toward me, and the confusion turns to anger, a lump of burning coal in my chest.

“My dear Finn, you didn’t actually think Nate was smart enough to pull this off? Why that’s actually an insult. He doesn’t know of my genius,” Teddy says with a curl to his lip.

“It’s you?” I ask through dry lips.

“Indeed.”

“But why?”

“Because I want you. I like it. I’m fucked up. Take your pick,” Teddy says with a shrug.

“But we’re friends,” I say, miserably.

He laughs loudly, the sound sending a shiver down my spine. There’s something wrong with him. He’s not all there. How did I miss this? How did I not know?

Rolling forward another inch in his souped-up scooter, he stops before me with a glare.

“No, Finn, we’re not friends,” he sneers. “You’re mine, but you just couldn't see me, Finn. All hung up over fucking Colt. What’s he ever done for you? Nothing. He’s a dick!”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, pitifully.

“Oh, you will be,” he says confidently, “You see, Finn, I thought you were the one, but you’re nothing but a whore. Do you know what happens to whores, Finn?”

Blankly, I stare at him until he sighs and says, “I punish them.”

My earlier trembling from the cold turns to full-on shivers as I stare at the boy with the cherubic features I loved as my friend, his sneering words circling my brain.

Panting, I tug on my restraints. I can’t get enough air. I’m going to die. I’m going to die at the hands of the one person I thought I could trust. I guess the jokes on me.

Inexplicably, visions of my dad, covered in blood as he looked down at me with feral eyes, dance through my head. He was the one person who should have loved me and protected me. Instead, he knelt before me with his bloody hands, grabbed my cheeks, and said in a voice I’d never heard before and can never forget, “Run.”

“Don’t worry, Finn,” Teddy croons, bringing me back to the present, “this will be as painful as possible.”

Rolling my eyes his way, I stare at him blankly, caught between my past and this painful present. I’m going to die, after all. It’s my destiny as sure as if Dad had done the deed himself.

“Finn, Princess, how does it feel to know I killed your fucking dick? Maybe you can see each other in the afterlife,” he chuckles.

My chest heaves with the thought of Colt gone from this world. It’s too soon for him. The world needs men like Colt to keep the light shining when it’s become too dark, and with regret, I realize I never told Colt he’s my light also, leading me through the darkness.

“Fuck you, you psycho fucking dick!” I say heatedly.

Smiling, he says, “No, dear, fuck you.”

Tugging on my restraints, I curse and struggle, enraged. If I could just get free, I’d show him what pain fucking feels like.

“Cut her,” he demands acidly, his dark eyes flying to Tiffany, who stands frozen, her eyes fixed on the trees.

When she doesn’t respond, he sighs and says, “Need I remind you of the consequences of disobeying me? Remember poor Sarah?”

She swings around and moves forward on jerky limbs, dropping to her knees beside me and refusing to look me in the eyes as she grasps the blade in her hand.

“Let’s do the arm first, hm? Cut off her sleeve.”

“Please,” I whisper, but Tiffany ignores me, tugging the knife through the fabric with glassy eyes.

Wrenching on my binds again, I try to struggle, but it’s no use. There’s no slack, and frankly, I don’t want her to slip up and cut an artery or something. She’s not exactly present in the moment.

“Now her arm, but not too deep! We don’t want her to bleed out...yet,” he says, silkily.

“Teddy, you don’t want to do this!”

Frantically I watch her cut my sleeve away, hoping for a fucking miracle, but nothing comes, of course, and I can’t contain my moan when she slides the knife over my skin.

Although truthfully, I’m so fucking scared, I can hardly feel it.

Slowly, she carves a trail over my arm, from the crook of my elbow to my armpit, and once done, she hangs her head, dropping back into her flat state.

“Now the other,” Teddy says in a greedy voice.

Moaning, I buck against her as she crawls over my body, but she pays me no mind, although she’s clumsy and frighteningly blank, as she knees me painfully in my stomach.

Staring into her dull eyes, I worry she might do more damage than intended in her current state as she rests beside my other arm and halfheartedly slices the sleeve away, her mouth turned down in a frown.

“Teddy,” I