Savage Elites: An Elite High School Bully Romance (Bully Boys of Brittas Academy Book 2) Read online

  Savage Elites

  Bully Boys of Brittas Academy Book 2

  Sofia Daniel

  Copyright © 2019 by Sofia Daniel.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Join Sofia’s Study Group for teasers of upcoming books.

  www.SofiaDaniel.com

  Contents

  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

  From Sofia Daniel

  Chapter 1

  My stomach lurched with each revolution of the car down the mountainside, and my heartbeat accelerated with each passing moment. Blood roared in my ears, drowning out the sound of the radio but letting in every gut-wrenching creak and crash and crush of the car’s metal bodywork.

  I had to stop looking at the moonlit figure in black. I had to jump out. Jump out before the vehicle fell into the stream. Or into a boulder.

  I wedged open the door, but the car tumbled into a tree trunk and forced it closed. “Fuck!”

  My fingers shook over its handle, and when I pulled it, the door jammed. Cold despair washed through my insides. I was trapped. Trapped in this metal coffin.

  With more force this time, I opened the door and lurched out to freedom, but my seatbelt held me back. The car paused, and a released breath whooshed out of my lungs. Just as I undid the belt buckle and was about to jump out, the car overbalanced and continued descending. But the door still swung open. There was still a chance.

  I leaped out of the car and hit my shoulder and the side of my head on a rock. Pain radiated through my skull, my right shoulder, and the right side of my hip, and I squeezed my eyes shut. The creak and crash of the car continued as it tumbled further down the valley.

  When I opened my eyes, the figure in black descended toward me at an alarming pace.

  Cold panic exploded through my chest and surged through my veins.

  If I didn’t run, they would catch up with me.

  If I didn’t run, they would finish the job they started.

  “S-shit.” I stumbled to my feet. Pain lightning-bolted across my left hip, and a scream tore from my lips. But I couldn’t dwell on that. I needed to run.

  As I shuffled along the mountainside, my feet skidded on mud and on vegetation still wet from the rain. I splayed out my uninjured right arm and tried to maintain my balance. A crack of thunder filled my insides with cold terror, but I picked up my pace. I turned, and a flash of lightning illuminated the mountainside and the advancing dark figure.

  The wind blew on my wet skin, adding to the chill, and my head throbbed in time with my galloping heart. As I turned around to look at my pursuer, my shoulder clipped the side of a tree trunk. The impact sent a new explosion of agony down my left side, knocked me off my feet and sent me spinning down the slope.

  No matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t stop the fall. No matter how much I flailed, I couldn’t find anything to hold.

  Then I stumbled over a ledge and fell.

  A shocked breath filled my lungs with freezing air, and a silent scream emptied them. Flailing through the air, I tried righting myself, but panic seized my muscles and kept me immobile.

  Just as I took my next breath, my head cracked against a hard surface, and everything went black.

  Mom’s voice penetrated my stupor. She told me to hold on, that I was safe and found, but every nerve ending vibrated with pain. I just wanted it to end. Then unconsciousness pulled me back into its dark embrace.

  The beeps of monitors seeped through the cocoon of oblivion and into my consciousness. Why was I dreaming of being in a hospital? This had to be a nightmare. I had to wake.

  “Willow?” asked a female voice. “Willow Evergreen?”

  I forced my eyes open. A blurry figure stood over me, but I couldn’t make out her face. I closed my eyes again, inhaled, exhaled, and opened them. She was a blonde-haired nurse a few years older than me, wearing a blue tunic with white piping.

  “Willow?”

  “What happened?” I rasped. “Why am I in a hospital?”

  Her pale brows creased, and she stared down at me as though I’d asked the question in Latin. “I’ll…” She licked her lips. “I’ll inform the doctor that you’re awake.”

  “Can’t you just tell me—”

  “Won’t be a minute.” She spun on her heel and hurried to the end of the ward and out of the double doors.

  “Excuse me?” I tried raising my upper body, but every muscle screamed with agony, making me slump back into the mattress.

  A cursory glance to my left and right told me that I was in a ward with nine other beds, each occupied. Windows stretched along the length of the far wall, giving a view of the night sky, and on the other side, windows overlooked the ward’s bustling reception area.

  The blonde nurse spoke to another nurse in a black uniform, who glanced into my room and looked into a computer screen. My heart sank. This was real, and I had no idea why I was once again in a hospital, connected to heart monitors and drips.

  I closed my eyes and let out a shuddering breath, checking my body for signs of sexual assault. A quick squeeze of my pelvic muscles told me that it was the only part of my body that didn’t hurt.

  Did Sebastian crash the jeep? My heart jumped into my throat. What happened to him and Leopold? Nausea swirled through my insides. I remembered sitting in the backseat, laughing and joking with them about—my mind went blank. But Sebastian was a careful driver. I was sure we had reached the academy after our night at the hideout.

  A female voice said, “That’s the girl who—”

  My eyes snapped open, and the two healthcare assistants in grey uniforms stopped talking and continued toward the bed at the end of the ward.

  I furrowed my brow. Maybe they were talking about someone else.

  Throughout the evening, people shot me disapproving looks, but nobody stopped. A sigh slid from my lips. I couldn’t even remember how I’d gotten here, but from the disapproval in everyone’s eyes, I had probably hurt someone. Ashley? But she hadn’t even gone near the west wing since betraying me.

  “Miss Evergreen?” The senior consultant I had met the day after Ashely’s initiation stood at the foot of the bed.

  My brows drew together. “Dr. Croft?”

  Without a word, she drew the curtains, and I gulped.

  “Do you know why you’re here?”

  I shook my head.

  “Someone reported a serious accident at the Hard Knott Pass.”

  My heart skittered several beats. The route to Sebastian’s hideout was in the opposite direction. What was going on? Dr. Croft continued staring at me as though waiting for an answer, so I said, “Oh.”

  “You’re in the Acute Medical Unit of the Cumberland Royal Infirmary. The mountain rescue and ambulance crew found you unconscious on a ledge and a
irlifted you to the hospital. After such a serious accident, you’re lucky to be alive.”

  “But I don’t know how I got there.”

  The corner of her eyes tightened with irritation. “Perhaps it’s due to your blood alcohol levels being twice the legal limit.”

  “Blood—s” I shook my head. “But I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since those girls forced me to drink.”

  She pursed her lips. “It was all over your school uniform.”

  “No.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked.

  I cast my mind back to the night before, when I had been working on Corrine’s diary. A shocked breath whooshed out of my lungs. She had been seduced by Prakash!

  Pushing those thoughts aside, I continued my recollection of events. Rushing to Cormac’s room too early in the morning and remembering it was Sunday. Getting abducted by Leopold and Sebastian to their mountain hideout. Then… A flush bloomed on my cheeks, and I skipped over the next few events.

  “You remember something?” asked the doctor.

  “From Sunday, but it’s not related to the accident.”

  “It’s two-thirty A.M. on Wednesday,” said the doctor. “You were brought in on Monday at eleven fifty-five P.M.”

  My brows drew together. This made no sense whatsoever. Sebastian drove me back on Monday morning. We were supposed to arrive in time to get changed before classes started.

  I stared into the doctor’s expressionless, chocolate-brown eyes. “What about the two boys I was with?”

  Her brows rose. “Your Renault landed in the stream, and emergency services found no other passengers.”

  “Renault?” My hands rose to the neckline of my checkered hospital gown. “That’s Mom’s car.”

  Pursing her lips, Dr. Croft leaned forward and shone a light in my pupils. “The alcohol should have left your system by now, and—”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “That’s a matter to discuss with the police,” she said.

  “Has anyone told my next of kin. My uncle—”

  “Already knows, but you still need to give the police a statement.”

  I wrapped a hand around the base of my neck and squeezed my eyes shut. How on earth did I go from the back of Sebastian’s jeep to this? “The whole of Monday is missing, and I don’t have a clue why.”

  The doctor didn’t respond for several moments, and I cracked my eyes open. She drew back and tilted her head to the side as though considering the truth in my words. I held my breath.

  From the way she spoke and acted, it looked like she thought I had taken up drink-driving. Perhaps she had gone into my medical records and remembered the last time I was here. Maybe she was finally getting an inkling that I might be a victim of something nefarious.

  “I’ll refer you to the neurology department,” she said.

  Before I could ask her what she thought could be wrong with me, Dr. Croft stepped out through the gap in the curtains.

  My shoulders deflated, and I sank back into the mattress. Without my mobile, Uncle Trevor, or a memory of Monday’s events, there wasn’t much I could do about this predicament.

  When I awoke several hours later, the curtains remained closed, even when an assistant brought in fresh water, and another lady asked me if I wanted tea, coffee, or toast. Perhaps the hospital staff didn’t take kindly to people they believed got themselves into resource-draining accidents, or maybe they had forgotten about me.

  As I sipped the dregs of my over-stewed tea, the curtains parted, and two police officers stepped through. The male, a man in his early thirties, wore the flat cap of a sergeant, and the female, a tall, dark-skinned woman, wore a woman police constable’s bowler hat.

  “Miss Evergreen?” asked the male officer. “I’m Sergeant Rockford, and this is my colleague, Constable Clive. I understand that the mountain rescue found you early on Tuesday morning. Could you tell me how you got there in your own words?”

  I shook my head. “My mind goes blank every time I try to remember.”

  “What can you recall?”

  “Monday morning,” I replied.

  Constable Clive flipped open her notebook and pulled the lid off her pen with her teeth.

  “Were you at school?”

  “I was on my way back from visiting friends.”

  “Their names?” she asked.

  “Sebastian Garraway and Leopold Brunswick.”

  She paused to scribble them down.

  “You were alone?”

  “Um… No. Sebastian was driving, and I sat in the back.”

  “How much alcohol had you consumed?”

  “None.”

  The constable turned to look at the sergeant, whose face blanked. I blew out a breath. Did they think I was lying? If I’d gotten drunk on Monday morning, I would probably have sobered up by the time of the supposed accident.

  “Where did you go?” she asked.

  “They were taking me back to school.”

  “Which is?” she snapped.

  I reared back at her harsh tone. “Um… Brittas Academy.”

  They both exchanged glances. Sergeant Rockford asked, “Are you the daughter of the Evergreen couple whose car tumbled off Hard Knott Pass?”

  A lump formed in my throat. I could already see what they were getting at. A suicide attempt. “Yes, but I wouldn’t—”

  “And Sebastian Garraway is the young man who crashed his Porsche over the same stretch of road,” the sergeant muttered to his colleague.

  Irritation fizzled across my skin. “You’re going to say I got drunk and drove off the side of the mountain on purpose. It’s not like that!”

  His brow rose. “Tell me how it is, then?”

  “That’s the problem.” My hands bunched the sheets. I couldn’t raise my head. Couldn’t meet the skepticism in their eyes. There were better ways to commit suicide than driving a car off the side of a mountain, and I wouldn’t consider any of them.

  Sucking in a deep, calming breath, I said, “I don’t know, and I need help with piecing together what happened.”

  A silence stretched out between us, but the noise of the bustling ward continued. Trolleys squeaked, and Doctors made their rounds.

  I swallowed hard. “The consultant is referring me to a neurologist, you know.”

  The sergeant handed me a card. “We’ll wait until the medical report before proceeding further. If you remember anything in the meantime, let me know.”

  I stared at the card, not wanting to look either of the officers in the eye. “Thank you.”

  The female police constable said, “I looked up your records before setting off, and we’re still waiting for a decision from you on whether to press charges about the assault last month.”

  “I-I’d like to press charges, please.” Those girls had to know there would be repercussions for their acts.

  “Alright. The next step is to obtain genetic samples from each suspect. Get in touch to confirm the names of all the girls you recognized from the assault.”

  “Thank you.”

  The curtains remained around my bed, but I was grateful for the privacy. Resentment and disapproval tinged the eyes and voice and movements of each person who stepped into my little space. No matter how many times I brought up the fact that I would never drink and drive, nobody seemed to believe me.

  I turned my head to the fluorescent ceiling lights and sighed. Perhaps they’d heard that excuse hundreds of times from those brought in with alcohol-related blackouts. Why would they think of me any different?

  Later, as I poked at the mashed potato topping of my shepherd’s pie, the curtains swished open. I glanced up to find Sebastian, Leopold, and Prakash advancing toward me.

  I dropped my fork and drew in a sharp breath through my teeth. “H-how—”

  “Willow, I’m so sorry.” Sebastian grabbed my hands and placed them on his lips. “What on earth happened after you left?”

  My heart stuttered out rapid beat
s, and I stared into Sebastian’s terror-stricken eyes. “I-I don’t remember anything.”

  His expression on his face slackened into blank shock. “Nothing?”

  “Willow.” Leopold pushed himself forward. “Do you remember seeing—”

  “Wait.” Sebastian held out a hand to silence his friend.

  I turned my gaze to Leopold, whose face twisted with annoyance, and to Prakash, whose brows furrowed. Neither of their expressions gave anything away.

  “Tell us everything you remember from Monday night,” said Sebastian.

  “That’s the problem.” I blew out a long breath. “Everything from the time you drove me back from the hideout is a blank. Can you help me piece together what happened the rest of the day?”

  Sebastian’s gaze dropped to my hands. I turned to Prakash, who tilted his head to the side, examining me with the oddest expression. It was the one he used when Miss Weir made him estimate an answer to a question without using his calculator.

  “You and Kash got drunk together, then later in the evening, I heard you arguing with Seb,” Leopold blurted.

  I turned to Sebastian. “About what?”

  “Miss Claymore was also there,” Leopold added in an accusing tone.

  Sebastian turned to Leopold and snarled, “She caught us together.”

  My insides cringed. Miss Claymore despised Sebastian and seemed to relish the opportunity to punish him for supposed bullying. If she caught Sebastian kissing me goodnight, then she would probably try to punish him for assault. “I hope she wasn’t too hard on you.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Sebastian squeezed my hand. “Let’s work out how you ended up in a car halfway down a mountain.”