Treacherous: Twisted Youth #1 Read online

  Treacherous

  Twisted youth #1

  By Chloe Walsh

  Published by Chloe Walsh

  Copyright 2015 by Chloe Walsh

  All Rights Reserved. ©

  The right of Chloe Walsh to be identified as the Author of the work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form or binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Edited by: Y. Crowley

  Cover Photo: Licensed from Shutterstock. Inc.

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-910817-08-7

  Print ISBN: 978-1-910817-09-4

  Disclaimer.

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  The author acknowledges all songs titles, song lyrics, film titles, mentioned in this book are the property of, and belong to, their respective owners.

  Contents

  Copyright notice

  Disclaimer

  Table of contents

  Other books by Chloe Walsh

  Author's note

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Playlist for Treacherous

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Treacherous

  Twisted Youth #1

  By Chloe Walsh

  Other books by Chloe Walsh

  The Broken Series

  Break My Fall #1

  Fall To Pieces #2

  Fall On Me #3

  Forever We Fall #4

  Twisted Youth Series

  Treacherous #1

  Later in 2015

  Look out for…

  Awakened

  (Derek's story)

  By Chloe Walsh

  &

  Inevitable

  (Hope & Jordan's story)

  By Chloe Walsh

  Author's Note:

  Treacherous, is the first novel from the twisted youth series, though many of the characters are from the broken series and some readers may enjoy reading the full story.

  All previous books are available on most online platforms.

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to anyone who is trapped

  in a personal, never-ending battle with mental illness.

  To all of you who feel misunderstood, alone, isolated,

  and tortured to the point of real and honest to god despair

  You are not alone.

  I feel your pain.

  I fight the fight.

  And remember your voice is your most powerful weapon

  Keep fighting.

  xxx

  Prologue

  3 months earlier

  Noah

  "Don’t you want to make mommy happy, Noah?" my mother asks me and I nod eagerly.

  I'm seven years old and I want to do anything to stop her from crying. To stop her from marking her body with those horrible crucifixes. I know that when I'm big I will never pray. I don’t want to pray ever again. I promise myself I won't. But I don’t tell mom that. That would make her sad. I keep it a secret. I'm good at keeping secrets.

  "Then climb inside with me," she coaxes, holding the closet door open. Her brown eyes are wild and dark and I'm afraid to get into that closet. I know what will happen if I do. It's a bad idea.

  "You're safe out here, mom," I tell her, hoping she'll believe me this time and not get mad.

  "Do you want to die, Noah?" she screams and her face distorts into ugly mom. Not pretty mom. Ugly mom is mad and scary and cuts her skin with her nails.

  "No," I whisper even though sometimes I think it can’t be worse than this...

  "You're going to die," she hisses as she scratches her arms. "We're both going to die…like him. Just like him."

  "No, we won't," I tell her as calmly as possible. I wish my dad would come home soon. He knows how to make mom feel better. He gives her that special medicine wrapped up in silver foil and she sleeps. Maybe he's gone out to get some medicine for mom?

  "It's the devil inside you," she snarls.

  Ugly mom doesn’t like me. She calls me names and that makes me sad. Pretty mom is much nicer. I hope my dad gets here soon…

  Reaching out, mom grabs my sweater and drags me into the closet. "Pray," she spits as her long nails dig roughly into the flesh on my arm. "Pray for your soul, you evil child…"

  Jerking awake, I grabbed my bed sheets and lay perfectly still, breathing slowly as I tried to get a handle on myself.

  I hated those kind of dreams – the one's that reminded me exactly why I needed to keep doing what I fucking hated most.

  The sun shone through my half-closed blinds, letting me know I'd slept away the best part of another summer's day. I had hoped to be up early enough to go hiking with Logan, but obviously I'd overslept – again. I couldn’t seem to stay awake these days.

  "Noah, are you awake yet?"

  My bedroom door sung inwards and Ellie Dennis, my step-sister, stood in the doorway clad in nothing but a bra and thong.

  Well, I assumed she was wearing a thong. She was facing me so I couldn’t actually see her ass, but it was a solid guess considering she liked to prance around the house in next to no clothing.

  Ellie had her poker-straight, waist-length black hair pulled back in a pony-tail, making sure her curvaceous frame was on full display. "How are you feeling?" she purred in that slinky, cougar voice I hated. It was the voice she used when she wanted something – most often my dick.

  I let out a heavy sigh and flinched when a sharp pain ricocheted through my side. "I'm alive, aren’t I?"

  "I missed you, Noah," Ellie crooned. "You were gone longer than usual."

  "No shit, Ellie." Usually I worked closer to home and made it home each night, but my last job was out of state and it had taken a week. I finally made it home late last night, and I was feeling every one of those extra days.

  Ellie stepped further into my room, walking over to my bed. "By the way, the house next door is occupied – a new family moved in last week."

  Rubbing my face with my hand I let out a sigh. "And you're telling me this because…"

  "You know why I'm telling you this," she shot back heatedly, her green eyes flaring like her temper. "Dad says we're supposed to keep…"

  "Please stop talking to me about your dad." I didn’t need this crap. Not today. Not after last night…

  "Do you need a massage?" she asked, smart to change the subject, as she sat on the edge of my bed and leaned closer. Her breasts strained against the tiny scraps of red lace covering them.

  "No, I really don’t," I replied, entirely uninterested in what she was offering.

>   Unperturbed by my refusal, Ellie slipped her hand under my blankets and fisted my dick. "Are you sure," she purred, gliding her hand up and down my semi-erect shaft. "I can help ebb some of that tension inside you."

  My eyes fluttered shut – an involuntary reaction to having my dick rubbed. I knew I should tell Ellie to get the hell out of my room, but I honestly didn’t have the energy to argue with her. I knew that sounded fucked up and sick, but that was the truth.

  Instead I gently knocked Ellie's hand aside and rolled out of bed before walking stiffly into the adjoining bathroom and closing the door in her face.

  "Wow. Rude much, Noah?" I heard her shout.

  Thankfully, when I turned on the shower the noise of the motor drowned out her annoying fucking voice.

  Every muscle in my body ached as I stood under the scalding hot water and I had to hold onto the wall to keep my balance. Last night had taken a hell of a lot out of my body. I was pretty sure I'd busted another rib because breathing in stung like a bitch.

  Closing my eyes, I tipped my head back, allowing the water to trickle down my face, enjoying the cleansing sensation. With any hope the water would wash away my memories or, better still, my conscience.

  ****

  Every inch of my body was aching by the time I made it out of the shower and got dressed.

  Pain was coursing through every muscle attached to my spinal cord and I honestly didn’t know how I was staying upright. I felt like jelly. I looked like shit. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to work tonight – hell, I was fairly certain I needed medical attention.

  Pushing my pain to the back of my mind, I made my way down the staircase and headed into the kitchen to refuel.

  Popping a slice of last night's pizza in my mouth, I grabbed another and headed out back. As soon as I stepped outside I heard the sound of a guitar strumming followed by a female voice singing the lyrics of a song I'd never heard before.

  "…I changed my life to make you love me but in the end it doesn’t count..."

  "…All the tears you saw me cry and now you're gone without a sound..."

  I stood stock-still with a slice of peperoni pizza hanging out of my mouth as I strained to hear her…

  "…No more sounds of joy and laughter – just the songs of yesterday…"

  "…No more saying babe, I love you because now you're gone away…"

  I moved closer to the garden fence, fucking driven by the insane urge to put a face to that voice.

  "… And now I wonder just how long it'll take…"

  "…For me to say I love you..."

  A skinny blonde sat cross-legged and barefoot in the garden next to mine, with a guitar almost the size of her resting on her bare thighs.

  Swallowing my last slice of pizza, I leaned against the wall separating our houses and watched her play.

  "…To another man, another face, another heart, another fake..."

  Throwing her head back, her long blonde hair splayed everywhere as she played with her eyes closed, singing at the tops of her lungs. Her fingers were a blur of movement and I was fucking fascinated with her.

  "…There was a time I would've fought for you…There was a time I would've ignored your cruel words when I overheard you say I wish I never met her…"

  "…Not anymore. Not today. I want more. I deserve better... "

  She finished her song and placed the guitar on the grass beside her before lying down with her eyes closed and sighing heavily.

  Her blonde wavy hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in days. The denim cut-offs she had on were worn to a thread and the white t-shirt she wore was at least five times too big for her, tied into a makeshift belly-top with a hair clip.

  Her skin looked like ivory silk, she had a cut on her left knee and a bruise on her right elbow and I'd never seen anything so fucking beautiful.

  She wasn’t intentionally sexy… she just was.

  I watched her intently as she stretched her arms and legs out, clearly basking in the summer sunshine – I couldn’t turn my face away.

  For some strange reason the words of Gareth Brook's song Unusually Unusual popped into my mind which was weird as fuck because I wasn’t a country music fan.

  She twisted her face to one side, opened her eyes and looked straight into mine.

  She didn’t look away.

  Neither did I.

  I just stood there, barely breathing, with a fucked up tightening pain in my chest, as her hazel colored eyes searched deep inside of me, pulling at a part of me I never knew existed.

  "What are you doing?" a voice demanded from behind me, startling me and breaking the weird thing I had going on with the girl over the fence.

  The blonde closed her eyes, turned her face up to the sky, and the moment was gone – as was the weird pulling sensation in my chest.

  Ellie stepped into my personal space. "Noah, I asked you a question…" her voice trailed off as her eyes followed my line of sight.

  A harsh laugh escaped from her. "You know you can't, right?" Ellie sneered, glowering over the wall at the girl. "You know what's at stake for us. Never piss on your own doorstep."

  "I know," I told her.

  It didn’t stop me looking at her though.

  I think she seared me that very first day…because I sure as hell wasn’t the same after her.

  ****

  Chapter 1

  Present Day

  Teagan

  My next-door neighbor was certifiably evil – I was sure of it.

  When I first arrived here at the beginning of the summer she snubbed me and ignored every one of my salutes and 'good mornings', looking through me like I was invisible.

  That would have been fine by me if it had stayed that way, but it hadn’t…

  Something changed and I had no idea what that something was, but in the space of a week her attitude towards me switched from being cool and uninterested to malicious and downright hostile.

  In the beginning I forced myself to believe I was imagining her hostility – I mean, she didn’t know me, and I'd done nothing to perturb the girl. But the morning she wound her car window down as she reversed out of her driveway and verbally attacked me I had very quickly realized it was personal.

  Three months later – and with a whole bunch of verbal sparring sessions under our belts – it was clear that Ellie Dennis and I would never be friends.

  Aside from the fact that she'd told me, on more than one occasion what she thought of me, the girl seemed to deliberately go out of her way to cause trouble for me.

  If she wasn't camped outside my driveway, armed with her group of brainless friends, idiot of a boyfriend and cartons of eggs, then she was cranking her stereo in the middle of the night or spreading very nasty – very unoriginal – rumors about me.

  Ellie and her little gang of followers had decided to make my life a living hell for reasons unknown to me.

  Thanks again for the fabulous relocation, Uncle Max…

  Because of my so-called guardian – and I used that term lightly – we were the latest family to take up residency in Thirteenth Street, University Hill, Boulder, Colorado, and I was the sole target of the bitch over the fence.

  And because of my wonderfully unconventional uncle, I was starting sixth year – senior year – tomorrow morning, in a brand new school, with no clue of the curriculum and a serious issue with driving on the right side of the road.

  It really sucked because I had a hard enough time fitting in back home in Ireland, so what hope had I in America – with bears and earthquakes and heat waves, spiders, snakes and tornados?

  The worst I'd seen in Ireland was a daddy-long-legs and a bit of rain. I didn't do Fahrenheit, I was a Celsius girl, and anything over sixteen degrees was too much for me.

  Considering the abuse I'd endured since my arrival on Coloradan soil, I was more than a little disgruntled with Max and the fact that he hadn't taken my opinion into account when making a decision that I don't know...oh… kind of affected
my life as well as his.

  We'd always been more like roommates than uncle and niece, and up until three and half months ago our living arrangement had been unfolding beautifully. That was until the night Max sat me down to discuss the position he'd been offered as head of the E.R in St. Luke's Hospital, back in his and mom's hometown.

  It hadn't been as much of a discussion as it had been a statement. It was happening, we were moving to America, and that was that.

  The conversation, and our relationship, pretty much went downhill the second the words 'you have to come with me, Teagan. I need to take the position. You don't have a choice' came out of his mouth.

  After a tedious and lengthy heated debate, Max had used his get out of jail card, the 'I uprooted my whole life for you when you needed me and it's only fair to return to favor' guilt trip ensured to make me succumb to almost any demand.

  I'd given in with only two prerequisites; someplace quiet to live so I could concentrate on my final year of school, and the absolute guarantee that I could return to Ireland for University next year.

  Staying true to his word, Uncle Max leased us this gorgeous two-story situated in the suburbs and surrounded by a well-tended garden, and with a view of the Rocky Mountains that was, in my humble opinion, to die for.

  At first the neighborhood had seemed quiet compared to what I had envisioned, and I had thought – in my vast naivety – that I would get along with the other neighbors, or at the very least blend in.

  Well, today was day ninety-nine of operation-blend-in-with-the-locals and the shit had officially hit the fan…

  It was only five in the evening and I'd already been subjected to no less than three verbal attacks from Ellie, a record breaking one-minute long evil glare from her fat father, and of course my daily treat of having our trash tipped out all over our driveway.

  Of course the nasty pranks and attacks from the girl next-door neighbor didn't bother Uncle Max since he was always at the hospital – and I was the one who cleaned everything up – but I wished he would spend more time at home with me. I was lonely and it was really shit having to face this crap on my own every day – especially now the stakes had been raised.