These Dark Hearts: A Darling Hill Prequel Read online

  Contents

  Darling Hill

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  About the Author

  Published by Delesty Books

  THESE DARK HEARTS

  Copyright © L A Cotton 2021

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

  Edited by Andrea M Long

  Proofread by Sisters Get Lit(erary) Author Services

  Cover Designed by The Pretty Little Design Co.

  Darling Hill

  These Dark Hearts

  A Darling Hill Prequel

  These Dirty Lies

  A Darling Hill Duet: Book One

  These Dead Promises

  A Darling Hill Duet: Book Two

  I’ve never liked Halloween.

  There was something disconcerting about the whole thing. Dressing up to be someone—or something—you weren’t. Knocking on strangers’ doors and asking for candy. It was as if, for those couple of days around October thirty-first, everyone lost their minds.

  So yeah, I didn’t like Halloween.

  But Phoenix, my best friend in the whole world, loved it. Which meant I had to suck it up, because when it came to Halloween celebrations nobody did it quite like Nix and his guys, and they never left me out.

  Ever.

  “Yo, Birdie.” Stones pelted my window and I smiled, stretching my arms above my head, my toes curling as I shook off the lingering thrall of sleep.

  “Ten minutes,” Nix yelled from beyond the window of my small bedroom in the double-wide I’d lived in my whole life.

  “Ten minutes,” I shouted back, my smile growing. He always said ten minutes, but I always took at least twenty.

  I wasn’t a morning person. I preferred the night. Something about the quiet of the dark. Nix said I had affinity to the darkness, which highly amused him considering how much I loathed Halloween.

  Gingerly climbing out of bed, I tamed my dark hair into a ponytail and slipped into my closet-sized bathroom to wash up.

  Years ago, the smell of bacon would have filled the air. Or maybe pancakes and syrup. But those days were long gone. Now, if I didn’t get my own breakfast there was no one to make it for me.

  My heart squeezed at the thought.

  She’s still here, I reminded myself. But it wasn’t the same. The light had long gone out in my mom’s eyes. Now she was nothing more than a shell. Empty and hollow.

  Inhaling a deep breath, I braced myself for whatever state she was in, and made my way into the living room. “Mom?” I called out.

  Trepidation skittered up my spine as I approached her bedroom door on the other side of the trailer. “Mom, are you awake?”

  Peeking inside, I was hit with a wave of relief at the sight of her fragile form curled up in bed, sleeping. But it was tinged with disappointment and anger when my eyes landed on the empty bottle of vodka turned over on her nightstand.

  I grabbed a bowl from the kitchen and placed it next to her, rolling her onto her side as best I could. I’d found her one too many times choking on her own vomit to not take precautions. It was second nature now.

  By the time I was done, I had five minutes to spare to grab a granola bar and some juice. It wasn’t exactly the breakfast of champions, but it wasn’t like I had much of an appetite these days anyway.

  I’d just reached the door, when Nix’s shadow flickered across the window.

  “Morning.” I grinned stepping out onto the wraparound deck. When I’d been just a little girl, I’d thought we were lucky to have one of the biggest trailers in the whole of Darling Row.

  How wrong I’d been.

  “Get over here.” Nix pulled me into his arms, hugging me tight and I melted into his sturdy hold.

  If Mom was the storm in my life, unpredictable and tumultuous, Nix was the sun. Constant and true, he never let me down. He was my best friend, my protector, my confidante, and growing up, he’d been the big brother I’d never had.

  But lately, something had changed between us. His touch made my skin a little too tight, and his smile made my stomach flutter like a thousand butterflies taking flight.

  We weren’t kids anymore. We were juniors now, both seventeen. I had boobs and hips and an ass, and Nix had muscles in places I didn’t realize guys could develop muscles. If he noticed the changes in my body, he didn’t let on, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or bitterly disappointed.

  Because I didn’t want things to change between us.

  I didn’t.

  Even if I was hopelessly, irrevocably in love with Phoenix Wilder.

  “Hey, Nix.” Cherri Jardin strolled over to him as we climbed out of his beat down Corolla. She paid me no attention, but that was nothing new.

  When you were best friends with a guy like Nix, you quickly got used to girls’ hostility or downright ignorance. They didn’t see me as a threat, I was little Harleigh Wren Maguire, the girl that, despite our same age, Nix had always treated like a little sister.

  “I was hoping to see you this morning,” she purred.

  “Hey, Cher.” He gave her one of his trademark smirks. “How’s it going?”

  “All the better for seeing you.” She batted her eyelashes so hard I was surprised she didn’t lose a few.

  I glanced down, pretending to read the book in my hands.

  Nix laughed. Deep and gravelly, the sound rolled through me like thunder in the distance. His laugh hadn’t always affected me so much, but lately… lately, I noticed everything about him. Like how he always wore his tinted sunglasses even if the sun wasn’t out, as if he didn’t want anyone to see into his dark-gray eyes. How he leaned against whatever he could find—the wall, his car, the locker banks in school—as if standing was too much effort. Or how he always inhaled a sharp breath every time we set foot in school as if the pressure of growing up was almost too much to bear.

  So yeah, there wasn’t much I didn’t notice about Nix. But if he noticed me, noticing, he kept it to himself.

  And right now, he didn’t notice anyone but Cherri and her too-short-for-school tight denim skirt. I was a glutton for punishment, watching as his eyes slowly dropped down her body, working their way back up, lingering for a second too long on the cleavage spilling out of her black and red plaid shirt.

  “You’ll be at the party tonight, right?”

  “You know it,” he said.

  “Good.” She licked her lips suggestively, and the intense urge to bury myself into his side and stake my claim washed over me.

  That was new.

  I loved Nix, of course I did. He’d been the one person—the only person—I could rely on for as long as I could remember. He’d saved my ass more times than I could count. Not to mention the fact he was the only person who knew the truth about my mom.

  But I’d never considered what my love for him might become as we got older.

  Jealousy snaked through me as I watched Cherri inch closer, reaching out to run a hand along his muscular inked arm. The same arm that had hugged me less than fifteen minutes ago.

  “I have to get to class,” I said abruptly, brushing past them both.

  “Birdie, wait up.” Nix caught up to me, dropping
his arm over my shoulder. Instantly, some of the fire inside me died out. “Not a fan of Cherri?” he asked.

  I glanced up at him and rolled my eyes. “I don’t know what you see in her.”

  “If you have to ask, you’re not ready to know the answer.” His expression was teasing but it only made the knot in my stomach tighter.

  “I’m not eleven anymore, Nix.” I shucked out of his hold, hating the way my cheeks burned under his scrutiny.

  Hurrying away from him, I was hardly surprised when he grabbed my arm and yanked me back. “What’s going on with you?”

  Tell him.

  I could tell him and what… hope he returned my affections when I knew he didn’t feel the same? I was his best friend. The girl he’d placed neatly in the friend zone years ago.

  No, I couldn’t tell him. Nix was my best friend. His friendship meant too much to risk it on a silly case of unrequited love.

  I just had to ignore my growing feelings, the sense of possessiveness I felt over him, and eventually, it would go away, and things could go back to how they’d always been between us.

  “Wren,” he said, preferring to use my middle name. “Talk to me.”

  “I…”

  Tell him.

  Just tell him.

  No, don’t tell him.

  Don’t ever tell him.

  “I’m worried about Mom.” I let out a weary breath. “She’s been worse than usual lately. It makes me… jittery.”

  “Shit, babe. Come here.” He pulled me into his arms as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  And it was.

  Everything about the way he held me felt right. It felt… destined. As if we were inevitable.

  But there would always be a glaring wall between us because my feelings for him weren’t platonic anymore.

  They hadn’t been for years.

  “I’m fine.” I pushed him away gently, smiling. “I always feel uneasy this time of year.”

  “Seriously, B, you need to get over your fear of Halloween.” He gave me a crooked smile.

  “I’m not scared, jerk face.” I stuck my tongue out at him. “It’s just… you know all the costumes and unnecessary mayhem gives me the heebie jeebies.” Trading some textbooks in my locker, I took a second to catch my breath.

  He knew.

  He knew something was wrong between us.

  God, this was the worst thing that could happen.

  “You’re still coming to the party, right?”

  The party that the kids from our neighborhood threw down at the reservoir every year.

  “Nix.” His name caught in my throat like a lover’s sigh. “I don’t know…”

  “But you have to come.”

  “Why?” I peeked up at him through my long lashes. I hadn’t meant to ask, but now the word was hanging between us, and I realized I needed to know.

  I needed to know why it was so important to him that I was there.

  “Why?” A ripple went through the air, my skin growing tight again as he studied me. His brows drew together, his gunmetal gray eyes swirling with darkness. His thumb pressed gently into his bottom lip as the silence stretched before us.

  But then someone yelled down the hall and the spell was broken. Nix blinked, that easy smile of his fixing back into place.

  “Why?” He chuckled. “Because I wouldn’t be much of a best friend if I let you stay home and watch Friends reruns, would I?”

  I loosened the breath I was holding.

  For a second, for one single beat in time, I’d thought he was going to say something else entirely.

  Dejection rose inside me like a tidal wave, devastating and unrelenting, and I had to glance away to try and school my disappointment.

  “Come on, B, it’ll be fun.” He reached for me, twirling a strand of my hair around his finger. Always touching me the way guys touched their girlfriends. A brush of his hand against mine. Crushing me in a bear hug. Dropping a kiss on my head or cheek.

  Nix wasn’t afraid of human contact. He sought it out. It just didn’t mean the same thing when he touched me as when he touched girls like Cherri.

  My heart cinched.

  I’d watched him for years flirt and make out in darkened corners of parties or behind the bleachers. Nix loved kissing, he loved sex. I’d heard him talk to the guys about it enough. And it had never bothered me because I knew I had the one thing they never would.

  His heart.

  Phoenix Wilder loved me.

  He loved me with everything he was.

  He just didn’t love me enough.

  Darling Row, or The Row as everyone called it, was the vast trailer park on the edge of Darling Hill, a small town nestled in the Hudson Valley right between Albany and Hudson.

  The place where dreams came to die, or at least that’s what my mom liked to call it whenever she was sober enough to hold down a real conversation.

  She’d grown up across the nice side of town, Old Darling Hill. Where money was no object and kids didn’t have to worry about where their next meal was coming from. But when she’d gotten pregnant with me at the tender age of nineteen to a man seven years her senior, she was exiled from her family. My family.

  So she’d moved out to The Row and started over. A young woman with a baby on the way and nothing but the clothes on her back. My father—or sperm donor as he more rightfully deserved to be called—paid her off. He gave her enough money to make ends meet and washed his hands of us.

  Anger flashed inside me as I sat on the deck, sipping my warm milk.

  I’d only ever known this.

  The rows and rows of trailers. Air thick with desperation and tainted with the aftertaste of shattered dreams. It could be worse, I knew that. But it was a bitter pill to swallow knowing that if things had been different, that if my sperm donor had loved her as much as she’d loved him, I would have been one of the rich kids attending Darling Academy.

  A bitter laugh escaped my lips.

  I couldn’t imagine ever being one of them, with their expensive cars and designer labels and boutique stores.

  Kids from this side of town rarely ventured past the reservoir. It was the boundary line separating Old Darling Hill with our neighborhood that ran north along the Hudson River.

  Occasionally, kids from the academy wandered into our territory, but it never usually ended well for anyone.

  “Harleigh, baby, you out there?” Mom’s gravelly voice drifted from inside.

  “Yeah, Mom, I’m out here.” I drained the rest of my milk and braced myself.

  She appeared in the door, thin and pale, her hair as unkempt as her clothes. “There you are, baby.” She smiled, revealing liquor-stained teeth.

  “What’s up, Mom?”

  “Just wanted to see how you’re doing, sweetheart. I missed you today.”

  “You were out cold when I left.” I arched a brow, wondering if she would confess to the empty bottle of vodka.

  Of course, she didn’t.

  Because her addiction was something we didn’t talk about. The huge fucking elephant in the room.

  “It was a bad night.” Shame washed over her, and she dropped her gaze. “Did Nix give you a ride to school?”

  “You know he did, Mom.” He’s given me a ride every morning since he got his driver’s license.

  “He’s good to you. But I worry, Harleigh. Nix and his friends are—”

  “Don’t.” I jumped up, ready to go to bat for the only person who had ever given a crap about me.

  “Sweetheart, I just—”

  “No.” I snapped. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to act like you care when you’ve barely been sober since the semester started.” Which was weeks ago.

  Her expression guttered as she inhaled a deep breath. “I’m trying, baby. I just worry. You’re… you’re such a good girl, Harleigh, baby. And Nix is… there’s something dark inside that boy. I can feel it.”

  Strangled laughter bubbled in my chest. “Yeah well, n
ewsflash, Mom. There’s darkness in me too.”

  She reared back like I’d physically slapped her. “D-don’t say that, don’t ever say that.”

  “Whatever, Mom.” Brushing past her, I slipped into the trailer, but she followed, staggering after me like a wraith moving in the shadows.

  “Harleigh Wren, please, baby, I don’t want to fight.”

  I whirled around and glared at her. “What do you want then? Because you sure as hell don’t want to know how my day went or whether I’m keeping up my grades or eating right or—”

  “Stop.” She cried, rubbing her clavicle. “Please, stop.”

  “Well, what, Mom? What do you want, huh?”

  Sometimes, it was easier to deal with her when she was drunk than deal with… with this. Her lame attempt at pretending she cared when she hadn’t bothered asking for weeks if I had enough money to buy groceries or school supplies or to replace the worn contents of my bare-minimum closet.

  “It’s Halloween and I know you usually go out with Nix and—”

  “Seriously, Mom. You managed to drag yourself out of bed to warn me about the party.”

  Unbelievable.

  “I’ve been going out on Halloween with Nix for years.”

  “I know, baby. I know. But you’re not a child anymore, Harleigh. You’re all grown up and… and I worry.”

  “Oh, please. You’re a little late to talk to me about the birds and bees, Mom.”

  The blood drained from her face as she spluttered, “You mean… you and Nix…”

  “What?” My cheeks burned. “No. God, no.”

  Relief washed over her, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her I was flushed for entirely different reasons.

  Because now all I could think about was being with Nix like that. Our bodies pressed closed, slick with sweat. The sound of our moans in the darkness. The feel of him moving on top of me.