The Brotherhood of Ieoseph Cavan
ChAptEr 9
The Story So Far:
Cammie and the Gallagher Girls arrived at Blackthorne, and all except Cammie were immediately welcomed by the boys. Tyler Hill took pity on Cammie and easily befriended her, but he was the only boy willing to. Zach Goode, another junior boy, was intrigued and confused by Cammie, who seems to know nothing of her father's involvement at Blackthorne, but only watched her from afar. There was immediate chemistry between Zach and Cammie, to Cammie's embarrassment and to Zach's amusement.
During dinner, the girls found out they would be sharing a bunker with the boys, much to their dismay, leading to a fight between Tina and Cammie.
In the middle of the night, the girls were surprised with Night Drills, a vigorous night-training program they will be graded on. The Night Drill instructor/sergeant, Beau, immediately singles out Cammie, just like the other boys did. Except, instead of singling her out to make her a social pariah, Beau singled her out because he is sexually attracted to her…in the creepiest way possible. [Rapist, much? Cammie thinks so.]
The next day, Cammie, Bex and Liz get a taste of morning life at Blackthorne. They even have to shower with the boys, in the communal shower room! Not to mention how much more obnoxious Zach gets!
During breakfast Xavier Gray and his gang disrespect Cammie, but she handles it beautifully, much to the admiration of Julien Walsh, one of the guards sent by Gallagher. The girls get their schedules and split up to go to class. On the way, Cammie and Tyler run into Wesley Hamon, the other young guard from Gallagher. Immediately, Tyler takes a liking to him.
After morning classes, Cammie suffered from a panic attack at lunch induced by the mention of her father by Mario. She runs out, her friends following, leaving more questions in the boys' minds than answers.
The she is shocked again when she arrives at Cove. Ops and sees her long-lost godfather/uncle, Joe Solomon. She is shocked and angry at first, and runs away. She ends up caught in the rain with Beau Travers, who comes shockingly close to forcing himself on her. Before he has the chance to cross the line, however, Solomon arrives, having run out of class after Cammie. He warns Beau off of the Gallagher girls and he and Cammie come face-to-face in the rain. A shouting match has them resolving the tension between them, and they spend the rest of the day playing hooky and catching up in the junior bunker.
The next morning at breakfast, Cammie and the other Gallagher Girls are shocked to find out that Rachel, Abbey and Madame Dabney have come to Blackthorne for a short stay as well. Rachel and Abbey are doing business with Dr. Steve at the request of the school board, and Madame Dabney tagged along to offer dance classes at Blackthorne for a couple weeks.
Also, Tyler breaks down and admits to Cammie that he is gay.
Oh, and Grant is an idiot.
Chapter Nine: Painting the Town
Wesley laughs, the sound melodic to his ears. Wesley's hands find their way to his legs—up his thighs—and finally he leans towards him and then—
He woke up.
Blackthorne Institute for Boys
Front Gate
Just after breakfast
HALLOWEEN DAY
.~***~.
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, load up!" Beau's voice boomed over the excited chattering of the Blackthorne boys and Gallagher girls gathered at the front gate of the Institute. When they didn't listen, he said, "Any day now, or extra laps!" Quickly, the crowd surged towards the buses (Blackthorne Institue for Delinquent Boys printed in bold print on the side) that would take them into the small town about a mile and a half away from Blackthorne.
Cammie quickly boarded the nearest one, sitting with Tyler behind Bex and Liz, who sat across the isle from Zach and Grant.
"Excited?" she asked Tyler, who was being unusually quiet.
"Mm," he said, staring out the window. Cammie followed his longing gaze. Her eyes grew wide when she saw exactly whom he was staring at. "Wesley," she hissed at him in surprise.
He spun to face her, his cheeks heating up. "Shush!" he panicked, glancing around to make sure no one had heard. Cammie, scolded, turned to stare at the back of Bex's chair. She couldn't help but grin—this was just too perfect.
"Well…do you like him?"
"Cammie," Tyler groaned, hitting the back of his head against the soft chair with a thump. "Please just pretend you didn't see that!"
"But—"
"Please Cam?"
Cammie sighed unhappily. "Fine."
After a moment of silence Cammie inquired as to how often the boys were allowed to leave the school. "Once every three months we get a day in town" Tyler said. "Otherwise we aren't allowed to leave the grounds."
"That's confinement!"
"Cam, our cover is a school for criminal boys. We'd have a lot of trouble keeping it if we were walking around town all the time. Besides, we don't exactly have the bet relationship with the townies."
"Neither does Gallagher."
"Really?" Tyler asked, surprised.
Cammie nodded. "The people of Roseville don't take well to snobby rich girls."
"Ah, I see."
"Yeah, well."
"A lot of us just stay on campus instead of going to town. Most of the younger boys leave, but those of us who aren't new know not to go there if we can help it."
"Why?"
"We don't like the way they look at us. They only reason so many of us are going today is because you guys are here."
"…Thanks."
.~***~.
The town was coated in the yellow and orange and red of autumn, and homes were decorated with cobwebs and bats hanging on bare branches. Stores had signs hanging in the windows advertising bags of candy corn for cut prices and last minute Halloween costumes for little boys and girls. All around them, the people of the town were out and about, doing their shopping and preparing for the nights coming festivities.
Cammie was sitting in the fading park with Bex, Liz, Tyler, Grant, Jonas and Zach. The boys had spent the afternoon tugging the girls around town. They seemed determined to show them as much as they could of the most normal part of their lives, and all around town they kept running into other Blackthorne Boys and Gallagher girls were doing the same.
Finally, after Bex complained for a good five minutes that her stomach was about to implode from hunger, Jonas had suggested getting sandwiches from Subway and going to sit in the park. Cammie got ham and cheese. So did Zach.
Despite the biting cold wind, it felt good to stop for a few minutes and eat in silence. Shivering, she switched between fingering the buttons of her pea coat at her neck, rubbing her hands together and taking bites of her sandwiches.
As they were finishing the last bites of heir lunch, Liz gasped in delight. "A merry-go-round!" She jumped up and ran in the direction of a rusting merry-go-round at the other end of the park. Zach groaned as the others stood to follow after her. "I was hoping she wouldn't see that."
When they got there, Liz was talking to the old man huddled in the control booth. She said, "Guys, he said it's only a dollar per person for a ride! Oh, can we please?"
"Liz…" Cammie said with a sign.
"There is no way I'm getting on that thing," Bex said. "A: I'm not six years old. B: I am 96.7 percent sure this thing is about as safe as the Titanic." She rubbed her toed on the faded, rusting metal. It looked as if it hadn't been used in about twenty-five years.
"Please?" Liz pleaded, sending them a pleading look.
Her friends just stared at her for a long moment, before Grant broke first. "Holy hell, stop the torture! The puppy eyes—I. Can't. Take. Them!" Frantically he dug around in his pocket and pulled out a dollar for Liz and a dollar for him.
Liz grinned and threw herself at him in a hug. Grant barely managed to hold onto the tiny girl to stop her from pushing them both to the ground (her strength was, quite frankly, alarming). Then he led by her hand to the control booth like a brother leading his little sister, and they both bought a ticket.
"I can't believe it," Bex said. Her voice and expression were in horrified awe. "I can't bloody believe it."
"That's you man up there," Zach said as they watched the machine start. Liz was sitting on a graying unicorn, while Grant had chosen the smallest pony he could find (purple with a yellow saddle). The five of them just stared as Grant and Liz giggled and whooped with glee at the whopping 2 miles per hour they were going.
"This is just ridiculous," Tyler said after Grant and Liz had ridden twice more. The rest of them had situated themselves against the rickety fence and were watching in boredom. When the two children stumbled off he said to them, "No more, I beg of you! I might die of boredom."
"Just once more?" Grant asked.
"No." Zach said.
"But—"
"No."
"Oh."
"Let's go," Cammie said, turning back towards town. "The bus leaves in fifteen minutes anyways. We may as well head back."
The group sets back across the path, when suddenly a shout says, "Heads up!" and a Frisbee hits Zach in the back of the head.
"Ow! What the hell?!" Zach spun around and grabbed the Frisbee of the ground angrily. He looks around for whoever hit him to find a group of four boys run up. The boy in the front looks apologetic and holds up his hands.
"Sorry man. Total accident, I swear."
Zach sighed angrily and ran a hand through his hair. "Whatever, dude. Here's your Frisbee."
"Hey," one of the guys in the back said, squinting at Zach, and then at the other boys. "Have I seen you guys around her before?"
"We don't come here often," Grant said shortly, all childishness gone. He crossed his arms over his large chest so that his biceps bulged.
A look of comprehension dawned on the face of the boy who had spoken. His face turned unfriendly. "You're from Blackthorne." His friends straightened up then and gave the Blackthorne Boys and Gallagher Girls looks of hostility.
"We are you doing here?"
"Listen," Zach said. "We were just leaving. Just take the damn Frisbee and we'll go."
"What's the rush?" The boys sneered, spread their legs and started to spread out in a circle around Cammie's group. She recognized it as an intimidation technique. "Planning to rob some stores before bedtime?"
"Dude, just lay off," Tyler said. He looked tired as he said it, like the last thing he wanted to do was to deal with this shit.
"Escape from any prisons lately?"
"He said lay off," Bex said angrily.
The boys scoffed at her. "Looky here, boys. These criminals hired some priss to do their dirty work for them!"
"Hey, shut up, asshole!" Jonas said.
"Okay, that's enough! We're leaving," Zach said. He shoved the Frisbee at them, then grabbed Cammie's hand and started walking away.
"Hey, assface! Get back here!" one of the boys shouted. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"
"Zach, are we just going to leave them?" Grant said angrily as he worked to keep up with Zach's fast pace.
"That's exactly what we're going to do, Grant."
"But—"
"Hey! Dickhead! Don't run away from this!" Zach's jaw clenched and his grip on Cammie's hand tightened, but still he kept walking, ignoring the group of townies following them back through the buses in the direction of the buses.
"Fine! Run away with your little slut!" All of a sudden Zach stopped short, frozen. Everyone stopped with him, and Cammie was suddenly very afraid for the boy who had spoken.
"What did you say?" It was a horse whisper, and Zach's quiet, fuming rage seemed to permeate the air. He slowly turned to the townies, his expression blank.
The one who had thrown the Frisbee gulped, but since the beginning of the confrontation his group had grown alarmingly from four to ten boys, outnumbering the Blackthorne boys and Gallagher Girls. So with that in mind, he said, his voice shaking, "'Run away with your little slut.'"
Then Zach lunged.
.~***~.
The ride back to Blackthorne was silent. The entire bus sat wondering what exactly had happened to the four boys and three girls who had returned to the bus battered and bloody. Zach had been dragged back with the support of Grant (who had a black eye forming) and Jonas, whose lip was bloody. Cammie could barely move from the pain of the bruises , Tyler was limping and Bex held an icepack to the bump on her head. Only Lizzie was fully intact, after Tyler had shoved her into one of the bushes and out of harms way when the fighting had broken out.
At the front of the bus, Beau was smirking.
.~***~.
"Holy shit—what hell happened to you guys?!" Julien and Wesley were standing at the gate to receive them when they stumbled off the bus, barely able to stand. Wesley stared open mouthed while Julien lunged forward to catch Cammie, whose legs didn't seem to be functioning properly from exhaustion and extensive bruising.
"Come on," Wesley finally says. "Let's get you guys cleaned up."
.~***~.
In the junior bunker, the nine boys and girls were sitting on their beds as Wesley and Julien treated their cuts and bruises with the first aid kit they kept in the bathroom. Grant and Bex had both fallen asleep with ice packs on their faces, and Liz and Jonas—not quiet as bruised as the others—slipped out to go to the computer lab to work on hacking into NASA's software (a homework assignment for their Inside NASA: A Spy's Eye course).
Now, Tyler sat on his bed while Wesley probed his foot and ankle for a possible break, blushing down to his roots. "Ow!" he exclaimed, when the older boy found a tender spot.
"Here we go," Wesley said, all his concentration on Tyler's foot. Tyler was grateful, because that meant that he didn't notice the effect he was having on him. Meaning a certain problem in his pants (which, Tyler thought, wasn't exactly his fault. Wesley was definitely probing in a kind of suggestive way).
"It doesn't look like a break. Just a bad sprain. I'll bandage it up and have a word with Dr. Steve, so he knows that you won't be participating in Night Drills or Physical Education for a few days." Then Wesley looked up at him and Tyler's breath left him. He had to clear his throat several times before he was able to speak properly.
"Right. Thanks."
"Sure, no problem." Then Wesley smiled and his eyes sparkled and all the air left Tyler's body.
Across the isle, Zach sat glaring at the open bathroom door, oblivious to what was happening in front of him. Inside the small toilet room Julien was tending to Cammie's bruises and cuts, carefully running a damp washcloth over the skin of her thighs as she sat heavily on the toilet seat.
When Julien's hand gripped her leg, Zach's fist clenched.
When Julien touched her face gently to check for bruises, Zach's teeth ground together.
When Julien said something that made her laugh, Zach growled.
Zach thought he pretty much hated Julien Welsh.
Not even Wesley helping Tyler up and out of the bunker, with the demand for Zach to go get some dinner too, broke him from his jealous trance. Zach just sat on his bed, staring, angry.
Finally, after what seemed like a thousand years worth of fiery torture, Julien helped Cammie back to her bed and departed with a smile for her and a glare towards Zach, who happily returned the sentiment.
When he was gone, Cammie said, "Zach, are you okay?"
Zach almost couldn't answer from anger. Finally, he forced himself to say "fine."
"You're angry at me," Cammie said. She frowned. "Listen, I'm sorry okay. You didn't have to punch him for me."
Zach looked incredulous. "You think that's why I'm mad? Gallagher Girl, of course I punched his lights out. Jesus, he called you—that! I couldn't have stopped myself even if I wanted to. Which I didn't."
Cammie looked confused. "Then why are you angry?"
Zach groaned and threw himself back on his bed. He stared at the ceiling. "Jesus, I don't know." He ran a hand through his hair.
Cammie stared at him for a while until he finally spoke again. "Do you have a thing fo Welsh?"
To say she was surprised was an understatement. "What?! Wait—Julien?"
"Yeah," Zach scowled. "Julien."
"Ew."
"Er—what?" Zach propped himself up on his elbows.
"I said: ew."
"Yeah, I heard that. I'm just a little confused right now."
Cammie laughed and Zach kind of felt a little stupid at this point. "Zach, of course I don't have a thing for Julien. Holy crap, that's gross! He's like my brother!"
"But…he was all over you in the bathroom!"
"That? That was nothing! He was just worried because I was hurt. Like I said: brother."
"I…feel really dumb." Cammie laughed at his expression. "Thank goodness," Zach threw a hand over his heart, suddenly channeling his dramatic side. "I was scared I had come to your rescue only to be thrown aside another Prince Charming! Please Lord, stop my beating heart!"
Cammie snorted and threw her pillow at him, which he caught, then laughed. When they had both calmed down Cammie stared at Zach, who returned her stare with an unblinking one of his own.
"Thanks Zach," she whispered finally, which he heard like a shout in his ear. "Thank you so much for today."
"Anytime, Gallagher Girl. Anytime."
.~***~.
"Ow! Shit!" Tyler exclaimed as his ankle gave way halfway between the bunker and the cafeteria.
"Are you okay?" Wesley asked in alarm.
"Fine," Tyler said, but his watering eyes gave away his pain.
"Here," Wesley said, gesturing to the door of the shower room. "Rest on the bench." He led Tyler inside and sat down with the injured boy.
"Thank," Tyler said for about the third time in the last two minutes.
Wesley rolled his eyes and bumped Tyler's shoulder playfully, which made the younger boy blush. "Like I said, it's no problem."
"Right…" Tyler said. He bashfully stared at his legs.
"Wait—" Wesley said, his hand suddenly coming to Tyler's face. "You've got a…cut. I didn't see it before." Tyler froze as Wesley's fingers gently probed the skin under his eye. They were so close, Tyler could smell Wesley's musky cologne. Or maybe it was his natural scent. Either way, Tyler thought it smelled sexy as hell.
"Um…" Tyler said. His voice cracked, and Wesley's attention went from the cut to Tyler's instantly. The older man seemed to suddenly become very aware of their proximity, but he didn't move away. Instead, he frowned for a moment, before his hand came up and pushed a strand of hair out of Tyler's eyes. Tyler admired how blue Wesley's eyes were. Like water.
Their breath twined together and the air seemed to heat up from the energy between them. Tyler couldn't think. He could barely even breathe. All he knew was that Wesley was close—so close—and he wasn't moving away and he was so good-looking and all he wanted to do was lean into him and let their lips meet and then slip his shirt off his—
Tyler stopped breathing because right at his thoughts entered dangerous water. Wesley pressed his lips to his in a sweet kiss.
Next Chapter Preview:
The girls have some fun eavesdropping on the boys, and there's a final showdown between Tina and Cammie.
A/N
Hi guys!
Hope everyone is doing good. It's been about a month and a half since I last updated, so I know it's been a little while. I actually spent the entire month of July doing a pre-college summer program at Oxford University. I got to take a creative writing course there and a literature course, and they were amazing! Hopefully my writing is starting to improve, but even if I'm not there yet the experience was one of a kind and truly amazing. I recommend it to everyone, and if you're interested in details about which program I did I'd be happy to provide them if you PM me.
Anyways, yeah. I was busy for all of July, which is why this came so late. Unfortuantely, school starts for me again in about two weeks. Hopefully I can finish this before then, but if I can't it's going to continue on into another school year (which is not ideal).
Finally, as always, tell me what you thought in a review, and I hoped you liked it! We're almost at the climax now!
Love,
Katie