Black Promises (Blackwoods College)

I stared up at him with a tight jaw.

A faint bruise yellowed on his cheek. His left eye was swollen, and his nose was crooked from being broken too many times. I’d known about the fighting, but I hadn’t known how bad it’d gotten. When he smirked, it was like staring into the face of a hungry animal.

His lips curled in amusement.

“Maybe you’re tougher than you seem,” he whispered, mouth coming close to mine.

“Let me go.”

“Are you sure you want that? Maybe I’ll pull you tighter.” A slight increase in pressure. I let out a soft groan and worried my wrist might break.

“Jarrod, I swear to god, I’ll fucking tell Mom and Dad if you don’t let her go.” Robyn shoved at him, but it was like kicking a brick wall.

Something shifted in him. Fear, maybe—or a deeper rage than I’d thought he was capable of harboring. He held me for another beat, then let me go, and I stumbled backward, rubbing my arm.

Jarrod stared at me like he wanted to keep going, like he wanted to take this as far as he could—like he wanted to hurt me, really hurt me—but instead he turned away.

“Come on,” he said, ignoring his cousin. “We’ve got class.”

“Jesus, man,” Addler said. “You nearly broke her fucking arm. What’s wrong with you?” His words gave the impression of being upset, but he looked too excited to really care about my well-being.

“Don’t worry about her,” Jarrod said, shoving past. “Come on.”

The others followed him away, Addler still laughing, Des making some crude joke about me liking it rough, and Calvin staring back into his phone.

“Are you okay?” Robyn rubbed my shoulder and glared at her retreating cousin. “He’s such a piece of shit. I’m so, so sorry about that. I should’ve just let him take it out on me and move on like he always does.”

“It’s fine. It was my fault.”

“Don’t blame yourself. You’re the freaking victim here.” She sighed and leaned up against me. “Would it help if I said that Jarrod’s had it harder than anyone else I know?”

“Not really.”

“Then fuck him.”

I laughed and motioned with my head. “Come on, we’d better hurry or we’ll be late.”

“Let’s forget about the Four Horsemen of Fucking Assholes and have some fun.” She hurried off ahead of me while I watched Jarrod and the others turn the corner and head out into the quad.

Before he disappeared from view, I swear he turned back and looked at me—and smiled.

That smile made my spine shiver.

For as much as I hated him grabbing me like that, there was something intense about being that close.

He could’ve broken me. One twist of his wrist, one ounce of pressure, and I would’ve cracked open and screamed. Instead, he’d held me right on that edge of being too much and controlled me into submission.

“Are you coming?” Robyn stood a few feet away, arms crossed, smile back on her face.

“Yeah, sure, let’s get going.”

Jarrod Hale. Bastard, asshole, violent piece of shit.

And the sort of monster I needed.

2

Jarrod

Bass music shook the glass in the window and Mandy Woodhouse looked up at me with these big, wide “fuck me” eyes as she unbuckled my belt. “Let’s go somewhere quieter,” she whispered as she tried to kiss my neck.

I sighed and shoved her away. Des leaned over and passed the blunt. I took it, inhaled, and let the sickly sweet smoke leak from my lips. Mandy pouted at me, clearly more interested in sucking my cock than smoking more weed, but I passed the blunt anyway and cracked open a beer.

The bare vestige of a high curled along my brain.

I needed to dull everything. My arms ached, my face ached, my legs and back ached. Coach was pushing us hard at practice, and each game was a punishing nightmare. I put my body on the line each time I stepped onto that field, and I’d accepted a long time ago that one game I might push it too far and never walk off again.

That was the price I paid.

In exchange, I was the most violent, most feared linebacker in the region.

Not that I gave a damn. Football was a means to an end.

The end being hurting motherfuckers without getting in trouble.

“Why do you always look so pissed off?” Des grinned at me as he chugged a Miller Lite. Phoebe Something ground her ass against his crotch and rubbed her tits in time to the music. She was too stoned to give a fuck that she was half-naked and giving him a lap dance in front of everyone. There were eight of us in the room, the Four Horsemen of Fuck, which was the dumb fucking nickname Des had come up with, and one girl each. Downstairs in Addler’s living room, the party raged on like it did most Saturdays. He lived in a veritable mansion off campus that his parents paid for, and he treated it like his own personal club.