The Initiation (Darkness Within Duet 1)

Of course, it meant a lot of girls at school hated her guts; nothing wrong with that. No one had defaced her locker though. She heard the usual whispers and gibes as she’d pass people either in class or the hallway. They tried to keep it quiet.

One time, someone wasn’t so quiet in their whisper, and the moment he called her a whore, Axel had slammed him up against the locker, arm across his neck, and asked him to repeat for the entire school to hear.

It had ended up with the kid getting a broken nose, and now they often avoided her and of course her guys.

The violence still shocked her. There was no getting away from how uncomfortable it made her feel, especially as she recalled her time in the ring. That scared her, how she’d lost control and in doing so, had hurt someone.

She didn’t know how the other woman was doing. When she asked Draven about it, he told her the key to dealing with the ring was not to think about it, to just ignore what had happened and to move on as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

Harper did care.

She moved on though. There was no other choice as he wouldn’t allow her to find out how the other woman was doing.

Stretching her arms above her head, she made her way back toward the locker rooms. She’d just finished physical education, and it was the last lesson of the day. Running laps irritated her. She hated doing it, and she was sure the only reason the teacher made them do that was to amuse himself.

He’d called time as she was the furthest away from the room, so as she entered, most of the girls were already leaving.

Draven would be by to pick her up with the guys. They were heading out of town for the weekend. Ian was pissed at her and had tried to make her stay home. Since their confrontation, he tried to talk to her more often, but she just couldn’t bring herself to make it easy for him, not after everything.

Standing at her locker, she opened up the door and yawned. She was so tired. Glancing down at her workout clothes, she shrugged. There was no need to change out of anything. She wasn’t exactly going to the ball, or doing anything of any use.

Grabbing her clothes, she started to fold them up, before placing them neatly into her bag. She already had all the necessary books and homework ready. Even though the guys rarely did homework, she still found the time to do it. Her grades were fine, so far. If they were affected by everything, she’d consider taking extra time, but for now, she was happy.

“Well, well, well, look what we have here?”

Harper looked up as she spotted Ben and several of his buddies entering the girls’ locker room.

She finished putting the last item in her bag and did it up. “What do you want?”

“I think you owe me a little something.”

She raised her brow. “Seriously, what the hell for?”

He stepped toward her, and she saw the intention in his eyes. Before she could stop him, he had her slammed up against the locker door. The sudden action startled her.

“You think we were going to let this go? We were going to let you walk on out of here? The first time the Stonewall slut has been alone. You think I was going to miss the opportunity?”

“Fuck off, Ben. You really don’t want to go there.”

“You think I’m afraid of your men?”

She chuckled. “Of course, you are, otherwise you wouldn’t be here with me now. When I’m alone. When my men are not here. Of course you’re afraid.” She snorted.

Lifting her head, she glared at him.

Don’t show any fear.

“You’ve really got a lot of spunk inside that body of yours, haven’t you?” Ben said. “Don’t worry, you’ll have jock spunk by the end of this. Then you’ll get to feel like a real whore.”

She drew her knee up and slammed it against his nuts.

He groaned, and as she tried to brush past him, he tripped her up. She landed hard on her knees.

His guys were there, holding her down. She screamed, and it was cut off as one of them covered her mouth.

“I should have known you were a slut. You weren’t the good girl everyone pretended you to be. You’re nothing but a fucking cum dump.”

His nails scored her flesh, digging into her skin as he started to pull down her shorts.

This couldn’t be happening, not now. She moved her mouth and bit down hard into the man’s hand.

He growled, and as he drew his hand back, she used the seconds to scream for help. She didn’t get long as he slapped her across the face, hard, shocking her. The pain stilled her fight, but only for a second.