Savage Royals (Boys of Oak Park Prep 1)

Chapter 1

Death has a tangible aura that can never be mistaken for anything else.

Something hangs in the air when someone dies, like their soul hovering just outside their body. It thickens the atmosphere around them, an absence so heavy it feels like it has its own gravitational pull.

Of course, I wasn’t thinking about death at all that night—not until I walked in on it.

I wasn’t thinking about much as I rested my forehead against the cool glass of the city bus, watching the darkened streets pass by outside. Neon lights flickered in the windows of dive bars, their bright colors sliding in and out of focus as I blinked my tired eyes. My feet ached badly, and I knew my old injury would throb in my legs tonight and make it hard to sleep.

I’d spent all day making the rounds between tables at Seb’s Diner, taking order after order. Although dozens of people had come through the little truck stop diner, not many of them had tipped. I was still too short on cash, and I needed to hand something over to Dad to keep the lights on. He’d been fired from the power plant nine months ago, and the only thing keeping us afloat now was what I brought home.

Since my mom’s death when I was seven, it’d been just me and the old man. I wasn’t just his daughter, I was his caretaker and maid. I was the cook, the main breadwinner and—when he got frustrated and the wrong kind of drunk—the punching bag.

A sigh left my lips as the ancient bus creaked to a halt, and I pushed open the back doors, stepping out into the quiet night. Half the street lamps in our neighborhood were busted—shot out or burnt out—and I kept my keys clutched in my fist as I shuffled toward home.

Dad had demanded I bring him a fresh pack of smokes when I got off work—it was now stuffed inside my bag, along with the bottle of vodka he loved so much.

I hated both those fucking things.

My fingers twitched to grab them out of my backpack and chuck them in the trash before I went up, but I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t want a fight. Not after standing on my feet for fourteen hours.

I climbed wearily up to the third floor, and once inside, I closed the door softly, leaning back against the warped wood and closing my eyes.

It was in that moment of quiet that I first felt it.

The unmistakable aura of death.

As if someone had sucked all the oxygen out of the room, out of the whole apartment.

I opened my eyes and lifted my head, breathing shallowly as I listened to the silence. The apartment was too quiet. Usually, the TV blared at this point in the night, and if Dad had heard me come in, he’d be screaming my name and telling me to bring him a drink.

“Dad?” I whispered, but the deathly stillness sucked the word into void.

Maybe he just passed out. Maybe he’s asleep.

My stomach pitched as I pushed away from the door and slipped into the living room. The light was off, and my heart thumped hard against my ribs. Something was off. Wrong.

My hand traced the outdated wallpaper until it found the switch and flipped it, bathing the room in harsh yellow light.

The sight in front of me snatched the air from my lungs. My dad was slumped in his massive easy chair, half hanging over the side. One arm fell limp, fingertips nearly brushing the floor.

“Dad?” I rasped.

I knew he wouldn’t answer—the imprint of death was all over this fucking place—but my mouth formed the word anyway. His pale skin looked slack under the light, and his eyes were half-open, staring unseeing, the whites tinged with yellow. Evidence of the liver decay that’d eaten him from the inside out.

I swallowed down bile, running a shaky hand over my face as the numbness wore off and the full effect of his death slammed into me, making a thousand emotions ricochet through my chest.

Shock. Grief. Confusion. Fear.

Relief.

My knees buckled, and I sank down to the floor, gaze still locked on my dad’s still body. Tears burned my eyes as guilt took the place of relief.

I shouldn’t be glad he was dead.

He wasn’t a good person, but he was the only person I’d had.

“God, okay,” I whispered to myself. “Have to call someone.”

Fumbling inside my bag, I slipped out my cellphone and dialed 911. My voice shook, and my words were a messy jumble as I tried to explain what’d happened, but the operator took down my information with the calm precision of someone trained to maintain order in chaos.

Once the call ended, I stared at the dark screen of the phone until the sound of sirens roused me from my thoughts a while later. I pushed myself up from the floor and stumbled to the door, avoiding looking at my dad again. When I pried the door open, two men in blue uniforms stood outside. Wordlessly, I stepped out of the way and let them in.

“Are you okay?” a third man asked as he stepped up to me and flashed a light in my eyes.

“I’m—f-fine.” My mouth struggled to form the words.

The man frowned. “You’re in shock. What’s your name? How old are you?”

“T-Talia,” I muttered. “Sixteen.”

All I could give him were short answers. It was hard to focus when I kept looking over my shoulder to see what the other men were doing to my dad. My heart felt like it was beating too slow and too hard, as if it were trying to pump a lifetime’s worth of blood with each heavy thud.

On the downstairs stoop, the man wrapped me in a blanket and checked me over. Cops arrived on the scene as he worked, red and blue lights flashing in mismatched rhythms outside our dingy apartment building. Once the paramedic made sure I wasn’t going to faint, a female police officer asked me a bunch of questions, which I answered in a blur.

She took down my information as the paramedics wheeled my dad out on a stretcher, nodding along as I spoke as if she’d heard this story a hundred times before.

Maybe she had.

“What happens now?” I tore my gaze away from her, watching them close the ambulance doors with my dad inside.

“Someone from social services will come by to talk to you soon. Do you have anyone you can stay with for now?”

“I have some friends I can crash with for a while,” I said quickly. “I’ll be okay.”

The woman flipped her notebook shut. “Go there. Don’t stay here tonight.”

“Okay.”

She nodded then patted me on the shoulder and rejoined her partner before their car pulled away. A minute later, the ambulance drove off too, leaving darkness in its place.

A few neighbors had cracked their blinds to see what was going on, but no one had come downstairs. I wandered back inside, hurried through the living room, and walked down the hall to my bedroom. Without even bothering to change, I crawled into bed and closed my eyes.

I’d lied to the police officer. I had no one else. No family. No friends.

There’d been only me and my dad. And now there was only me. I wrapped myself up in my worn comforter and stared at the picture on my desk. I could barely make it out in the darkness, but I didn’t need to see it. The image was imprinted on my brain.

Full, dark brown hair like mine. Deep hazel eyes. A smile that was sad and soft and beautiful all at once.

I wish you were here, Mom. God, I wish you were here.