Disease: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Hawthorn Academy Book 2), page 1
Copyright © 2021 by Katie Lowrie
Disease Copyright © 2021 by Katie Lowrie
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction, all names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Katie Lowrie asserts the moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.
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First Edition.
Cover design: © The Pretty Little Design Co.
Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Coming Soon
Coming Soon
Afterword
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Hawthorn Academy Series
Author’s Note
Once again I’m not cool enough to have a playlist for you.
With this book, I had Anti-MLM videos playing in the background for the majority so, ya know.
Also, this book is darker than Disorder, so I’m attaching a trigger warning in this note.
If you would like to know more about specific triggers, then I will always happily answer any questions on social media or email.
P.S. A quick heads up; the vocabulary, grammar, and spelling of Disease is written in British English.
To Megan,
Thank you for putting up with my high maintenance, mardy bum for over a decade.
Thank you for always supporting me with whatever crazy shit I decide to do, like writing books.
Thank you for being you.
DISEASE
NOUN
a harmful development
something that
is considered very bad in people or society
obsolete : TROUBLE
I looked at Him.
He looked back at me with equal distrust in his eyes.
Something here wasn’t right. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
The showdown after the Fashion Show came to mind.
I remembered the dark indigo of his eyes. The way they’d burned in hatred that was aimed towards me; hatred that had been there for long before he’d ever met me.
‘Poor little Skylar. How does it feel being the last to know?’
I shivered.
We stood in the middle of the hall with nowhere to hide. All eyes were on us; the sideshow that had taken over the New Year’s Gala.
One day soon I hoped that there would be a charity function that I was not the main attraction at, but apparently today was not that day.
‘I-it was you.’ I whispered, not wanting to voice the thought in my mind. Vocalising it would make it worse.
‘It w-was?’ he asked, a glint of menace in his eyes.
‘You d-did it.’
‘I d-did what?’
He was mocking me. Mocking my stutter.
Was I too trusting, too stupid to see the truth, to see the writing on the wall?
Had I been right all along about…
Ollie’s betrayal sat heavy in my stomach.
Heavy in my heart.
At first, I had wanted to cry. I couldn’t understand where I’d gone so wrong. How I’d been so blind. There were warning signs the entire time I’d known him. Clover had even warned me against him—and Leo and Griff—multiple times, but I had always chosen not to listen to her. Thinking that I knew best. I knew them; I understood them. Fat load of shit that was.
Turns out I knew nothing. Nothing about them. Nothing about their true motives. And nothing about my family—or theirs. I felt stupid. Confused. Trust me, feeling both stupid and confused were two of my biggest hates in life. I hated feeling like I wasn’t in the know; like somebody else knew something that I didn’t. That they were all laughing at me, and my stupidity. Laughing behind my back at how Skylar Crescent couldn’t see falsehoods and lies. Couldn’t decipher the difference between genuine affection and somebody that was working behind the scenes to ruin their life. Ruin their dignity and self worth.
Waking up in an actual Hospital, and not just the Hospital Wing at the Academy, was the first indicator that things were more serious than they’d been thus far. The second indicator that things were different was the fact that I was alone. There was nobody sat vigil in the chair by my side and I couldn’t recall hearing a visitor during my recent—albeit brief—bouts of consciousness. I could only remember bits and pieces from the last couple of days. The nurses were nice, and I was waiting for the doctor to—finally—come in and talk to me.
I’d been lucky. He had stabbed me in the abdomen, and the knife had hit no major organs. Whoever had stabbed me had left the weapon in my stomach, which according to my notes had saved my life. Thank you, my attempted murderer. The blood loss would have been a lot worse if the knife had been removed.
The Police had arrived not long after I’d regained full consciousness and had told me that the weapon had been tested for fingerprints already and that none were present, which they found odd. If the person who had done this to me had been wearing gloves, they would have still expected to find some DNA. They found it unusual that I hadn’t tried to remove the knife, or at least touch it in my delirious state. They’d asked me whether I had any enemies, anyone that would do this, but I couldn’t think of anybody in particular that would hate me this much. According to them, Odette Rogers had been found near to me and had suffered multiple stab wounds with the same knife. Hers had been fatal. I guess my eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on me that night. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that Odette was dead. Yeah, she was a total bitch and yeah, she’d made my year so far pretty shit. But even a stone cold bitch didn’t deserve to be killed in a school hallway.
For me, the most frustrating part was that I couldn’t remember all of it. I could remember seeing Odette, but not who did this. Not seeing anything happen was so fucking cliché it hurt. But it didn’t change that fact. The last thing I remembered of that night was fleeing from Ollie after he’d shown his true self. He was a cunt, and I meant that in the harshest of ways. He’d made me believe I meant something to him. I’d even lost my virginity to him and fallen out with my best—and only—friend because she had known he was shady and I didn’t believe her. Fuck, I’d accused her of being jealous. Which was laughable now that I’d had time to look back on the first half of this school year. I was still trying to grasp the fact that so much had happened in such a short period. God, before I started at Hawthorn, the most I had to worry about was my mum or Andy spending all of my earnings on alcohol and tobacco.
I’d hoped that maybe Clover would come and visit me. I knew we fought before all of this shit happened, and that she’d been right all along, but I wouldn’t even care if she came into my room at the hospital right now and said, ‘I told you so.’ At least if she said that in front of me, she’d be here. But no. Maybe she couldn’t forgive me. Or maybe we hadn’t been friends after all.
‘Ms Crescent. Are you sure there isn’t anything more you can tell us?’ Detective Smith was standing at the foot of my bed, staring at me in a way that made me think he was trying to scare me. Shake me into telling him the truth. If only I knew what the truth was. ‘Did Odette Rogers have any enemies?’
‘Erm …’ I trailed off. The girl didn’t have enemies as much as she had people who detested her, or people who feared her. She ruled the school alongside the rest of The Set and Sect, and it wasn’t as if people overly loved them. ‘She was a part of the mean girl group,’ was what I went with.
‘Yes, we’ve been told by a,’ – he looked down at his sheet of paper – ‘Ms Luck that you were being harassed by Odette and her friends. Lucky for you, your wound erases you from the suspect list.’
‘L-lucky for me?’ I sputtered, mad that he’d implied that I was lucky to have been stabbed.
‘That was poor wording,’ his colleague, Detective Saunders, piped up with. ‘What my co-worker means is that the situation means you aren’t a suspect.’
‘No shit,’ I mumbled under my breath. I thought Saunders had heard me, but he didn’t ask me to clarify or repeat it luckily. See. That was what a real “lucky” should sound like. Out loud I said, ‘Thank you for informing me.’
Although I was no longer a suspect in Odette’s death, it didn’t mean that I wasn’t still being considered as having had something to do with Olivia’s. I’d hoped that nearly dying myself would have excluded me, but, apparently, I would have had to have been stabbed that night too, to be in the clear.
I’d always watched police dramas and thought that certain scenarios must have been exaggerated or invented for the viewer. Surely the police weren’t that stupid and ridiculous in actual life?
This encounter was only proving that they indeed were that ridiculous and stupid in real life. Even my alibi the night of the Gala wasn’t enough. According to them, I could have snuck out that night with Ollie being none the wiser, and returned before he woke. My supposed motive was the bullying I’d suffered at the hand of The Set. Somebody had handed the videotape that they’d played at the end of the Fashion Show over to the police as evidence, and they had analysed every frame.
The two of them got up out of their chairs at the same time. The movement seemed rehearsed—like the two of them had perfected it to intimidate.
‘Thank you, Ms Crescent. We’ll be in touch if we need to ask you any more questions,’ Detective Saunders said, and I could tell that he was the nice one.
I waved goodbye, the action limited by the railings of the hospital bed. My facial expression showed my true displeasure, but I didn’t think they saw it. If they did, they ignored me. Joy filled me, knowing that they were leaving, but then it hit me. Once again, I’d be alone with my own thoughts.
Able to wallow in my self pity.
Having time alone right now wasn’t the best for my mental health. Then again, neither was spending time with Mum and Andy.
Swings and roundabouts.
After two weeks, I felt the worst I’d ever felt in my life.
Not physically.
No. Physically, I felt great. My wound had healed, and I felt more clear-headed than ever before.
My issue was mentally. Mentally, a thick fog surrounded me constantly, and I was trying my best to wade out of it.
A dark, red, forever swirling fog that wouldn’t dissipate no matter what I did; no matter what I thought about. I was drowning in my mind and there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Fuck. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do anything about it.
Laying in the lumpy hospital bed, I was once again going through in my mind what had happened and how I could have been so blind, when I heard a knock on the door.
A gentle knock. One so quiet I thought I was making it up at first. But then it repeated, this time slightly louder, and I fought the heaviness in my neck to lift my head and look in the door’s direction.
I saw Clover standing there, waiting for me to give her permission to enter, I almost choked on my shock. The look on her face was one of worry mixed with what I could only describe as shame.
‘Come in,’ I said, loud enough for her to hear me. Then I watched as she made her way into my room. Tentative fear clear in her small steps towards me.
The moment she reached my bed, she burst into tears. Sobs wracked her body, and the sight made me sad. The part that worried me, though, was I couldn’t tell if I was sad for her or for me. I had every right to be upset at what had happened; it had happened to me after all, and yeah; she had warned me multiple times.
Eurgh. Everything was so fucked.
‘S-sky,’ Clo stuttered out on a sob, ‘I am so, so sorry.’
‘What are you sorry for?’ I snapped. A wave of anger hit me. What exactly did she have to apologise for?
‘For what happened to you. I knew shit was going to go down at the show, and I know I warned you, but I should have tried harder to make you see.’
‘No,’ I said, and I watched as her face crumpled, obviously worried I was about to say something mean. ‘You don’t need to apologise for that. I should have listened to you, but I didn’t. Plus, not like you could’ve known that somebody was going to kill Odette and stab me.’
Her eyes shifted, darting to look all around the room. Or was I just being suspicious? Seeing things in my mind that weren’t really there.
The counsellor the hospital had assigned me, had told me I would find it hard to trust people again. That I’d be seeing shadows, and deceit, for quite some time. Seeing as I’d barely had friends before this, and then the first ones I got tried to destroy, and potentially end my life, I wasn’t exactly in a trusting place.
‘True.’ She made a small giggle. ‘But I could have followed you once you left the hall. I was a bitch instead and just watched you run away.’
I wondered if she was going to mention the kiss I’d seen her share with Griff; the one that had featured in the video Odette had shown.
‘Anyway, I’m sorry for our fight. I should have never stopped being your friend. You needed me to be there unbiased, and I couldn’t even do that right. There’s so much that I need to tell you, but I don’t think now’s the right time.’
‘Right.’ I responded, not fully understanding why she couldn’t just tell me now. ‘The police mentioned you spoke to them?’
‘Yeah, just routine. You know how it is.’ She shrugged her shoulders dramatically. ‘Are you coming back to Hawthorn?’
Her question was tentative, her tone filled with worry. Whether that was the worry of my answer or of the question itself, I had no clue.
‘Of course,’ I replied straight away. To me, it was a no brainer. There was no way I was letting them all win. ‘I’ll be back after the Easter breaks over.’
Luckily for me, I’d been stabbed on the last day of Easter term, which meant there had been a two-week period where school took a break. Meaning that I had missed no classes, or any mock exams. I was determined to complete this year at least, even if it killed me.
That was a potential outcome that I had to consider.
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ Clo said, the look on her face telling me she quite possibly thought I’d gone mad. Maybe I had a little. But fuck. Why should those rich elitist fuckers decide whether or not I obtain my mock results?
‘Nope,’ I told her, knowing in my gut that it was probably one of the worst ideas I’d had in a long time—though trusting Ollie had been the worst idea I’d had. ‘But I’m gonna do it, anyway.’
‘Then I’ll be by your side the whole time.’ Clover leaned down, grabbing my hand with hers, and squeezed it tightly. ‘That fucker is going to pay for what he’s done to you.’
I realised she wasn’t going to say anything, so I decided to be the one to breach the subject of Griff.
‘So, I haven’t heard from Griff. Did he know?’ I had to ask. I had to know who had been involved in my torment.
