Broken by A. E. Rought - Sample Chapters

Inside, Shelley High is hell on the eyes. Bright lights, chipped flooring, battered lockers, and neon flyers litter the walls. And people everywhere, milling in the halls like cattle in slaughter pens. The popular crowd I’ll never be a part of and never want to, Bree’s theater nerd friends and fellow thespians, and half a dozen other cliques jostle and shout, close to half of it in abbreviated text lingo.

I tuck my arms in, and weave through the throng.

My locker is close to the main office. Usually it smells like coffee at this end of the hall. Not today. A lingering wisp of leather hangs close. I bend my head to my locker door, spin the combination, and tug. It’s no use.

Damn thing’s stuck, again. It’s only October and I’ve already had to get help from the janitor five times to force it open.

Josh Mason breaks free of the surge behind me. He leans his frame against the locker beside mine. I shoot him an exasperated look, then spin my combination again.

“That was a nice insult,” he says.

He’s trying to be sexy, I can tell, with his casual slouch and plaid button-down shirt open to show a little skin at his neck. For me, a six-foot ginger with curling hair and freckles is so not sexy. Cute, annoying, but never attractive like Josh wants to be to me.

“Yeah?” I slam my palm on my still-locked locker.

“Well, you make it so easy.”

He snorts, and has the decency to look like he’s struggling for a nasty response when Alex Franks glides from the rabble and push of bodies and says,