(Ebook) Cambridge IGCSE and O Level History Workbook 2C - Depth Study: the United States, 1919-41 2nd Edition by Benjamin Harrison ISBN 9781398375147, 9781398375048, 1398375144, 1398375047
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This book is for mature readers only as it contains scenes some may find triggering.
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InTheAirTonight~ Phil Collins
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Chapter 1
Jude
Looks like my new stepmother is still trying to prove she’s more than just a pair of fake tits. The scrape of cutlery against crockery is the only sound in Dearth Manor’s dining hall as the Dearths work their way through the expansive dinner she prepared: roast chicken, baked potatoes, green salad, and a garlic loaf on the side.
“So, how was your first day at school?” Diana sets down her fork, chewing as she studies my little sister. Rosie’s head stays bowed, but her movements become a little more erratic when she becomes aware of Diana’s sudden interest in her.
“Rosie? Are you listening, munchkin? I asked about your day?”
Rosie’s brown eyes fly to mine in absolute panic. She ignores Diana and makes a grab for a roast potato on her plate. Diana snatches her wrist. “Use your fork.”
Rosie tries to pull her hand away, but my little sister’s never been a fighter like me. When one small tug doesn’t make Diana let go, Rosie’s chin drops to her chest in defeat.
“Why can’t you just let her eat?” I ask before tossing down a mouthful of chardonnay. It’s still almost three years before I’m legally allowed to drink, but Father reckons if we’re going to do it anyway, we might as well do it as a family. So my stepsister and I get a glass of watered-down wine at dinner and sometimes an extra beer on the weekends. I’m not a big drinker, but I like the crisp taste of white wine, so I’ll have a glass most nights.
Harper must think she died and went to heaven. She was living in a trailer park before my father decided the Dearths had a mothershaped void in our lives he desperately needed to fill with the Barbie Doll lookalike, Diana Sloane. Apparently, I needed another sibling too, and Diana was only too gracious to add her eighteen-year-old daughter, Harper, to the family.
“What time does the bus leave tomorrow, Mr. Dearth?” Harper asks my dad. “I want to make sure I’m ready on time.”
“The bus?” Dad’s voice drips with disgust. “Didn’t Jude tell you he’s taking you to school?”
“Don’t see why she can’t take the bus,” I mutter.
“The Dearths don’t take buses.”
“Rosie does.”
“That’s different,” he says. The slight pause makes me think he wanted to say “she’s” instead.
“Because it’s a special needs bus? How is that different?”
“Jude, don’t speak to your father like that,” Diana says in her nasal whine. I nearly give her a piece of my mind, but then Dad says, “We already discussed this, Jude.”
The tone of his voice implies many things. Among them that there’s a belt with my name on it if I keep pushing him in front of his new followers.
Ha, the cult of Dearth. How he loves his beloved worshipers. We didn’t discuss anything. He told me that Harper was under my care, and if anything happened to her, I’d be held responsible. I was fine with that kind of shit when he was talking about Rosie—I’d do anything to protect my little sister—but Harper’s a grown-ass woman. Why the fuck is he acting like I need to hold her hand when she crosses the street?
“Thank you, Jude.” Harper looks over at me and gives me a frosty little smile as she takes a sip of her merlot, pretending she’s all sophisticated and shit. That’s Harper’s thing.
It’s a pity. She’d be a catch if she wasn’t such a pretentious cow. Where I inherited my father’s tall, broad-shouldered build and dark hair, she takes after her mother with her petite frame. When mother and daughter are in the same room, it becomes obvious that Diana isn’t a natural blond. Harper’s blue eyes pop against her dark hair, but Diana’s baby blues look watery paired with her platinum locks. That’s not the only thing Diana’s faking. Diana’s D cups were definitely made in China.
Dad doesn’t realize he married a fake, just like Harper doesn’t realize the family living in this McMansion is far from perfect.
I ignore Harper and try to change the subject onto something that doesn’t involve my new stepfamily. “Still coming to the game
tomorrow night, right?” I grab a cherry tomato and pop it in my mouth as I wait for Dad to answer.
Friday night games are Cinderhart High’s specialty. All this town produces is coal and football jocks. I wonder if it’s genetics, or if we were specifically bred so we could handle all the manual labor they had kids doing back in the day.
“That’s tomorrow night?” Dad lets out a weary sigh. “I’m sorry, son, I’ve already made plans with your mother.”
“So dinner at the cemetery then?” I quip.
There’s a collection of indrawn breaths from everyone around the table except Rosie. My little sister is oblivious to all these dinner-time undercurrents I have to deal with. Then again, she never knew her real mother—Bonnie was gone before Rosie’s first birthday.
“Whatever,” I say. “It’s not like it’s playoffs or anything.”
“Good. I’d have felt bad if I had to miss an important game.”
My jaw clenches, but I force my attention back to my plate so I don’t glare at Dad. He used to come to every single Friday night game.
And I never got the feeling he did it because it was expected of him, although which father wouldn’t want to watch his son the quarterback thrashing the other team? Back then, Dad even made a point to bring Rosie, although I know he hates trying to take her out because he never knows what to do when she has a meltdown in public.
That’s why she takes a bus. Dad doesn’t have the patience to sit through a tantrum en route to her special needs school on the other side of town. Not that Cinderhart is all that fucking big to begin with. He’s just thatunqualified.
Conversation moves away from football—not that it ever really sticks on it these days—and I pick at my food for a bit before I become aware of eyes on me. When I look up, Rosie is watching me intently. She takes after my realmom. Bonnie had fair hair, brown eyes, and the most infectious smile I’d ever seen. Rosie’s eyes are wide as saucers, staring like she’s pleading for help. She does this a lot these days.
I wish I could figure out why. We all took it hard when Rosie was diagnosed with intellectual disability and hypertonia. As a baby, that shit isn’t as readily apparent as it is with a toddler. Rosie just took longer than most kids her age to sit up, crawl, walk. Speaking, especially, she found hard to do. The doctors say she’ll reach a plateau one day, her own mental peak—and that day isn’t far off. I can’t imagine being trapped in the mind of a ten-year-old the rest of my life but, luckily, Rosie wouldn’t know any better. I smile at her and then move my gaze to her plate. She widens her eyes at me and shakes her head. No.
I look up, staring at my father then at Diana before meeting Rosie’s eyes again. Noone’slooking. Rosie takes turns looking at everyone around the table, and then back at me. She bites her lip, ducks her head, and pops a potato into her mouth. No one notices. No one cares.
Dad says something almost witty, making Harper and Diana fakelaugh. I pull a face at Rosie, scrunching up my mouth and nose like I’m going to puke. My little sister bursts out laughing, spraying halfchewed potato all over the roast chicken before she can clap her hands over her mouth. In the sudden silence that follows, her shoulders collapse like she’s deflating from the inside.
“Time for bed, Rosie,” my father says in a steely voice.
Rosie keeps her hands over her mouth as she slips off the chair and scrambles up the stairs to her bedroom.
I sit back in my seat and cross my arms over my chest. “She wasn’t done eating.”
My father leans an elbow on the table as he makes eye contact with me. He grabs his wine glass, studying me with his head tilted to the side as he brings it to his mouth as if daring me to turn this into a fight. And why not? Arguing seems to have replaced all of the usual family activities we used to have before the Sloanes arrived.
“You know, she could do to lose a few pounds,” Diana says. “We should dish up less carbohydrates for her tomorrow, Wayne.”
I stand up so fast, my chair tumbles to the floor behind me.
Diana gasps, a hand fluttering to her chest as if I’ve just taken out a fucking assault rifle.
“Time you went to bed too,” Dad says.
“Exactly where I was going.”
Diana is up in an instant. “I’m going to watch my show. Harper, clean the table.”
A cruel smile plays on my mouth as I watch my stepsister’s face fall.
“But Mom, I—”
“Don’t worry, Jude can help,” Dad says. My smile evaporates.
Of course I can. My only mission in life is to make Harper more comfortable. We watch as my dad and her mom leave arm-in-arm, taking the bottle of wine and their glasses with them.
Harper reaches for her wine glass, but I snatch it away before she can grab it. Gone is the attentive, perky little smile and glittering eyes. She’s scowling like a demon, her true face revealed now that our parents aren’t in the room anymore.
“You’re underage, you know.”
“Go to hell, loser.”
I grab a few of the plates and stack them haphazardly in my arms as I head for the dishwasher. “Meet you there, Sis.”
Chapter 2
Harper
I can’t remember exactly when the dreams first began, but it was near the end of summer break when me and my mom moved into Dearth Manor. The first one shocked me so much, I woke up gasping like I’d had a nightmare. But that was notthe case. I’ve had sex dreams before. I’d never been able to work up the courage to ask Mom if they were normal or not. Fuck it, I’d barely been able to tell her when I got my first period. We’re anything but close. More acquaintances than mother and daughter. It’s always been like that. Maybe because she was always working, and when she wasn’t working, she was always with a man. Boyfriend, lover, husband. Mom made a point of never being lonely after Dad left us a decade ago.
The only lonely person in the house was me. We’d move before I got around to making friends. Eventually, I stopped trying. I’d always been independent, resourceful. What did I need friends for anyway? But now that I’m getting older and all these weird things are happening to me—like the dreams—I kinda wish I had someone to
talk to. As much as I hate technology, I’m actually considering opening a social media account just for that human connection.
I’ve missed a lot of school over the years while Mom hopped from job to job, lover to lover, husband to husband. Maybe things will be different at Cinderhart High. Maybe we’ll even stay here long enough for me to finish out the year. God, I hope this is the last one before I graduate.
Not just that…for the first time in a long time, I’m hoping I can actually make a friend or two. Maybe they could tell me if these dreams are normal.
I fall down into the passenger seat of Jude’s Range Rover. I’ve never been inside a truck this fancy in real life, and maybe that’s why everything’s a little blurry. Everything except Jude Dearth, of course. The rolled-up sleeves of his crisp white dress-shirt bare tanned, welldefined arm muscles. Narrowed eyes the color of dark wood regard me for a heart-pounding moment before he turns his attention forward, puts the truck in gear, and drives.
“Put some fucking clothes on, Harper. Or do you want everyone in school to know you’re a slut?”
I gape at him, shocked. But when I look down, I see I’m only wearing my school blazer, my bra and panties underneath. No shirt, no skirt.
What the fuck?
“Go back!” I yell, trying to wrap my blazer around my nakedness. “I need my clothes!”
Jude lets out a dark chuckle. “I think you look pretty like that. So will the other guys.”
“What guys?”
“My friends.” Jude’s dark eyes twinkle when he glances at me. “Wait until you meet them, Harper. They’re gonna eat you up?”
“Jude, stop the car.”
He slows down and then stops, but when I grab the handle, the door is still locked.
“Let me out.” I’m frightened, confused, and yet disembodied. Jude grabs my thigh and pulls my leg toward him. “Come on, Harper. It’s just us now. I know you’re a freak like me. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”
I shrink away from him, but he slides over the console like a snake, impossibly fitting his tall, muscular body over my seat. The hand on my leg slides between my thighs.
An explosion of sensations erupts through me. Tingles in my clit and pussy, an aching in my core. I start squirming, distantly aware of the feel of satiny sheets against my body. I want to close my eyes and lose myself in his touch, but something keeps my gaze locked on Jude’s handsome, chiseled features as he strokes me through my underwear.
“Stop,” I breathe, grabbing his hand, trying to pull him away. “You can’t…”
“Why not?” he says, cocking his head and watching me like I fascinate him. “Don’t you want someone to fuck you? Fingers on your clit, a dick in your pussy. Tell me you don’t want to know what it feels like, and I’ll stop.”
His deep, rough voice fills me with hedonistic urges I’ve never had in real life…only in these lurid dreams.
I open my legs and push against him, mentally willing him to slip his fingers inside me, to feel how wet I am.
He groans deep in his throat and drops his head to kiss the side of my neck. I moan, bucking my hips to force harder pressure against my pussy.
One of his fingers starts stroking my clit, then massaging it.
Waves of ecstasy spill through me, but I’m no closer to an orgasm. It just keeps building, and building, and building. Impossible, incredible, intense as fuck. Something else slips between my legs. It’s not his fingers—it has to be his cock. But his body is flush with mine now, and we’re in the backseat, and there’s nothing for me to look at but his dark, malicious eyes.
“See…” he murmurs. His head stays still as something thick and hard and hot rams into me. I whimper, and he grabs my jaw, keeping my focus on him. “You’re a freak…just like me.”
I moan, writhe, squirm. I’m soaked, slippery and hot. Every inch of my body is alive with sensation, and it feels like there are a thousand hands on me, touching everywhere all at once. I hear myself, moaning so loud that I’m sure someone standing beside my bed will hear me.
“You love it,” Jude says. “You love me.”
My eyes fly open, and I’m in my dark room, a gasp rattling through my throat. I still feel the shock of his words reverberating through my mind like a ghostly echo.
Despite the deep ache in my core, I jerk my hand out from between my legs and wipe my fingers on the sheets without even thinking.
When I sit up, wetness oozes out of me, soaking my already drenched underwear. I glance over at the nightstand and grab my phone, sighing in relief when I see I still have two hours before I need to wake up.
With a groan, I fall back in bed and manage—somehow—to fall asleep again.
I don’t know what triggers these dreams, but I really wish they’d go away. They’re making things very complicated. And I have no idea what I’m going to do if they don’t stop.
Chapter 3
Jude
My eyes skate over the Range Rover’s console, and I shake my head when I see the time. This is bullshit. She’s ten minutes late. I open the car door and stalk over the drive to our Georgian-style estate. Trust her to make me wait. Never mind the fact that I’m doing her a favor taking her to school. Never mind that I barely got any sleep last night, because she was playing her music so fucking loud. If she’s busy preening in front of the mirror, I swear she’s walking to school.
She can’t hear me from the kitchen, so I sprint up the stairs. On the landing, I call out, “Harper?” a second before I knock on her bedroom door. It swings open to an empty room. Her en-suite bathroom door is open a crack. Steam and the sound of running water spills out. She’s still in the fucking shower?
Every cell in my body is telling me to leave her behind, to go to school, to let her get herself out of this fucking mess. But even if we leave now, we’ll both be late regardless of how many traffic signs I
blow through. And as much as I hate myself—and her—for it…my father gave me a direct command. He wouldn’t hesitate to take away my car.
He’s done it before.
I hurry over to the bathroom and push open the door. I expect her to be in the shower, a pane of frosted glass between us and some steam for good measure. What I didn’t expect was to see her palm pressed against the glass. Or to hear her soft pants.
Air swirls around from the opening door, shifting some of the steam that had been shielding her from me. I catch a perfect snapshot of her naked body, one hand shoved between her legs, her head thrown back as if she’s on the cusp of a climax. I start backing out of the bathroom, but I’m not fast enough. Harper turns to the glass and presses her forehead against it as her body shudders, a muted, “Fuck,” escaping from her lips.
Then, as if she senses eyes on her, her lashes flutter open and those hypnotic blue eyes fix on me. “Jude?” she squeals, throwing an arm across her breasts, the hand between her legs clamping over her pussy. “What the hell are you doing?”
Watchingyouruboneoff,princess.
I drop my eyes, letting out a muffled, “Christ,” as I clap a hand over my eyes. Pointless when I already have a Polaroid of this moment seared into my mind for eternity. I turn my back. “You’re late,” I tell her evenly.
She stutters out, “And that gives you the right to barge in here like that?” I hear her snapping a towel off the rails before she barks, “Get out!”
“If your ass isn’t in my passenger seat in the next sixty seconds, I’m leaving without you.”
I’m halfway across her bedroom when she slams the bathroom door closed.
A minute later she sprints out the manor’s front door and races over to my Range Rover. She has her backpack in one hand, her shoes in the other. Her white school shirt is buttoned up all wrong and not even tucked into her pleated gray skirt. She winces when she slams the passenger door closed behind her.
“Seat belt,” I mutter.
She bites her lip and eases her backpack to the floor between her feet before putting on her seat belt.
“Next time you want to get off before school, wake up earlier.”
“Fuck off, perve.”
I chuckle at the dark look she gives me before she starts prepping herself. I watch her progress from the corner of my eye, a sour grimace carved onto my mouth. She’s silent the entire ride except for the occasional rustle of clothes or huff of breath as she puts on her shoes, re-buttons her shirt, drags her wet hair away from her neck, and subdues it into a ragged ball on the top of her head.
I expect makeup to appear next, but either she forgot it at home, or she’s decided not to risk taking out an eye as I race us to school.
Christ, I can’t stop thinking about what I saw back there. It’s all kinds of wrong, but at that moment, she wasn’t my stepsister. She was just a good-looking girl getting off in the shower. It’s the kind of thing wet dreams are made of.
Minutes from school, my curiosity gets the better of me. “So how often do you rub one off?”
She freezes in the act of rummaging through her backpack. Hopefully still looking for her makeup. “Mind your own business.”
“Because it kinda looked like you knew what you were doing.” We stop at an intersection, and I lean to the side without looking at her, taking a loud sniff from the air. “And you fucking reek.”
“Fuck you,” she mumbles.
Through some small miracle, we arrive at school seconds before the homeroom bell.
Harper’s got her backpack in her lap, ready to go, but starts fumbling with the seatbelt, trying to get it to unlock.
“Didn’t have those back in the trailer park?” I ask quietly. She lets out a frustrated growl and turns her face away when I lean back inside the car, grab her buckle, and unlock it. She smooths back a hank of hair that’s escaped the messy prison on top of her head.
I open her door in case she starts fumbling with that too. But before she can climb out I grab the roof of the car with one hand and lean in close, forcing her to make eye contact. “I’ve got practice till three.
You’ll have to keep yourself busy until then.” When she says nothing, I grin at her. “That won't be a problem for you though, right?”
Crimson stains her cheeks, and her blue eyes narrow with anger. “Lay off, would you?”
I pat her cheek. “See you later, Sis.”
Chapter 4
Harper
My first day at school goes as well as expected. My homeroom teacher calls me “Harpy” Dearth by accident, which I just know is going to stick like shit on Velcro. I get lost on my way to my first class and piss off my science teacher, Mr. Monroe. But no day is complete without a little trauma, like spilling a cup of coffee all over my brand-new white school shirt, turning it transparent so everyone can see the black bra I stupidlydecided to wear.
So while I’d promised myself when I arrived at Dearth Manor and saw my gorgeous new house and my perfect new family that I was going to change, that I was alreadya new person…
I guess I wasn’t ready to turn over a new leaf just yet. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Wine slops over my hand as I jerk in surprise. I’m in the manor’s pool house. I had to wait around until Jude had finished football practice, and we’ve been home like ten minutes. I didn’t figure he’d alreadybe fucking stalking me.
