Freestyle (Academy of Stardom Book 1)

“So, we meet again.” Xeno’s voice is a low rumble, and much deeper than I remember it, and just like when I was a kid, I have to lean my head back to get a good look at him. I barely reach his shoulder.

Holy shit.

Where did the boy I once knew go, and who is this man? My skin flushes and my stomach tightens. I let out a whimper, but quickly cover it with the sound of my surprise, clearly not mentally prepared for this moment.

“Xeno?”

The chatter of the crowd and the sound of the MC getting everyone excited for the upcoming battle is drowned out over the rapid beating of my heart. When we first became friends I’d always appreciated that Xeno was a good-looking kid. I got why he had a string of girls following him about, but I’d never really looked at him the way they did until that night when I caught him dancing bachata. I’d fallen for him hard. He was, and still is, fucking beautiful. He’s tall, lean, built. Even under the casual slacks and loose t-shirt, I can see that. He’s effortlessly cool, sexy, and he still makes everything inside simultaneously flutter and tighten into a coil. Goddamn him.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper, unable to find any other words to cover my shock at seeing him again. Zayn was hard enough to deal with. I have the sudden inexplicable urge to reach up and tug on his mop of curly brown hair which is styled in such a way that shows off his blazing green eyes and the very sharp cut of his jaw shadowed with stubble.

“We’re here to reclaim what’s ours…” he snarls, a cruel glint in his eyes that belies the person I remember. He was always a hard arse, but never cruel, at least not to me.

“We?”

“The Breakers are back and this time we’re staying.” He sidesteps slightly, dropping one hand so that I can look around him.

My eyes land on Zayn first who jerks his chin and gives me a dangerous smile beneath the shade of his cap. Beside him, propping up the bar is York looking less like Edward Cullen and more like Eric from True Blood. He’s wearing a black leather jacket and boots, with distressed blue jeans. York meets my gaze, and my heart stutters. This time there’s no warm smile, no genuine affection in his icy-blue gaze. There’s nothing but a blank mask. He raises his shot glass to me then knocks back the dark liquid in one go. Xeno’s grip tightens on my upper arm as he shifts me back around.

“Where’s Dax?” I murmur, my pulse racing.

I don’t know why I ask. I don’t care. I shouldn’t care. Yet, I do.

“Fuck, Tiny, you always were a little dense. I thought you might grow out of your naivety by now though. Looks like nothing’s changed.” He lets me go roughly, and wipes his hands down his jeans as though I’ve dirtied him up somehow.

I’m too shocked to think up a cutting response. By the time my brain kicks into gear and I’m ready to verbally spar with Xeno like the good old days, a familiar song starts to play out over the speaker system, and I’m rendered speechless.

No! No, fucking way. A cruel smile carves across Xeno’s face and I grow cold.

“We have our first challenge!” Little Dynamite calls out. The crowd roars, but my heart sinks.

“No,” I whisper. He just laughs, looking down the length of his nose at me. His gaze cutting into mine.

He’s haughty. Beautiful. Angry.

“The infamous Breakers are back and guess what…?” Little Dynamite continues as Xeno crosses his arms over his chest. Beside him, Zayn and York appear. All three of them glare at me. I swallow hard, my throat closing over with pain.

“What?” the crowd roars back, getting into a frenzy.

“Tonight, Teardrop Dax is challenging… PEN!”

The crowd erupts. My stomach bottoms out.

“No!” I respond, shaking my head. “No. I’m leaving.” I move to walk away, trying to push past the three of them, but Xeno grips my wrist.

“The fuck you are, Tiny. You ain’t walking away from us again,” he snarls into my ear, then proceeds to drag me towards the dance floor. The crowd parts like the fucking ocean did for Moses, allowing us a clear path through. I fall in step beside him, trying to regain some of my dignity. There are too many people here who will talk. Spread rumours, tell lies. I can’t afford for my brother to hear any of them. So I grit my teeth and try to stem the raging emotion I feel at seeing them all again after so long. Truth be known I want to throw myself into their arms, hold them close. I want to get back what we had before we ruined it all so spectacularly.

I want to hate Xeno. I want to hate York and Zayn, Dax. Part of me does, and yet…

Hate is often at its most powerful when it’s formed on the back of love. Sometimes the two emotions are so thinly separated that tiny droplets filter from one into the other, discolouring the truth, blending it until you don’t even know how to feel anymore.

“Pen?” Clancy begins, looking between me and Xeno as we pass her by. She moves towards me, but Leo holds her back.

“Leave it, Clancy. I’ll be fine,” I call out over my shoulder.

I don’t get to hear her response, because Xeno is intent on humiliating me as he manhandles me onto the dance floor. Right now it’s clear that he doesn’t give a shit about the show he’s putting on. He certainly doesn’t give a shit that I’m going to be left with a bruise from the tight grasp of his fingers, triggering me in the worst possible way.

Motherfucker.

Hate blooms, darkening that deep-seated love, making it murky and unclear. This isn’t the boy I loved. This man before me is a stranger. I need to remember that. When we reach the centre of the dance floor, I yank my arm free, then turn on Xeno and punch him as hard as I can on the arm. I would’ve punched his face if he wasn’t so damn tall and my reach wasn’t so fucking short. The crowd sucks in a collective breath, but I’m too mad to worry about the consequences or the throbbing of my hand. Little Dynamite makes some more ‘braaaap, braaap’ sounds over the mic, shaping his fingers into guns indicating that this is a battle both on and off the dance floor. Dick.

“That was a mistake, Tiny,” Xeno growls, leaning over me.

“Get fucked, Xeno.”

His eyes flash with rage, but I know him and he’d never, ever, hit a woman. Yet, when his eyes darken and that grass-green I used to adore so much deepens to an almost black, I realise that I no longer know him at all. Maybe I never did.

“The only person getting fucked is you, Pen,” he snarls, before wrapping his tattooed hand around the back of my head and yanking me against his body. Before I can even try to fight him off, his hot, angry mouth is pressed against mine in a kiss that simultaneously obliterates all my defences and riles me up like nothing else. The kiss is savage, brutal and when his tongue pierces my lips and swoops in like he owns me, I have to shove down all the righteous emotions he conjures so nobody sees just how affected I am by his words and his actions. With an angry hand clutching the back of my head and our bodies thrust together, Xeno steals a kiss I wasn’t prepared to give him.

Hard.

Taut.

Vicious.

He ravages my mouth, bruises my lips, batters my defences. He doesn’t soothe me. He doesn’t heal us. He doesn’t answer any of the questions I’ve harboured for the last three fucking years. This kiss maims. This kiss tears, shreds, and stings. This kiss hurts.

And the worse thing of all, this kiss is our first.

Letting me go with a shove, Xeno leaves me panting as he stalks off the dance floor without a backward glance. Anger and betrayal rips at my skin, threatening to shred me to pieces.

I want to scream. I want to fucking rip out my hair. I want to pummel my fists against his retreating back, but worse than all of that, I want him to kiss me again.

Instead, I force myself to be still, to stop shaking. I force myself to internalise every last emotion, shutting them down one by one and forming a thicker, more impenetrable defence.

“Well, well, well. Looks like there’s trouble in paradise,” Little Dynamite taunts.

I catch his eye and sneer. He knows just as well as I do that the Breakers and I haven’t been friends for three fucking years, that it’s an impossibility. Little Dynamite is just some prick who’ll be nice one minute and a wanker the next. He loves the drama, gives him and the rest of the revellers at Rocks something to gossip about. If I wasn’t forced to work here, I would’ve left a long time ago.

“Just fucking get on with it!” I shout out over the cawing of the crowd.

There’s no backing out now. If I want to keep my pride in place and my reputation intact, I have to battle. If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t give a shit, but the Breakers know exactly which buttons to push. What they fail to realise is I’m not the same girl I was three years ago. This woman fights her own damn battles. I learnt the hard way that you can’t rely on anyone but yourself. The Breakers were the last ones to break my heart.

Never again.

Jerking my chin and folding my arms, I wait for my opponent. Little Dynamite holds his hands up to silence the crowd who look like they’re about to witness a dirty brawl in an underground fight club and not a battle on a dance floor. Though, to be fair, both can be just as dangerous, especially when you’re battling against a member of a gang and not just someone from a dance crew like I am tonight.

“Hurry the fuck up,” I add, glaring at the MC.

“Feisty, Pen. I like it,” Little Dynamite retorts, winking.

I flip him the finger.

It’s not hard to see whose side he’s on tonight. Raising his arm, he indicates for the music to be turned up. The bass vibrates up through the floor as In Da Club by 50 Cent pounds out through the speakers. A song that has so many layers of meaning for me and the Breakers. I close my eyes and let the music fill me up, long buried memories forcing themselves to the forefront of my mind.