REBEL, a New Adult Romance Novel (The Rebel Series)

  Table of Contents

  Title page

  Copyright

  Other Books by Elle Casey

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Epilogue Notes

  About the Author

  Other Books by Elle Casey

  Acknowledgments

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  © 2013 Elle Casey, all rights reserved, worldwide. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, uploaded to the Internet, or copied without author permission.

  The author respectfully asks that you please support artistic expression and help promote anti-piracy efforts by purchasing a copy of this ebook only at author-authorized online outlets that serve your country. If you’re viewing this book without having paid for it, you are pirating this creative work.

  PIRACY = STEALING

  Elle Casey thanks you deeply for your understanding and support.

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  OTHER BOOKS BY ELLE CASEY

  *= Coming Soon

  NEW ADULT ROMANCE

  Shine Not Burn

  By Degrees

  Don’t Make Me Beautiful

  Rebel

  Hellion*

  Trouble*

  Trainwreck*

  Hold Me Down*

  YA PARANORMAL ROMANCE

  Duality, Volume I (Melancholia)

  Duality, Volume II (Euphoria)

  YA URBAN FANTASY

  War of the Fae: Book 1, The Changelings - FREE!

  War of the Fae: Book 2, Call to Arms

  War of the Fae: Book 3, Darkness & Light

  War of the Fae: Book 4, New World Order

  Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 1, After the Fall

  Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 2, Between the Realms

  Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 3, Portal Guardians

  My Vampire Summer

  My Vampire Fall*

  Aces High (co-written with Jason Brant)

  YA DYSTOPIAN

  Apocalypsis: Book 1, Kahayatle

  Apocalypsis: Book 2, Warpaint

  Apocalypsis: Book 3, Exodus

  Apocalypsis: Book 4, Haven

  YA ACTION ADVENTURE

  Wrecked

  Reckless

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my dear friend, Susan Wild. Her name says it all.

  "I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best." ~ Marilyn Monroe

  CHAPTER ONE

  MY NAME’S TEAGAN. I KNOW, I know … the name. Twenty-two years ago, my mother thought a Welsh name for her only child would be beautiful. Teagan means pretty, so it should have fit perfectly. Who has an ugly baby, right? I guess I did okay in the looks department. I’m not too short, not too tall. Eating chips and gummy bears every day has no effect on my somewhat athletic frame, and I’ve been told my green eyes compliment my pale complexion. The problem with the name Teagan is my mom never considered the creative names kids would morph it into.

  “Yo, Teabag, what’s up?”

  I flip Perry Spitler off, but he just laughs as he passes on by.

  He and I have an understanding; when we see each other on campus, he insults me, I flip him off, and we never actually talk. It suits us both just fine. Making out with him and then ralphing on his shoes in freshman year was one of the best moves I’ve ever made in my climb up the social ladder at UCLA.

  “Why do you even talk to that douche canoe?” asks my friend Quin as she brushes out her long, black hair. Quinlan is her real name, but she refuses to answer to it. We both have a thing with names, which is only one of the many reasons we get along so well. “I hear he puts toy cars in dark places on weekends.” She puts away her brush and takes a bite of an energy bar, chewing it like a cow and waiting for my reaction.

  I’m both intrigued and disgusted. “And by toy cars and dark places we mean…” I twist my longish, wavy brown hair up into a bun and stick a pencil in it to keep it from falling to my shoulders again. It’s frigging hot out here in the student union today. Dry heat, my butt.

  “Literally. Like that movie Jackass. He put a toy car in his asshole at a party the other night.”

  I snort in disbelief and disgust. “He did not.”

  Quin puts up her hand like a girl scout. “Swear. Guy’s an asscar driver.”

  I’m really happy I barfed on him now. Really, really happy. The kiss we shared? Well, we’ll just tally that up to a serious lapse in judgment on my part. In my defense, there were copious amounts of beer involved.

  I can’t help but stare at his butt as he goes by. “Remind me not to accept any rides from him in the future.”

  We collapse in immature giggles that have Perry turning around and frowning. Watching his face and imagining that I can see he’s walking with a slight limp only makes it worse. By the time I can see clearly again, he’s gone.

  “Man, I totally needed that.” I can feel the good mood drugs floating around in my brain. Now the upcoming Summer of Doom doesn’t seem quite so bleak.

  “You ready for summer break?” Quin asks, crumpling up the wrapper to her energy bar and throwing it on the ground.

  I lean down and pick it up, sighing as I stick it in my bag. This is her thing. This is my thing. This is how we roll, with her being a pain in the ass and me picking up after her. “No. I’m not ready. I want to stay here and hang out with you and all the cool people.”

  “No, you don’t. Do you know how hot it gets here in the summer? Ugh.” She brushes crumbs off her lap. “I am going to literally cook in my own skin, like a poached egg.”

  “You forget, I’ve lived here for almost four years now, and No Cal isn’t that different.”

  “But you always leave in the summer, and No Cal is different, so that doesn’t count. By the time you get back this September for your very last semester - by the way, you completely suck for graduating before me - all the poaching will be done.”

  “You should come with me. Silicon Valley’s got a drier heat than LA.” I�
�m lying, but she’ll never know.

  She faces me, not smiling. That’s a rare expression for her, as Quin-grins come frequently and often without provocation. We’re not much alike in that way; my smiles are rationed for only truly happy moments.

  “You should invite me, and maybe I would,” she says.

  “I always invite you.”

  “No, you don’t. You just say, ‘You should come.’ That’s not the same thing.”

  “What do you want, an engraved invitation?” A tiny spark of hope glimmers in my chest. Summer would only suck half as much if Quin were with me back at my father’s place.

  “Yes. That would work.” She sniffs and looks off into the distance.

  “I’ll seriously do it, if that’s what it would take to finally get you up there.”

  “No, don’t bother. I can’t go.”

  “Why? Because LA’s social scene would never survive without you?”

  “No.” She stands, brushing off her legs. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

  “Late for what? My classes were all done as of twenty minutes ago.”

  “I have an appointment with a milkshake over at McDonald’s House of Horrors. Come on. Your treat.”

  We begin the long walk across campus. “I’ll pay for your ticket,” I say, testing the waters. I don’t know why I bother, though.

  “Nope. I pay my own way.”

  “Do you have the money?”

  “No. You know I’m broke.” Quin is always broke. She lives off the kindness of others and a scholarship. I’m not even sure what the scholarship is for. Do they give scholarships for being a smartass? Because if they do, she qualifies for a full ride.

  “Then let me pay,” I say.

  “No.”

  “You can pay me back.”

  “No.”

  I try a different tack. “It’s because you don’t like me, I know. Admit it.”

  “No, that’s not it, and if you try and guilt me into doing it, we won’t be friends anymore.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Yes, it is, but still … I won’t let you pay.”

  I give her my puppy dog eyes. “I’m going to be desperately lonely.”

  “No, you won’t be. You’ll have a bodyguard babysitter.”

  I sigh. “They always suck.”

  “That last one didn’t.”

  “The last one was like forty years old!”

  “So? What do you want to do? Fuck them or just have them take a bullet for you?”

  “Can’t I do both?”

  We laugh, knowing I’m full of crap. I actually liked the last guy assigned to babysit me, the guy being paid to assuage my father’s paranoia. He actually believes there are people in silicon valley trolling the neighborhoods for executives’ kids, since according to him they’d make really excellent kidnapping targets.

  Jim was the name of my last babysitter. Maybe I’ll get him again and we can play chess all summer like we did last year. I’ve never slept with one of my dad’s employees. They’re always married, ugly, old, or a trifecta of all three. Besides, my dad would kill us both if I did something that stupid. We don’t fraternize with the help.

  That’s what my uber arrogant step-mother says, anyway, although I’m not so sure she hasn’t put that rule to the side from time to time with the pool boy. Seriously … I’m not kidding. The pool boy.

  “What are you thinking about right now?” Quin asks me. “I.O.U. for your thoughts.”

  “I’m thinking how much I hate The Heinous One for being such a bag of dicks.”

  Quin smiles. “I’m really looking forward to meeting your step-mother at graduation, you know that? I’m totally going to call her that to her face.”

  I smile back. “Me too. Some day.” When I find a way to support myself and don’t have to worry about my father cutting me off.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I’M PACKING UP THE LAST of my crap from my dorm room when I get the call. I moved in here for my last semester and a half to make life easier. Six months ago my lease was up on my apartment, and the douchebags who run the place didn’t want to extend it; apparently, my parties annoyed the old farts who also lived there. I tried to tell my dad at the time he moved me in there that the condo wasn’t a good place for a college student’s living arrangements, but he didn’t listen. He liked the gated security and the living-breathing guard in the lobby; and besides, he never listens to anyone under the age of twenty-five. I’m still three years away from having anything of value to say in his world.

  The Call. The one that changes my life forever. It comes as I’m sitting on my suitcase, trying to get it to zip up. Stupid cell phones. They sit there on the desk or in your pocket or purse, tiny and black, taking up so little space, but sometimes they carry messages that show how incredibly powerful they really are. Bastard fucking cell phone.

  They say you shouldn’t kill the messenger, but that doesn’t stop me hearing words straight from my worst nightmare and responding by whipping my phone across the room into the wall, shattering it into about ten different pieces.

  “What the hell?” asks a girl walking by in the hallway. She stops in my doorway. Lindey. We know each other, but not well. She’s mostly lame and I’m only halfway lame, so we move in different circles.

  I sit down on my bed, ignoring Lindey as visions race through my mind. This cannot possibly be real. Maybe The Heinous One is pulling some kind of seriously sick joke on me. Am I being punked? Would she do something like that? I don’t put much past her, but this … this cannot be a cruel joke. It has to be real. Not even she would be this evil.

  “Should I call Quin for you?” Lindey asks.

  I don’t answer. I can’t. The words aren’t really making sense to me right now. All I can picture is my father’s face the last time I saw it. Serious. Annoyed. Stressed. I can’t remember the last words we said to one another. Were they kind? Loving? Dismissive? Cold? I vote for the latter choices; those would be more in keeping with our relationship of late. Ever since the Heinous One entered it two years ago.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “TEAG. TEAG. CAN YOU HEAR me?” Quin is sitting next to me on my bare, stripped-of-sheets bed, waving her hand in front of my face.

  I slap her away as I stand. “Quit.”

  “Well, thank Hootie and the Blowfish you’re still in there.” She stands and huffs out a breath. “I about had a heart attack thinking you’d fallen into some catatonic state. You owe me dinner tonight. The last hurrah. The two amigas ride again for the last time.” She waves in my general direction. “I don’t have time fo’ dat coma shit.” She leans towards me, giving me a maniacal grin. Normally this would help whatever mood I’m in, but this time, it just scares me. This is not real life. That phone call I just got? That’s real life.

  Her happy mood deflates. “What happened, Teagan? Seriously. Enough of the silent game. I freak out over the silent game, you know that. I’ll talk until my teeth fall out and my tongue cramps. We’ll both hate me.”

  I look at her but say nothing. The words won’t come. I try, but only air is there.

  “Please?” She looks so pitiful, I can’t ignore her anymore.

  My throat is sore for some reason. “Quin, I just … I can’t play right now.”

  “What happened?” she whispers. “Did you finally come to terms with the fact that Dolph Lundgren is not going to lose thirty years off his life and marry you?”

  I shake my head. Now is not the time to bring my lifelong crush on The Dolph into the picture.

  She continues, trying to break through the cold barrier that’s gone up around my heart. “Did you hear the news that Justin and Selena are back together again? Is that what this is all about? Because that makes me sad too. And a little mad. She should be smarter than that. He’s nothin’ but a monkey abandoner.”

  “Quin. My dad’s dead.”

  She’s in the middle of making another asinine guess about what my problem is when her mouth slaps shu
t. She backs her head up and frowns. “Say … what now?”

  I don’t respond.

  Her face goes a little pale. “You’re fucking with me. That’s not cool, Teag. Seriously. Not. Cool.”

  I shake my head, battling tears. My dad was a bastard, but he was my dad after all. I’m sad. I’m scared. And I’m so fucking lost.

  Quin grabs me in a tight embrace, trapping my arms at my sides. “Oh, fuck me senseless, I had no idea you weren’t kidding around.” She looks up at me from her five foot height. “You’re not messing with me, right? Because that would be unforgivable. Too far.”

  My chin quivers as I try to hold it all in.

  Quin puts her head on my shoulder and squeezes me harder. “Don’t worry, chiquita, we’ll figure this out. We’ll figure this out…”

  She’s still patting my back five minutes later when the tears finally erupt from my head. It’s her last attempt at making me feel better that breaks the dam holding back my sorrow.

  “Don’t worry, Teagan,” she says, “you’re not alone.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I AM TOTALLY AND UTTERLY alone. My father has done a great job over the last couple decades of alienating every single person who may have been someone who could take me in. Unless his money comes as part of the deal, I am persona non grata to my extended family, and since the money is now fully in the hands of The Heinous One, the same assmunch who had my father cremated without a funeral or even a memorial service, I guess I can’t blame them for saying — um, no. Not in this lifetime.

  Seeing as how they’ve never met me, I can’t expect them to welcome me into their homes with open arms. I made zero effort my entire life to know them, and I’m an adult now. I should, in theory, be perfectly capable of standing on my own two feet. Instead, five days after receiving the worst news of my life, I’m in the asscar driver Perry’s apartment with Quin sitting next to me, trying to talk me off the ledge I’m standing on in my mind.

  I have nothing and nowhere to go. My bank account has exactly three hundred and eight dollars in it, my father’s lawyer says I won’t get another penny from the estate until I’m thirty, and everything my father ever held dear is now in the hands of a bimbo he met on a cruise and married a week later. I am completely adrift on this nightmare sea of darkness.