Page 1 of Violent Little Thing

Prologue I

Half of me wants to cause a ruckus. The other part of me wants to take a nap.

—Charleigh’s secret thoughts

Charleigh

“Let’s go.”

I shook my head. “We can just walk, Sunny.”

“Nooo,” Sonja groaned. “Please? I don’t want to walk. It’s supposed to rain. Plus, if we go with my sister, we’ll get home earlier, and then we can get ready for the dance faster.”

That was another thing I didn’t want to do.

Go to the damn dance.

Except Sonja, my best friend, did.

And I’d do just about anything for Sonja. Except get in the car with her sister.

The Vanderbilt family had four children: Seraphina, the eldest. Beau, the oldest boy, and my crush. Lysander, the middle child and resident sweetheart. Then there was my best friend, Sonja. The baby. The apple of her parents’ eyes.

Well, Sonja, Lysander, and Beau were the apples of Olive Vanderbilt’s eyes. Seraphina was not. Seraphina was an absolute asshole, and I was right there with Olive.

She was spoiled, selfish, and mean.

I couldn’t stand her.

I hated how she treated her brothers—especially Lysander, who was autistic and “weird” according to Seraphina. I hated how she got drunk and expected people to take care of her like she was their queen. I hated how she always felt like the world should revolve around her.

But, most importantly, she treated my best friend like shit, and I didn’t like it.

Sonja was the sweetest and most joyous of the Vanderbilt clan, and Seraphina hated that everyone loved her so much. She felt like she deserved to have all the love that was in the world, even if she refused to give anyone anything back.

Olive, the matriarch of the Vanderbilt Clan, had started playing hardball where Seraphina was concerned, and Benedict, Sonja’s dad, had started protecting her from the consequences of her actions. Which only pissed Olive off all the more.

Needless to say, Seraphina had gotten worse over the last year since her mother stopped putting up with her shit.

No longer was Seraphina the prodigal child who got everything she wanted.

And she acted out because her “mommy didn’t love her anymore.”

Or whatever bullshit Seraphina thought was wronging her that day.

Today was no different.

We’d both been late to school because Seraphina “forgot” that she was taking us. My mom had to leave work to come get us to drop us off. She hadn’t said that she was mad or anything, but there’d been signs.

She’d also said that I had to start riding the bus to and from school from now on, because she couldn’t afford to be taking off of work to pick me up.

A long time ago I’d learned that my parents were lower middle class. They made enough money not to need food stamps, but they lived paycheck to paycheck and probably would always do so.

When she said she couldn’t afford to take off to take me to school if I missed the bus, she wasn’t lying.

My best friend, however? She was rich as hell.

Her dad owned a professional football team in Wyoming. The Wyoming Condors apparently made the Vanderbilts really good money, and they never had to worry about whether they were eating Spam that week or not.