Devious
Authors: Aria Declan
Devious
by
Aria Declan
Text copyright 2012 by Aria Declan
All rights reserved. Expert as permitted under the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the author. This book should not be shared onto other sites
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There is no paperback version of this book as of 2012.
Devious: a short novel / Aria Declan
Summary: It's 9 am and Leanna, a modern day lolita, cannot remember what she did the night before. She awakes fully dressed and her neighbor has just been discovered dead. She is suspicious of the guy next door, but she cannot stay away from him—he's all she ever wanted. As the people closest to Leanna get their lives cut short, the only thing on her mind is all the men drowning her life.
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Contents
Prologue
“I was born bad.
But, then I met you.
You made me nice for a while.
But, my dark side's true.”
-Lana Del Rey “Kinda Outta Luck”
Chapter 1
Driving in Cars With Boys
I puckered my red lips to kiss the stubble on his chin.
He frowned, and with his large hands he gently pushed me to stand back. His dad, who looked like a psycho rapist that would pick up an underage cutie outside a bar, drove up to us. He pulled up to the curb next to me in his old red truck and rolled down the passenger side window.
I bit down on my oversized lips and tried not to make eye contact with him. Not because he was the town's most hated, but because me and my man spent many useless nights in that truck.
“Hello, Mr. Carson,” I said in my soft tone, that many men thought I faked because it was much too sultry for a seventeen year old. “Isn't it late for you to be out here; especially with a murderer loose?”
He laughed as if he were at a comedy show, which made me cringe. Just hearing him laugh made me think about an old creep up to no good. “Do you need a ride home, baby doll?” Mr. Carson kept his green eyes pierced on me as he leaned over and opened the passenger door. “I'm going by your Mama's house right now, doll.”
I stared into my man, Tyler's worried eyes and then looked away. “It is getting late. I should be heading home,” I whispered, knowing he would be angry if I left him alone.
Tyler rolled his eyes and without a word, walked away to his job as a waiter at the diner, Margret’s Chair. I did not bother chasing after him, because that was what I did ninety percent of the time. Like fifty percent of woman, I needed to learn to let go and learn what I was worth.
I really wanted him to kiss me good night; it was all I wanted, but he would not dare. He only liked the bad girls. Unfortunately, he was missing out on the baddest one.
And not bad in the sense of selling drugs and having cocaine binges, but the reckless kind; the kind that thought I could live forever.
“Well...” Mr. Carson said as he waited for me to get into his truck. He played with his disgusting biker mustache and hummed to me, what sounded like a Madonna song.
How would a “gangster” man like him know a Madonna song?
I swung my cheap swap-meet purse, that carried way too many things, over my shoulder. I held my little hand out for him to pull me inside his truck, as I only stood at five foot four. I was more worried about my overly tight shorts ripping, and how my long hair that went straight down my back could get frizzy.
As I put my seat belt on, he slowly drove down the silent empty streets. I kept my eyes on the homes we passed through; all simple brick homes with perfect lawns that struggled to stay green in the cold autumn weather. On boring days, I liked to ride in Tyler's truck and wonder what people did in their brick homes. I always imagined the good happy family stuff. But, now all I thought about were chilling things, like people being killed and tortured to death because that was all the local news talked about.
Mr. Carson, who mainly went by Derek, leaned down under his seat to find his CDs. I gripped tight onto my seat belt as he took his eyes off the road several times. Even though there were no cars in sight; no one crazy enough to be out when the town was scared straight from a recent murder that happened a block from my street.
“That murder sure does have everyone crying,” he laughed as he put in a CD that was titled,
hot mixtapes
—that immediately made me want to puke.
It made me feel uneasy as he went through tracks one to seven. He took his eyes off the road one more time and stared into my eyes as the voice of Caleb Followill from Kings of Leon began to sing “17.”
“I like this song,” he said as he began to talk in a lower tone. “Do you know why?”
“I don't want to know,” I whispered, because just the tone of my voice would have him pouncing all over me.
And I was no self-centered brat; I just knew what I was capable of. Someone like me, knew my power; with full auburn hair only styled with a side-part and big hazel eyes with dark top lashes that could probably sweep dust.
All any man wanted to do to me was wrap their hands around my tiny waist and sit me on their lap just to get the perfect view. And I cannot say I blame them. It was only my fault since I wore hugging dresses and high heels. Maybe I wanted men to bother me, maybe I liked the attention.
Derek pulled up to my home, where my mother was outside making my little sister pose for the camera. I instantly smiled as she posed like a little lolita, then I frowned of disgust. That was any sick man's peeping show.
“Mama!” I shouted as I jumped out the truck, swinging my purse in different directions.
She began to untangle her fresh curls, as her six inch heel slid into the dirt of the lawn. “Baby, where have you been? You know there are murderers loose.” Mama held in her belly as she showed me how she squeezed into my new dress I had bought.
However, I did not buy it for her. “That's mine. Take it off!”
“Baby, I have to go to New York. You know that,” she whispered as she waved for Derek to come inside. But, he was already on his way inside—ready for a hot plate.
“You don't have to invite him over every night,” I muttered. “He's disgusting.”
“Then, why would you ride with him?” she snapped as she ran inside to fix her tangled curls.
“Because you won't buy me a car.”
“Leanna, the world doesn't work that way,” she said. “You should know that by now.”
In disgust, I sat at my usual seat at the dinner table. Mama, made the same thing three nights in a row—meat balls and rice. She was not a very tasty cook; maybe a reason she could never keep a man.
I pushed my plate away as Derek came stumbling into the dining room. Instead of sitting across from me, he made it a priority to sit right next to me—nearly touching my elbow with his.
I hated to watch people eat because it made my stomach queasy. Especially, watching Derek as he struggled to get all the rice out his overgrown mustache—a mustache that belonged on a biker rather than a handyman. To make things worse, his hair that had not been cut since 1992 made its way into my plate.
“Ew!” I shouted as his hair splashed sauce in my eye.
“Let me help you out,” he said as he leaned over closer to me. “It's just a little sauce.”
“No, get away!” I cried. “Just leave me alone.”
Mama came running into the room, “What is your problem now? You're always being so damn dramatic about something. You're seventeen but sometimes you act like you are ten.”
I sighed and tried to hold my tears back—but one made its way down my cheek. I did not know what I was crying for since it was not my time of the month. I stared at my reflection in my spoon and my tears came out like a waterfall. My lips that already looked fake, looked larger and my eyelashes looked like some drag queen glued them on me. Even though people paid money to have those two things, I wanted to either pop a needle in it or cut it off.
“She does this sometime,” Mama whispered to Derek as if I were not even there. “You'll get used to it eventually.”
I instantly stopped crying, “What does that mean?”
“I told you I’m going to New York,” she snapped. “Me and your sister will be gone for a good three months for this art competition show. Leanna, I’ve been talking about this show for the last five weeks. Do you not listen to me?”
“It's called selective listening, and no I do not listen to you. I thought we discovered this years ago,” I muttered.
Mama smirked with suspicion as she put her pearls on. “I swear, you are so lucky I’m in a good mood or your ass would be outside,” she snapped. “Derek, will take you to school and bring you home; and hopefully teach you to cook,” she laughed, but nothing was funny.
Just when I thought Mama would never make it as a big time artist, she got her big break. Well, everyone thought she got it, but Mama was just like me. She used her voice, body, and attitude to get what she wanted.
There was a reason she wore a short mini skirt to show off her long legs when she showcased her work at an art show. When I say short, you could nearly see the no panties she had on. And of course, her golden barbie hair that smelled like baby powder had every man wrapped around her finger. She told me she gave me her hazel eyes for a reason, and that reason always had me in trouble.
I secretly pulled out my cell phone as Derek and Mama blushed over the big news that she would be on reality TV. By morning, Mama would be the talk of our small town, Riverbed; centered in the middle of California. We sometimes got mistaken for southerners lost at sea. But, we liked to think of us as population two thousand slowly heading to population zero. We had a sense of humor, or we liked to fake it. Especially, when one of our own was killed recently.
Mama came into my bedroom and grunted. She tried many times to tare off all the glamor shots of Elizabeth Taylor and other hot shots from the past to replace with what she claimed was art. Art to her was paint thrown against foil, sprayed with water, and dipped into dog poop—well, that was what it looked like to me.