Read Online Rebel Soul: (Rebel Series Book 1) ((Rebel Series)) by J.C. Hannigan - Free Book Online

huffed, crossing her arms like a sulking toddler.
    “No, but he’d ground me for lying about where I was last night, and for going to an unsupervised party with alcohol and boys,” I retorted.
    “Woah, woah, woah !” a voice from the doorway startled us both and we jumped. Elle’s mother, Sue, was standing in the doorway. The expression on her face clearly said that we were busted.
    I swallowed hard, looking back to Elle with a panicked look on my face. She rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Mom. It’s under control.”
    Sue Thompson was not going to let it rest. She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway, fixing us both with her no bullshit mom-stare that made me want to confess everything. I wondered briefly if my mom would have had that ability if she was still alive.
    “What happened last night, girls?” Beneath the calm, I knew she was vibrating with anger. Elle was her only daughter, and she was fiercely protective of her. By proxy, and because I’d been her best friend’s daughter, she was equally as protective of me.
    Elle sighed heavily, not sensing an out either. “Well, you know how I said we were going to the bush to camp and stuff, right?” she asked. Sue nodded, pursing her lips. Sue knew that we drank and hung out with friends, but in her words, she’d rather know where we were, and she’d rather us know that we could call her in heartbeat. It wasn’t her style to be completely clueless to what we were doing, and she’d told us on more than one occasion that what little trouble we got into would never amount to the stuff that she used to do with my mom.
    “Go on.” Sue gestured with a wave of her hand, growing impatient.
    “Well, Ezra invited his cousin and his cousin was a dirt bag who followed Tessa into the woods when she went to pee. And he attacked her but –”
    “He did what !” Sue very rarely raised her voice, only right now, she was definitely yelling. She pushed off the door and came towards us, her eyes searching mine. “Why didn’t you call me?” she asked Elle accusingly.
    “Because nothing really happened. He just hurt her a little –”
    “He just hurt her a little,” Sue repeated darkly, glaring at Elle. “Eleanor Reese Thompson, I expect better from you.” She tipped my chin up, examining me.
    “He didn’t hurt me like that,” I rushed to say. “He was going to, but Braden’s brother got there in time and stopped it.”
    Sue’s eyes locked on mine. “Brock Miller was there?” I nodded, my throat dry and scratchy. “And he stopped anything from happening to you? What did he do to the guy?”
    “Don’t worry, Mom. He didn’t do anything, but you could tell he wanted to. He just made Ezra get him off the property before he called the police.”
    Sue was worrying her lip, probably thinking the same thing that I was thinking. If Bill Armstrong ever found out about this, I’d be grounded forever. He likely wouldn’t let me leave for college with Elle, and Sue knew how much I wanted to go to college. She knew how desperately I wanted independence. She’d been arguing with Dad herself for years about letting me have a little more freedom.
    “What did the guy do to you, Tessa?” Sue was at war with herself.
    “He just…tried to…” It was difficult to talk with the lump in my throat. I swallowed, trying to break it up. “He hit me when I struggled, and then he was on the ground. He just…scared me.”
    Admitting that Chris had scared me made me feel weak; it made me want to curl up in a ball and cry. It made me want to run to my mother for comfort. But I didn’t have a mother. She was dead.
    Sue sensed what I needed, and she wrapped her arms around me tightly, pulling me to her chest. Her hand came up to hold the back of my head. “Oh, honey, it’s alright. It’ll be okay. You’re okay,” she said soothingly.
    I let her hug me, fighting the urge to cry and break down. “I know, I’ll be fine. I’m okay,” I repeated,