by Eva Ashwood
The Sinners? What the fuck does that mean?
“Why do you care?” I narrow my eyes. “You another scholarship student?”
The girl shakes her head. “No. But I don’t have to be on scholarship to be a decent person. And coming from someone who’s lived this life and been a part of this world since birth? You have no idea what you’re getting into.”
Her gaze darts around nervously again, like she expects there to be a sniper in one corner ready to take her out. Then she turns around suddenly and hurries away to rejoin her friends at another table.
Her friends have all been watching us, and I lock gazes with one of them, who stares me down before she leans over to the chick that spoke to me. Nervous Girl waves her friend off, going about her breakfast like nothing happened between us.
I shrug, shaking it off. She acted like she was spilling state secrets, but honestly, it’s not like she told me anything I don’t already know.
Does she think she’s helping me?
Or maybe it’s just some stupid hazing thing, and she and all her friends are just trying to scare me.
Breakfast is otherwise uneventful, and after I’m finished I head to my first class, Intro to American Lit. Standard first day shit ensues. My professor introduces herself as Doctor Carson—a real PhD holder; I’m in the presence of greatness, clearly—and then goes on to explain that this class will not be easy and that we’ll have to work hard to keep up.
“Some of us more than others,” she adds.
Maybe it’s a fucking coincidence that her gaze lands on me as she says it, but the soft titters I hear from the back of the class make me doubt that. I clench my teeth together, pressing my pencil into my paper so hard the lead almost snaps.
It’s one thing for students to be bitches to the “poor kids” who’ve invaded their rich little bubble. But I’m starting to get the impression that the entire campus—students, staff, and professors alike—all look at us like we’re second-class citizens.
That’s ironic as hell, considering I’m pretty sure it’s only the scholarship students who’ve actually earned their place here. After all, it’s not like we have the luxury of relying on our parents’ insane amounts of money to buy our way into school.
Intro to American Lit is followed by European History 101. Same shit, different teacher. I try not to let my eyes glaze over as I listen to the introduction of some doctorate-level professor who probably bought his degree, followed by the not-so-subtle implication that I’ll be the weak link of the class.
By the time lunch comes, I’m well acquainted with my teachers’ and peers’ expectations for my performance as a student, and my hand is cramping up from gripping my pencil so damn hard as I try to suppress my anger.
Same as at breakfast, I’m good with finding an unoccupied table and keeping to myself. Hawthorne University has a fairly structured scheduling system, but most people seem to go off campus for lunch; it’s a lot less crowded than it was this morning.
Thank fuck.
I get a slice of pizza because it’s the most normal-looking thing on the menu, then plop my ass down at the same table I claimed this morning. As I’m digging into my food, I look up and catch sight of the only friendly face I’ve encountered on this campus so far.
Max.
She sees me too, and her face lights up. I’m honestly not used to people having that reaction when they see me. It throws me a little, but I don’t think she notices as she changes direction and starts making her way across the cafeteria toward me.
She’s on her way past one of the tables when a guy’s hand shoots out and pops her on the ass. She stops, her body going rigid with shock for a second. Then her lips press together and she rounds on the guy.
“Hey! What the hell?”
The guy laughs, holding up his hands. As he does, his buddy rises from the table and stands up behind Max, blocking her in. Before she can slip out from between them, the guy behind her grabs her by the shoulders and whispers something in her ear.
She wriggles in his grasp, elbowing him in the side as the first guy laughs.
Fuck.
They’re drawing attention, people swiveling in their seats to catch the latest drama.
I could just put my head down, finish my lunch, and let Max deal with this shit herself. She’s a big girl; she can take care of herself. And I should do what I promised myself I would and keep my fucking head down.
Tell that to my feet though.
They’re already carrying me across the cafeteria, long strides eating up the space between me and the two assholes who’ve become my sole focus. What the hell, right? Clearly I’m not gonna be able to stay under the radar like I hoped, so I might as well get my hands a little dirty.
When I reach their table, I grab the guy who has Max boxed in. My fingers dig sharply into his shoulder as I yank him to turn him around. He grunts, releasing her from his grip as he spins to face me—he’s got at least seventy pounds on me, so I know it’s more surprise than brute force that made him turn around.
Doesn’t matter. I’ll take it.
“The fuck you think you’re doing, bitch?” He glares down at me, his lips curling in a sneer.
I smirk. “Wow. Filthy mouth for a rich boy.”
“That’s because he’s not a rich boy,” Max hisses. The guy who first slapped her ass is standing now too, and she shoves at his chest before turning to face me. “He’s a scholarship student.”
Her glare is piercing, and my eyebrows shoot up as my gaze flicks back to the guy I pulled away from her.
He scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, just like you. Jesus. Don’t take it so seriously. All the scholarship kids get shit. It’s a rite of passage.”
“Oh, so that makes it fucking okay? Somebody did it to you, so now you do it to the new kids?” I glare at him. “What are you, second-year with a chip on your shoulder? Third-year too full of yourself? You know what—I don’t care.” I level a look at him that actually makes him pull back. “You think fucking around with the new meat is going to make anyone here think you’re anything other than broke scholarship trash? You’re pathetic.”
One of the first things you learn in the system is solidarity. Not with your foster parents—almost never with them.
But with the other kids, that’s a different story. One of the worst things possible is when another kid turns on you or does something really fucked up to you, just because they can. Just because they want power over you that they can’t get anywhere else.
That’s all this is. A couple of little boys trying to pick on girls because we’re easy targets for them.
And I’m not gonna fucking stand for that bullshit.
The guy in front of me flushes an ugly red, darting a look over at the one who slapped Max’s ass—who I’m guessing isn’t a scholarship student.
“You’re fucking pathetic,” I tell him. “Showing off for your little rich friend.” I look to Max. “Wanna bounce?”
She shoots the ass-slapper one more glare, then nods. “Yeah. I’m not fucking hungry anymore anyway.”
I keep my hands curled into fists until she’s out from between the two assholes, just in case they try some shit.
I’m fully prepared for them to pull something—for either the rich kid or the asshole scholarship student to decide to put us in our place, but neither of them makes a move to stop us.
Assholes. They’re no better and have no bigger balls than Brody.
“Thanks,” Max mutters under her breath as we cross the cafeteria.
“Not a problem.”
“You know that was probably a bad idea though, right?”
“Do I look like I care?” I shoot a raised brow in her direction.
A smirk tilts her lips. “No.”
“Well, there you go then. You helped me yesterday, so we’re even.”
As we near the cafeteria doors, a strange feeling washes over me. It prickles up along my arms to my neck, then trickles down my spine like a cold,
unpredictable drop of water.
Someone has their eyes on me, and it doesn’t take me too long to find just who it is.
Gray Eastwood.
He sits at a table near the dining hall entrance, a move I realize is probably strategic. It gives him and his two friends, the same two guys I ran into on Friday, a clear view of what’s going on in the cafeteria. They can keep an eye on the entire room from those seats.
Which means they just witnessed that entire thing go down.
Fucking great.
Gray’s piercing blue-green gaze is fixed on me, and unlike the two assholes who were harassing Max, his attention makes my heart jump in my chest—a strange, visceral reaction.
I can’t tell whether it’s caused by fear or anger or something else entirely, and I don’t want to think about it long enough to find out.
So I drag my gaze away from his, pretending I can’t feel the burn of his stare as Max and I leave the cafeteria.
9
“Hey!”
Seconds after we leave the dining hall, someone is already running up behind us. To my surprise—and, if I’m being honest, relief—it isn’t Gray or either of his friends. Instead, the man who approaches us is a pretentious-looking redhead wearing a pair of perfectly faded jeans and a casual but clearly expensive blazer. He’s got vivid blue eyes and a smattering of freckles across his pale skin.
I turn around, tensing. My body is still on-edge, ready for a fight that never came, and I’ve just about reached my quota of dealing with assholes for the day.
“What do you want? A verbal ass kicking like those guys?”
He chuckles, slowing his steps as he catches up to us. His gaze flicks to Max quickly before returning to my face and staying there.
“No. Not at all. I just wanted to say how impressive that was back there.” He smiles easily at me, his crystal blue eyes warming as he holds a hand out for me to shake. “Cliff Montgomery.”
I eye his hand and look back up at him without shaking it. “Sophie. Hate to break it to you, but I didn’t do it to entertain you.”
He doesn’t seem a single bit perturbed by my blunt answer. In fact, his smile widens. “I didn’t think you did. But it was still entertaining as hell. Honestly, I’m impressed. Most scholarship girls are timid little things.” He shakes his head, chuckling. “You, my dear, are not timid at all.”
“I’m also not your dear,” I say. “And you’re interrupting me and Max. Bye.”
Maybe it’s stupid to be rude to another potential ally on campus, but I’m not interested in being this guy’s little performing monkey—the sassy poor girl who entertains him with her antics.
Whatever Cliff thought he was going to get out of that interaction, he’s just left watching Max and me as we head off down the hall. I feel his gaze on my back, keen and a little too interested.
“Well, so much for those fucking free lunches.” Max shakes her head, irritation clear in her voice. “Want to cut out and grab something to eat off campus?”
I tilt my head. “You got a ride?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “My parents saved up since I was like, born, basically. It’s not an Aston Martin, but it gets me from point A to point B. I just need to run up to my dorm and grab my keys if you want to come up? Or stay down here and wait?”
My veins are still buzzing with leftover adrenaline. I need to walk it off. “I’ll meet you outside, by the quad.”
Max smiles and nods. “Cool. I won’t be too long.”
She slips out a side door, and I start making my way toward the front of the building. I’m still not super familiar with the campus, but I think if I go out that door and turn left, I’ll reach the quad eventually.
But I never get a chance to find out if I’m right.
Before I reach the building’s entrance, a hand clamps down over my mouth and a large body presses to my back.
Fuck.
Those assholes from the cafeteria weren’t done with us after all.
A fresh spike of adrenaline surges through me, and I drop my weight, trying to break the iron hold on me. But whoever’s got me is strong, and he barely even flinches as I dig my elbow into his ribs.
I’m shoved into a nearby room, the thick arms around me caging my own until I hear the door close behind us. A second later, I’m let go, my bag slipping from my shoulder as I stumble forward a step. Immediately, I whirl around to face the cafeteria bully—realizing only as I round on him that it’s not, in fact, one of the assholes who went after Max.
It’s Gray, with Elias and Declan standing close behind him.
I freeze with my fist half-cocked, my gaze flicking over the three of them. When I thought I knew who grabbed me, my body knew exactly how to respond. But this new turn of events has thrown me off-balance.
What the fuck do these three want with me?
“Not so ballsy now, are you, Sparrow?” Gray taunts, his voice a casual drawl.
Fury burns inside me like fire.
“The fuck is wrong with you?” I snap. “You didn’t have your balls handed to you hard enough the last time you accosted me for no reason?”
He shrugs. “Hard to say my balls were handed to me when everyone on campus knows now that you’re an easy slut for rich dick.”
“Kinda makes you a slut too, fucking some poor-ass rando in a bar bathroom,” I sneer.
Gray’s face hardens, and he pushes into my space. The room we’re in seems to be a barely used storage closet. It’s small, and my back presses against a bit of shelving as Gray cages me there.
“You’re not very bright, are you? Even if you’re mouthy as hell.” He grips my chin, forcing me to look at him. “The hell was that in the dining hall?”
I jerk my chin out of his hand, glaring at him. “What I do is none of your fucking business, you prick.”
“Sparrow, I’m Gray Motherfucking Eastwood. Everything here is my goddamn business.”
The venom in his tone bleeds out like an overflow of poison from an open wound. It makes my heart slam harder against my ribs, and I hate that he affects me at all. That the black hole in my chest, the comfortable, numbing emptiness, seems to disappear anytime he steps into my orbit, replaced by something chaotic and turbulent.
His eyes burn with the same venom that coats his words, and goose bumps scatter across my skin. Gray ‘Motherfucking’ Eastwood hates me, and I have no idea why.
Is it because he fucked a poor girl? Just on principal because I’m the new meat here and need to be put in my place? Or is he just a plain old psychopath?
He crowds me again. His body presses against mine, and I wedge my hands between us, my fingernails digging into his chest as I try to shove him away, to keep some space between our bodies.
“What I really wanna know is why the fuck you think you deserve to be here,” he murmurs, dipping his face closer to mine. “You waltz in here like you deserve everything you’re about to be given. Like you earned it.”
Is that his problem? He thinks I’m under the impression that I’m some sort of special butterfly because I got this stupid scholarship?
I stare at him, almost laughing in his face at the sheer stupidity of his question.
“I don’t deserve to be here,” I say. “I don’t deserve anything. A lot of shit that’s come my way hasn’t been deserved. But that’s life, and here we are—I’m stuck in a closet with three assholes who seem obsessed with making my life miserable, going to a school I don’t deserve to be in, breathing air I don’t deserve either. Life’s not fucking fair, and most of it happens regardless of what someone does or does not deserve.”
Gray freezes, his body going still against mine. His face twists, a look almost like pain crossing his features. I don’t know why. I doubt there’s a soft bone in this fucker’s body, based off what I’ve seen of him so far. But something I said struck a nerve with him.
Almost as soon as I see it—as soon as he realizes that I’ve seen it—the expression is gone and that deep, angry scowl is ba
ck. He ducks his head even more until we’re almost nose-to-nose, his blue-green eyes narrowed.
“Well, I’m glad we’re in fucking agreement about that. And since you don’t deserve to be here, I don’t think you should be allowed to stick around, what do you think? Give me your key card.”
I stare at him, incredulous. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Your key card. Now.”
He’s got to be insane. Or just a dick. Maybe both.
When I don’t move to do as he says, he growls, shoving his hands into my back pockets. His touch is rough, and I’m reminded uncomfortably of the way he grabbed my ass when he fucked me in The Silent Hour bathroom. He had the same bruising, possessive, dominant grip then too, and the flare of heat that shoots through me pisses me off.
My body can’t seem to distinguish between wanted and unwanted touches from this man. No matter how much I hate him, my nerve-endings keep sending the wrong goddamn signals to my brain.
Ignoring the throbbing ache in my clit, I twist in his grip, trying to free my hands from where they’re trapped between us.
But before I can shove him away, he’s got my key card fisted in his grip—my ticket into my room, into my classes, access to my meals. All of it held in the palm of his hand.
My nostrils flare as I finally free one hand and swipe for it, but Gray shoves me back away from him with one hand, holding the card out of my reach with the other.
“Good luck figuring out how to get around campus without this.” He smirks cruelly. “Maybe you should fly away while you can, Sparrow.”
My vision is going dim, but this time it’s not blackness creeping in at the edges. It’s red. My hands are shaking, my entire body quivering from the force of the anger rushing through me.
I grit my teeth, looking over Gray’s shoulder to Elias and Declan. They stand dutifully behind him, and the sight of them pisses me off. When I look back at Gray, I shove him as hard as I can, making him let out a startled grunt.