by Eva Ashwood
“You’re a pathetic piece of shit, you know that, right?” I hiss. “You jump a chick half your fucking size with your goons watching the door like you’re some kind of mafia thugs or some shit. You’re just rich, pampered assholes who have nothing better to do than trample over everyone else because having nothing remotely wrong in your lives has made you bored—”
Before I can finish, Gray has his hand on my throat. He shoves me back against the shelving and puts his face close to mine.
“You don’t know shit about me,” he growls. “Not a goddamn thing.”
He’s close. So close I can see where the blue in his eyes transitions into green around his pupils. So close that heat charges between us, and I can’t tell if this lightheaded feeling is because he’s nearly cutting off my air supply or because of something else.
My nipples are peaked and stiff, drawn so tight it’s almost painful as they rub against the fabric of my bra. My clit is still pulsing, a demanding need building up inside me. This feels like the moment in the bathroom right before Gray’s lips crashed down on mine, the air electric with dangerous chemistry.
With possibility.
With desire that could burn us both to the ground.
It’s infecting my entire body, making hate and lust burn through me with equal vengeance, each emotion ratcheting the other one up even higher.
I want to kill him.
I want to kiss him.
I want to fuck him.
I want to destroy him.
My chest heaves as I draw in deep breaths, my nostrils flaring as the rich, spicy scent of his aftershave overtakes my senses.
And maybe it’s the same for Gray. Maybe some of the chaos inside my chest has infected him too, because his jaw clenches hard as the malice in his eyes competes with lust that blows his pupils wide.
We hate each other, and I don’t even quite know why.
Just like I don’t understand why I still crave his touch.
But we have an audience, and I at least have some pride. So when he shoves me away, seeming to remember that fact too, I shove my arousal down like it’s bile in my throat and not a fire burning bright in the pit of my stomach.
He takes a step back from me, breathing just as hard as I am.
Like we’ve just fought a war and neither of us won.
“Remember what I said, Sparrow,” he breathes out, a warning in his voice. “Remember that you don’t belong here.”
10
It takes me a few minutes after Gray and his friends leave the closet to get my fucking limbs to work properly again.
This isn’t like me. I’ve dealt with bullies before. I’ve dealt with a lecherous foster father and kids who mistook me for easy prey.
I’ve dealt with my fair share of bullshit, and none of it has ever left me this shaken before. It’s like Gray can somehow reach inside my soul and flip a switch, turning on a floodgate of emotions I thought I’d shut down for good.
And after every encounter we have, I’m left trying to close that dam back up, to shove my emotions back down into the black hole where they belong.
It’s not getting easier with practice though. If anything, it’s getting harder—as if every time he bashes my walls down, they go back up weaker and weaker.
No. Nothing about me is weak. I can’t afford to let it be.
Gritting my teeth, I shove away from the shelves that are holding me up and stalk toward the door, letting it slam behind me as I leave the closet.
Max is chill about it when I raincheck on her for lunch. Turns out it actually is handy to have her number—I call her on my way over to the admin office to explain why I won’t be able to grab food today. I can’t exactly put off getting a replacement card. I won’t even be able to get into my damn dorm room without it.
“Drop by my dorm if you have trouble,” Max tells me after going off on a rant about what an asshole Gray is, which I gotta admit, I appreciate. “So you have somewhere to sleep.”
“Yeah, I will. Thanks.”
I actually mean it this time. Normally, my instinct in all situations is to keep everyone around me at arm’s length. But I like Max. She’s the first person I’ve felt this sort of kinship with since Jared. And besides, I’m starting to realize Hawthorne University isn’t the kind of place where I can afford to throw away a possible friendship.
“Good luck,” she says.
“Thanks.” I let out a humorless laugh. “I have a feeling I’ll need it.”
I hang up and shove the phone into my messenger bag, picking up my pace as I near the admin building.
All I can say is, Gray Eastwood is lucky I’m not a narc and not stupid enough to think that even if I was, someone would actually do something about him stealing my shit. As it is, when I walk into the admin office, I have my head held high despite the fact that I’m ready to fight if I so much as catch sight of Gray.
“Hey, I need a new key card,” I tell the woman behind the desk. She’s the same one I dealt with on Friday, but I’ve already forgotten her name. “I seem to have misplaced it.”
The secretary looks up at me, a smile on her face until she sees who I am. Her expression falls, and a flicker of agitation reflects behind her glasses.
“Did you set up an appointment?”
“No. I just lost it. I kinda need a new one for classes and food and to get into my dorm.”
“Well, we aren’t able to just whip key cards out of thin air,” she says, her words coming out slow, like she’s talking to someone who doesn’t know how to speak English. “And it is generally a student’s responsibility to keep track of their ID. We didn’t have to replace a single card last year, so I don’t believe it’s that hard.”
I press my lips together, biting back the half-dozen snarky comments that sit on the tip of my tongue.
The secretary straightens up with a sigh. “But we can’t exactly have you roaming the grounds without one either. I can check out a temporary guest key; it’ll have a fixed amount of funds on it for meals and you’ll be registered as a guest student in your classes—”
“Will that count me as present automatically when I use it to check in?”
She smiles, though there’s not much cheer in her expression. “No. Your teachers will have to manually enter you as present. You’ll need to remind them.”
“And if they forget?”
“Then you’ll have to take it up with your professors to remind them that you attended class on the aforementioned days.”
“And how long is it going to be until my replacement card is ready? What do you have to do, order them from somewhere?”
“Anywhere from the end of this week to sometime next week,” she says airily, pulling out a form from a file drawer behind the desk and sliding it over to me. “The process is not something that’s widely circulated to prevent students from learning how to make duplicate cards and sell them. It was a measure implemented when we began taking on yearly scholarship students.”
I’m not surprised by the implication, but that doesn’t mean it annoys me any less.
Of course. As far as she’s concerned, I lost my card because I’m an irresponsible scholarship student, and I won’t get a new, proper one anytime soon because of all the other irresponsible scholarship students who’ve come before me.
Meanwhile, the other ninety-nine percent of Hawthorne University students can get away with doing whatever the fuck they want—including stealing other people’s damn ID cards.
It’s fucking bullshit.
I’m not sure if the woman behind the desk is trying to teach me some sort of lesson or if it really takes that long to get all the paperwork filed, but I have to wait almost an hour before my temporary key card is ready.
It’s set to expire by the end of the week, and if I don’t have my permanent replacement by then, I’ll have to come back on Friday before the office closes so that I can get the cut-off date extended. I’ll have enough credit on it to cover two meals a day, but not all thre
e—to keep people from abusing the system, she tells me—so I’ll have to choose between skipping breakfast or skipping dinner.
Well, joke’s on you, Miss Bitch-Face Secretary. Not having money for three square meals a day isn’t anything new to me.
An hour and a half after walking into the office, I’ve got my temporary key card and have missed one class and half of another. I consider showing up late, strolling in halfway through class like I don’t give a fuck—but then I decide the real “no fucks to give” move is to go from the admin office straight to my dorm and skip the rest of my classes for the day.
I’m sure it won’t ingratiate me with any of my professors, but I don’t really need to hear another first day of class speech, and I’m not sure I could keep my reaction civil if one more person implies that I’m some kind of drugged up slow kid just because I’m here on scholarship.
So I spend the afternoon painting and trying to clear my head from the mess Gray Eastwood left it in.
It almost works.
By the time evening comes around, I head back down to the student union dining hall, figuring I might as well get dinner before my week of two-meals-only begins.
No one bothers me, which is a plus, but it’s obvious that I’ve made waves. The scrutinizing stares are more obvious than they were even at breakfast this morning, and I hear Gray’s and Cliff’s names thrown into the mix every now and then.
Great, so I’m being associated with those assholes now too. Apparently my disdain isn’t apparent enough for people to realize I don’t want shit to do with either of them, let alone most of the fuckers here.
When I’ve got my dinner—some fancy beef wellington shit, according the menu board—Max joins me, settling into the seat beside mine.
“S’up,” she greets. “How’re you doing?”
“Aside from trying to figure out what the fuck a beef wellington is supposed to be? Peachy.”
She chuckles. “At least you got your temp card, right? Shouldn’t take too long to replace it.” Her nose wrinkles. “You think Gray will give you your card back before then?”
“Probably not.” I shrug. “He took it to be an asshole. I don’t see him giving it back to me. He’d have to have a conscience and a human soul that could actually feel guilt for that to happen.”
Max chuckles, but her hazel eyes darken with concern. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t know what his deal is, but from what I’ve picked up around campus, he’s one of the richest and most well-connected kids here. Everyone calls him and his two friends the Sinners. There’s gotta be a reason for that, and I doubt it’s because they’re helping little old ladies across the street, y’know?”
The Sinners.
That’s what the girl who came up to my table to deliver her weird, cryptic warning called them.
Unbidden, I have a sudden vivid memory of Gray’s fingers digging into my thighs, his tongue attacking my clit like he was trying to kill me with an overdose of pleasure.
I remember the way his gaze caught mine, the challenge and raw hunger in his eyes as he ate me out.
A shiver runs down my spine even as heat pools in my core.
Yeah. “Sinners” sounds about right.
The next morning, I sleep in.
Since I’m making choices about which of my three meals becomes two, I make the executive decision to take an extra hour to sleep before getting ready. And morning classes are canceled anyway. According to the school-wide student calendar that updates on the tablet given to me by the school, there’s an orientation assembly this morning that’s mandatory for all class levels, even the people who’ve been here for years.
It feels stupid. I imagine it’ll be a lot of self-congratulatory back-patting of the staff and the rich students.
I have less than zero interest in watching this circle-jerk, so when I file into the lecture hall the assembly will take place in, I’ve brought my sketchbook, a pencil, and a complete lack of fucks. I don’t see Max in the crowded auditorium, so I take a seat at the back so I can blend in and ignore what’s going on around me.
The hubbub of voices quiets as the dean steps out on stage and takes his place behind an elegant podium.
I was right about what this is. It’s basically just an extended advertising pitch for the school, which strikes me as a little odd considering we’re all already students here. There’s even a drop-down screen behind the dean, showing pictures of various famous alumni as he narrates a laundry list of their accomplishments.
I tune him out, letting my pencil dance across the paper of my sketchbook as my thoughts wander. It goes on for a while, and the dean’s deep voice fades into a monotonous drone as I become absorbed in the sketch I’m creating.
But after several minutes, I pick up a new sound. Faintly suppressed laughter and soft whispers rise up in the audience around me—and then I hear my name.
My jaw clenches, but I keep my gaze firmly on my paper.
Jesus fucking Christ. You’d think these people would find something else to fixate on.
I expect the whispering to die down after a moment, but instead it gets louder, rippling through the gathered students like a breeze stirring the leaves of a tree.
What the fuck?
My head snaps up, sudden alarm bells ringing in my head. Something isn’t right here. Something’s going on.
When I look to the front of the auditorium, I realize with an uncontrolled drop in my stomach just what’s so fucking entertaining.
The dean is still speaking, blissfully unaware that whatever images of rich and powerful alumni should be displayed on the screen behind him are no longer there.
Instead, there are photographs of me.
Specifically, photographs from a file that should be impossible to get a hold of, unless you’re me. Photographs of me at twelve years old with my face busted up and my lip split, the frilly pink shirt I’m wearing splattered in blood and dirt and wet with alcohol.
Those pictures were taken the day the cops picked me up from my first foster home.
My worst foster home.
It’s not just photographs either. It’s the police report detailing the entire incident. A blow-by-blow breakdown of the entire thing, all the way down to the screams loud enough for the neighbors to get sick of the noise and finally call someone to stop what was going on.
A cold feeling washes through me, like my bones have been replaced with ice.
Ah. I see. So that’s what’s so damn funny.
My life.
The dean is so absorbed in his speech that he hasn’t noticed the change in the audience, the low murmurs that sweep the crowd. I can see a few of the other administrators who are sitting off to one side of the auditorium standing up and putting their heads together, clearly trying to decide how best to handle this.
My fingertips go numb, my pencil stilling on the sketchpad as I stare blankly at the screen.
I feel nothing when more pictures of me flash past. I’m not so bloody in these, but the images are followed by intimate details of a sexual assault by one of my foster brothers in the house I was in before Brody’s. Then my testimony to the cops. My physical records following the doctor’s examination.
And I feel… nothing.
The black hole in my chest expands outward, and I let it. I do my best to push it into every corner of my body, swallowing up each emotion that tries to rise inside me.
The administrators are finally making their way up to the stage, a small group of them clustered together, still whispering frantically among themselves.
The slide changes again.
This time, the screen shows CT scans and doctor’s notes about my dizzy spells and brain damage, presumably from when my mother still had custody of me.
His neatly typed report breaks me down into nothing more than a list of symptoms and ailments.
There’s the likelihood that I’ll have increasing issues with my long-term memory as I get older. The potential for short-term memory loss as well,
especially in moments of high stress. The suggestion that I should have a proper psychiatric evaluation and potentially be medicated.
Every fucking thing the doctor wrote down is on display for the entire school to see.
The whispers around me aren’t whispers anymore, and the admins have finally reached the dean on stage. He cuts off mid-sentence, holding a hand over the mic as he turns to talk to them, confusion clear on his face.
Now that Dean Wells is no longer speaking, the voices around me grow louder. Words like “crazy,” “mental,” and “unstable” drift through the crowd. I can hear pity in some people’s voices because, “Oh, how awful that she was—”
My mind blanks out the rest. I don’t need their fucking sympathy. I don’t have room in my heart, my body, or my mind for their misplaced pity for an orphan girl, any more than I have room to process the snorts of laughter and stupid-ass jokes that are already being told at my expense.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself.
It doesn’t matter what they think. What they think doesn’t change reality, and my reality is that I’ve already gotten over it all. I’ve already accepted the shittiest parts of my life as unalterable facts.
It doesn’t fucking matter.
That mantra plays like a drumbeat in my chest, keeping time with my numb heart.
It doesn’t fucking matter.
The dean and the other admins are in the middle of a hushed, hurried discussion, and he glances at the screen behind him, which is still cycling through images of me.
He gestures, and two of the administrators disappear into the wings. A moment later, the projector turns off.
“What is the meaning of this?” Dean Wells turns back to the microphone, staring down the crowd. He looks genuinely angry, and I wonder if he’s pissed about the violation of my privacy or the fact that this might reflect poorly on the school.
Actually, I don’t wonder at all.
“This kind of behavior, these kinds of pranks, are beneath the dignity of this hallowed institution,” he continues, his voice booming through the speaker system. “We expect better of you all. We expect excellence, both in your academics and in your personal conduct. When immature behavior like this happens, it lets down all of us at Hawthorne University. If this kind of incident is repeated, there will be consequences for those found to be responsible. Do you all understand?”