Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Very unlike me.
I swallow past the boulder in my throat and the wind at my back blows harder, as if it’s trying to usher me inside.
The masked figure guarding the door cocks his head at me, as if he’s wondering what the fuck I’m waiting for.
But it’s one thing to know that a man who utterly despises you will be in attendance… and very different to actually see him.
Sev stands up.
He looks to one side of the room as he pulls at the bottom of his shirt sleeve, and I see his eyes flicker up toward me from the small holes in the mask. He has no idea it’s me behind this mask, and I made sure to have my coat hood up, so there’s nothing he could identify me by.
But his gaze rips right through me and I swear he’s regarding something deeper in my soul.
Sev would probably relish breaking my skin.
Making me beg him to stop.
Doing anything and everything to break me down, now that he has a chance to.
God.
Fuck.
This isn’t who I am.
“I… I’m sorry,” I manage to say to the door guard.
I hate the waver in my voice.
But the pit in my stomach wins out.
A charge of pure, incandescent warning fills my blood, adrenaline and instinct signaling me to fucking move.
I turn on my heel and charge off back into the dark street.
Don’t call after me.
Please, please don’t.
I practically choke on air as I walk off, my shoes clicking on the asphalt, relief pouring through my blood like I just escaped a wild predator.
But no voice comes from behind me.
Once I’m down the street, under the thicket of branches canopied above the new grass, I turn and look back.
No one is looking after me.
The door is already shut.
1
Weston
It’s two weeks later when I finally break.
The evening smells like fresh rain on pavement as I approach the Zenith house door.
Petrichor, my brother used to call it, every time rain changed the air like this and suddenly made everything feel alive.
The patter of raindrops hitting my coat finally stops short as I walk under the awning of the front porch. I’m in front of the glossy, black front door again.
And this time I’m desperate enough to go inside.
This is how often Zenith meets, apparently. Every fourteen days, they come together to engage in senseless depravity that could get every single person in this room expelled from Crimson College.
I haven’t jerked off in four days.
On purpose.
I’m pent up. I’m finding Sev Berlant tonight and I don’t give a damn if it’s a bad decision. Then I’ll never need to step foot in this sick place again.
I say the stupid passphrase again at the door, “to be unchained,” and this time I force myself to walk inside.
Rain pounds harder now over the awning at the doorstep.
How will I respond, if a man tries to fight me?
If he tries to fuck me, instead?
I don’t let myself think about it too hard this time, otherwise I’ll walk off shaking again like I’m a scared kid running from a haunted house.
“Gather in the entry,” a man says, and the lights dim around the long bar at the edge of the room.
There are maybe forty or fifty people in this grand entryway. Curved staircases are on each end of the giant, circular room, and the low light from the chandeliers up high on the ceiling filters down onto us.
Everyone is masked. Many are in robes, some are in suits.
I’m wearing a Crimson College fleece hoodie beneath my suit jacket, and I will be keeping my hood up all night. I don’t care if I look like a freak with a mask on and a fleecy hood surrounding it, because there’s not a shot in hell I’m letting anyone recognize me here.
Especially Sev.
I’d already be on the ground if he knew I was here. I used to be confused about why Sevan Berlant hates me, but I think I get it now.
The simplest reason is that he thinks I fucked him over for an internship opportunity last year. I didn’t. I knew the CEO of the company thanks to my dear old soulless father, and I protected Sev or anyone else from working for a company that was so corrupt it was almost predatory. Sev also thinks I denied him from entering an Onyx party early this year, when in reality I wasn’t letting anyone inside after a girl blacked out drunk was taken to the hospital.
Yes, I have a bad attitude with Sev.
Yes, I’ve broken up at least three fights he’s started at my parties, and I’ve thrown him out every single time he gets even a little bit violent. Sev doesn’t bother calling me “Frat Dad” and instead calls me the Sheriff of Crimson College, and even though he doesn’t mean it as a compliment, I still feel like I take my responsibilities seriously.