Page 2 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Haven

They say you can never go home again.

My home was a green-eyed boy I met in the woods behind my trailer park, when I was escaping a life no five-year-old girl should have to suffer.

Our dark, twisted little games took us away from our awful realities.

We made each other laugh.

Made each other cry.

Made each other bleed.

And the older we got, the harder it was to keep pretending that it was only a game. Until we both had to accept it wasn’t.

It’s been three years since I’ve been home. I’m not sure what’s waiting for me on the other side of the door. If that green-eyed boy remembers me, it definitely won’t be a welcome party.

So why the hell do I pray he hasn’t forgotten?

I tug at the fraying sleeve of my beige cardigan as I trot up the front steps of Agony Hollow College.

With fall only a couple of weeks away, the early morning sunlight hitting my back is barely warming me at all, yet it’s bright enough to penetrate deep into the thickly carpeted foyer of the sprawling Victorian-era building.

I’ve driven past this place several times the past week. Every time I’d imagine myself walking through the front door.

I still feel like an intruder, even with a text on my phone proving that I have every right to be here. I’m prickly under my clothes—a sure sign I’m sweating. I’d love to take off my cardigan, but in my rush to make it on time to my first class, I forgot to put on a bra.

The past few days have been absolute hell, and I look and feel the part. Hair brushed with my fingers. No makeup. No freaking bra. And to top it off, I grabbed one of my most obviously dilapidated pieces of clothing to fix myself.

Is this what a meth addict feels like when they’re strung out?

When I glance down and see my jeans have a ketchup stain on them, I nearly turn around and leave.

But then I’d be a loser, and everything I’d have done up to now would be for nothing.

Everything I’d gone through? Meaningless.

Hell to the fucking no.

The receptionist behind the large, curved help desk gives me a double take when she sees me coming. I rip my hands out of my mousy brown, shoulder-length tangles where I’d been trying to coax them into something resembling a hairstyle, and give her a bright smile.

I must look psychotic, because she stiffens up like I’m holding an assault rifle, not a brand new pink notepad with a bunch of random letters embossed in gold on the front cover.

I thought it was some kind of acronym when I bought it.

It starts with STFU, which I know is code for shut the fuck up, but the rest is gibberish.

It was literally the last one in the only stationery-cum-bookstore in town. That’s what happens when you leave your college shopping for the week after classes begin.

Someone’s running a vacuum over the carpet a couple of feet away. A pair of faculty members coming down the stairs I assume lead up to the first floor of the renovated manor.

Surprisingly quiet, despite the Hoover, but I guess everyone’s already on their way to class.

“Hi!” I slap my notepad down on the counter, blowing a chunk of hair out of my face, trying to look breezy. “So, I’m supposed to start classes here? I’m guessing there’s a schedule or something I need to collect?”

I overcompensate sometimes.

The middle-aged receptionist purses her lips and. “We sent out orientation packets over a month ago, sweetie. Did yours not arrive?” she asks, raising her voice over the sound of the vacuum cleaner. To her credit, she only sounds mildly condescending.

I freeze, my brain scrambling furiously. “I was overseas!” I yell, at the exact moment the janitor turns off his vacuum.

My voice rings through the roomy foyer. Everyone else in the vicinity has gone silent. Even the two teachers have stopped to stare at me.

God. You’d swear I was leading a marching band through a library.

I clear my throat, and whisper, “I only just got back. Must have missed it.”

“Name?”

“Haven Lee.”

“Lee…Haven…yes, here you are.”

Yes. Here I am.

Oh, God, what the hell am I doing?

My nose tickles. Scrunching it up doesn’t help, so I rub it with the back of my thumb as the receptionist types away on her computer.

I use the motion to scan around me, hoping I won’t spot someone I recognize, yet secretly wishing I do, even though I owe half my nerves to just the thought of running into him.

I shift my weight, run a hand through my hair, and rifle through the corner of my notepad as the woman types and types and?—

“I got the text for my first class,” I blurt out. “I’m signed up for your digital class notifications thingy?”

The receptionist does that thing where she looks at me over the top of her glasses, then looks down at her computer and taps away again. “Professor Rooke’s class? The one that began yesterday?”

I lick my lips and desperately wish I’d put my chapstick in my pocket instead of letting it melt in my car’s console. “Yeah, see, my phone died, so I only got the text today. Like…now.”

I’m subjected to another scan over the top of her glasses, and a drawn out, “I see.”

I try not to dwell on the thought that it’s my first week of college and I’ve already fucked up so badly that the lady at the help desk is judging me for all my poor life choices.

But wallowing is right up there with overcompensation on the short list of Things Haven Lee is Good At.

It’s right under fucking up. I’m excellent at that.

Clack, clack, clack goes the receptionist’s keyboard.

Ffwip, ffwip, ffwip go my notebook’s pages as I stroke my thumb against the corner.

“Is there a…problem?” I ask brightly.

When she doesn’t answer straight away, my stomach feels like it’s filling with cement. Thank God I didn’t take off my cardigan. Not just because of the no-bra situation, but now I can hide the pit stains forming as I try not to freak the fuck out.

“Not at all, Miss Lee. All the Ts were crossed, just had to dot some Is. You know how it is.”

I don’t. Not at all. But I let her assume that I do.

She makes one last decisive stab at a button and then smiles up at me. “Welcome to Agony Hollow College, Haven, dear. I’ll put together a new orientation packet for you. You can pop by after lunch to collect it.”

We stare silently at each other for a few seconds, then the janitor starts vacuuming again.

“So that’s it?” I yell. “I’m in? ”

The receptionist’s smile deepens as she waves me toward the stairs.

I grimace. “Is there like a map or something?”

She frowns, leaning in to yell over the noise. “What?”

“Map?” I form a square with my fingers. “So I know where I’m going?”

She waves away my apparently unfounded concerns at getting lost on my first day at a new college. “Room 102! Up the stairs, second door on your right!”

“Awesome, thanks!” I hurry past the janitor, peeking through the wide arches on either side of the foyer to the rooms beyond. One leads to a library and the other to a cafeteria.

Plenty of time to explore those later. I don’t want to be late to class, and it starts in like a minute.

I swipe my hands over my thighs, blotting away the sweat. These aren’t just ‘first day of college’ nerves. Or ‘ terra incognita ’ nerves. Or ‘here’s hoping I don’t get into a fight with someone I know’ nerves.

These are ‘you’re a lying, cheating scumbag’ nerves.

My phone didn’t die. I pawned it a few months back and had to save up enough money to buy a new one. Money I still didn’t really have when I bought this crappy mobile from the gift shop down the road.

The door to Room 102 is closed. There’s a sign on it.

Class in Session

It did not take me more than a minute to rush up the stairs. I mean, I didn’t even admire the paintings, or peek out the landing window at the sprawling campus grounds beyond.

Except I did, and now I’m late, and I’m sick to my stomach with anxiety. Deflated, defeated, and just… hollow . Like I was just about to cross the finish line of this fucked up marathon, but someone came up behind me and sliced my Achilles tendon .

I muster up courage from somewhere and attempt a tentative knock that goes unanswered after several thundering heartbeats.

There’s no more courage left for another knock, let alone trying to open the door.

I should leave.

I can explore the campus until my next class…whenever the hell that is. At least I know I’ll get a text ten minutes beforehand.

As I turn to go, the door opens behind me, and sound floods into the hall as if I took off a pair of noise-canceling headphones.

The professor’s deep, melodic voice.

The tap-tap-tap of students making notes on their laptops.

A cough, someone clearing their throat?—

“Yeah, just fucking hold on, would you? I’m not supposed to be taking calls in class.”

My entire body goes rigid.

Oh God.

Not him.

Not now.

I don’t want to turn back, but I’ve lost control of my body, my muscles operating on someone else’s instruction. I spin on my heel, staring wide-eyed at the student exiting the lecture hall.

He’s got nearly a foot of height on me, wearing gray joggers, expensive-looking white sneakers, a branded black college sweater with the sleeves pushed up. His chaotic golden-brown hair sways as he stalks away from me.

Did I summon him by repeatedly wishing he wouldn’t be here, like what happens when you say Bloody Mary in the mirror three times?

He hasn’t spotted me. I could still get out of this unscathed. I mean, no way he’s in my class. He’s too old. Means he was just stopping by. Maybe had a message for the professor.

Don’t look, don’t look, don’t ? —

He glances over his shoulder.

And then gives me a double take .

He’s already halfway down the hall, but when he recognizes me, he stops walking. Tilts his head. And stalks back toward me.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

A rush of icy panic freezes me in place.

My feet might as well be planted in fucking concrete.

A cruel, sardonic smile spreads over his wide mouth. “Look what crawled out of the fucking gutter,” he calls out so loud I flinch.

Damn it, Haven, move !

“Haven motherfucking Lee. Thought I smelled trash and cum.” He tilts his head, so close I can catch a whiff of his expensive cologne.

The malice in his green eyes keeps me pinned like a hand on my throat. And then, because I’m an idiot, and I don’t run, it is his hand pinning me against the wall.

I gasp in shock, but it only takes a second before he’s cut off my air.

He was always bigger and stronger than me, but the feel of his hand wrapping around my entire throat…? It used to take both his hands, back when we?—

“Holy fuck.” He chuckles darkly. “Guess they’ll let any diseased cunt into this place now.” He shakes me so hard my head bangs against the wall.

What. The. Actual?

My entire body is shaking. I guess it’s shock. I expected him to be angry, but this ?

“K-K—” I stammer, my hands flying to his wrists to pull his fingers off my throat.

“Thought you could ghost me for years, then show up out of nowhere, and I’d be happy to see you?” His fingers tighten, black spots swarming my vision as my oxygen cuts off. I try to kick him, but he just crowds in closer.

“What’s wrong, slut? Did you finally run out of Riverside cocks to choke on? News flash. This place is for people with futures, not used up whores with daddy issues.”

Woah .

Hang on one fucking minute.

Did he just call me a slut? Then a whore?

I rally the last air in my lungs to wheeze out, “I’m enrolled here, you fucking asshole!”

He grunts in surprise, and that’s when I realize I punched him in the stomach. Not that it does me any good, because somewhere between now and the last time I saw him, he got abs.

“She says, her breath still stinking of dick,” he mutters, eyes in narrow, glittering slits. “I bet if I flipped you upside down, all the cum from last night’s gangbang would come dripping out of your holes.”

Rage seethes from him like an aura.

For just a second, his grip on my throat changes—less violence, more possession. His thumb strokes once across my pulse before he catches himself. As if he’s shaking himself out of a trance, he blinks rapidly and shifts his weight.

Oh, fuck .

He’s hard.

I should be shocked that the sick bastard is actually getting off on this…but I’m not even mildly surprised.

He spits, hitting me on the cheek. I wipe my face, gaping at him in shock and disgust.

“Let go of me!” I struggle in his grip, but I’m stuck where I am.

We both flinch when his latest model iPhone, which costs more than my car, rings in his hand.

When he glances at it, I frantically scan the hall for help.

There’s a girl walking in our direction, but she’s so fixated on her phone screen, a unicorn could have trotted past her and she’d have missed it.

But he sees her too, and I guess he doesn’t want anyone spotting him giving the new girl a non-consensual hand necklace, because suddenly I can breathe again.

He chuckles again, vicious and mean. “Better get to class, Haven. Rooke hates it when his kids are late.”

And then I’m being dragged inside class 102, his hand gripping the back of my neck so hard I can feel his fingernails digging into my skin.

“You’re gonna regret coming home, you filthy fucking cumrag,” he hisses in my ear. “I’m going to destroy you so completely, so utterly, you’ll be begging me to let you drop out on hands and fucking knees. Should come easy to you by now, right, Heavenly?”

Green-eyed Kai, my best and only friend for all my life, shoves me so hard I fall to hands and knees, my things scattering on the linoleum. Behind me, the lecture hall’s door bangs shut like a coffin lid.

I scramble up, dragging in a rough breath as I stare back at a sea of faces, all turned to look at me.

There’s a fierce pounding under my fingers when I lay a hand over my chest.

I’m shocked I can feel something, that I’m even still alive, because it felt like Kai’s hand went straight through my fucking heart.