Page 27 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Haven

My phone vibrates against my hip, dragging me awake from a tequila-induced coma. Seconds later, a pillow hits my head.

“Fuck!” I shove into a sit, arms up in case more feather-stuffed missiles are headed in my direction. “Why?”

“It’s been going the whole fucking night,” Melissa groans. “Turn it off.”

There’s drool on the side of my cheek.

Did all my saliva migrate? Would explain why my mouth is so dry.

“Fuck me. I’m already hungover,” she mumbles, her bedsheets rustling as she turns over.

I dig my phone out of my pocket and unlock it, staring blearily at the screen until my eyes decide to focus.

Missed calls?

No one even has this number.

My bladder sends a frantic SOS to my brain. Fuck, I need to pee. I turn toward Melissa to ask her where the bathroom is, but on cue, she begins snoring .

Can’t be that difficult to find, right?

I try to untangle myself from the blanket around my legs, and end up rolling off Melissa’s sofa and onto the floor, still wrapped up like a burrito.

“Ow.”

Thankfully, I don’t wake her or her roommate, name unknown.

After we’d finished our assignment, we went downstairs and joined the rest of her sorority for dinner. It was some of the best low-fat, zero-carb, vegetarian shit I’ve ever tasted.

I was pretty drunk by then, of course, so maybe my taste buds had shut down. I fended off attempted efforts at pouring more booze down my throat, but Melissa had another two cocktails with her sorority sisters.

Her roommate was asleep by the time Melissa announced I’d be spending the night, because I was way too drunk to walk back to my car and she was too drunk to drive, and Agony Hollow’s one and only Uber driver apparently wasn’t cute enough to drive me anywhere.

My new friend is strangely protective when she’s drunk.

And strangely, kind of fun.

I barely thought about Kai or my shitty life at all.

This sofa is the most comfortable thing I’ve slept on in years. Fucking years. I groan at another sharp ache in my bladder. I’ve been holding it in for a few hours already. What’s another?—

There’s another chime from my phone.

Melissa growls like a feral cat. “Haven!”

Panicking, I kick off the blanket and hurry down the hall, squinting at the doors I pass.

One of them is standing open far enough for me to see toilet stalls inside, which is weird, but not something I question as I slip inside one to go pee.

Oh thank fuck.

No better feeling in the world than emptying an overfull bladder. Once the flow gets going, of course.

My phone chimes again, and my eyes jerk back open.

Did I pass out?

I giggle at myself. Did I really have that much to drink?

Waaait.

Am I… drunk?

That’s a first.

I close the lid and turn to flush, hurriedly sitting down on the closed lid as the world takes a slow spin around me.

Good God, I am drunk.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and open my call log. Three missed calls from an unknown number.

At 2:51 AM.

At 3:09 AM.

At 3:22 AM.

Who the fuck?—

My phone lights up with a phone call. I juggle it, nearly drop it. My finger slides toward the end-call button, but I hesitate.

Could be an emergency.

The police.

The hospital.

The motherfucking morgue.

I stab the answer button, and whisper-shout, “Hello?”

There’s a long pause. “Haven?”

That voice. Deep. Controlled. Completely inappropriate at three in the fucking morning.

Fuck.

Fuuuck.

I press my thighs together, hating how his voice affects me even through the phone.

“Professor?” I slur, because of course I’m still drunk. “The fuck you doing calling your student at—” I squint at my phone because I’ve already forgotten the time”—three thirty AM?”

“Language, Miss Lee. ”

“Oh, now you care about being appropriate?”

Tequila makes me brave. Stupid? Same thing.

“ After you got me drunk in your house? Alone? At thirty—” I hesitate, because I can’t remember his exact age, either. “—something years old?”

Silence.

Then, “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“At three in the morning?” My voice cracks. “That’s not...teachers don’t…you can’t do that.”

“I’m aware,” he mutters, like he wishes he had the common sense not to be on the phone with me. Like he expects me to feel sorry for him because he can’t control himself.

“Yeah? That why you calling? To confess your sins?” I turn my voice into a squeak. “Or’d Bastian have a nightmare about corrupting innocent freshmen?”

He lets out a half-growl, half-laugh. “Innocent? That what you think you are?”

“I’m nine teen.”

“I’m aware, Haven. Painfully aware.”

Bastian growling in your ear is not something any woman of ovulating age should hear after she’s consumed as much tequila as I have.

I swear, he just got me pregnant through the phone.

“Yeah? You sure?” I gesticulate wildly, slamming the side of my hand into the toilet paper dispenser. “’Cos it sure don’t seem that way. What with all the, all the touching ? —“

“Haven.” My name sounds gets strangled in his throat, coming out strained, frustrated.

“— and the eye-fucking?—”

“ Enough .” The word cracks through the phone like a whip.

Good. Let him get angry. Let him think about what he’s done.

“You’re imagining things. I would never overstep. Unlike my underage student, who can barely form coherent sentences.”

“Oh, fuuuck you, professor. ”

He exhales into my ear. “If you’re quite done? I’m calling about your submission. I need to know who sent that letter.”

I open my mouth, for some reason about to tell Professor Rooke about everything . Who knew alcohol was a truth serum?

“Uh-uh!” I suppress a burp, then a gag. Repeating tequila is no good. “No context. No…note thingy. Your rules.”

“Rules don’t apply at three AM when I’m—“ He cuts off hurriedly.

“When you’re what?”

Silence.

“When you’re what , Professor?”

“Jesus. Get some fucking sleep, Haven.”

“You called me !”

“A mistake. Clearly.”

“Yeah? Well maybe luring me to your house was a mistake. Maybe sticking your nose where it don’t belong was a mistake. Maybe, maybe ?—“

“Stop.”

“Maybe looking at me like you want to?—”

“ Stop .” His voice is hard, grating through a too-tight throat. “You’re drunk. You’re acting like a child. Fuck, you are a child. And you’re my goddamn student.”

“Pick one,” I sneer. “Because you can’t seem to decide if I’m your charity case, your pet project, or your…hello? Hello?”

He’s hung up.

I stare at my phone, something hot and twisted burning through my drunk haze. My head is spinning from the rapid-fire conversation. Or possibly because I’m still drunk.

“Fucking ass hole!” I whisper-shout at my phone.

What the hell is his problem? Calling me at three in the morning to yell at me? Who does that?

Unless I deserve it.

Do I ?

Well, either there’s something wrong with me…or something very, very wrong with Professor Rooke.

I don’t have time to figure out which, because that’s when my stomach rejects what’s left of the tequila.

I barely have time to lift the lid before I empty my guts into Gamma Alpha Zeta’s pristine toilet.