Page 32 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Haven

I didn’t expect him to go down the first time. I sure as shit don’t expect him to the second time either.

But I’m running on instinct now. Fueled by a primal rage I didn’t even realize was percolating under the surface until I stared into the eyes of my best friend and saw how much he despised me.

And that fucking pisses me off, because he makes out like I killed his firstborn child or something.

I was sixteen when my dad left town. It happened a few days after my birthday, a few days after I saw Kai. If I’d known it would be the last time I’d see him, things would have been so much different.

I would never have sent that letter, the one I submitted for Professor Rooke’s assignment.

I WISH I NEVER MET U

I FUCKING HATE U

BURN IN HELL

I didn’t have a say in the move. God, I didn’t even get to pack my shit. My dad shoved me in the car and drove us out of Agony Hollow like the fucking devil was on our heels.

It took me a few months to realize how true that was.

My meth-head dad had racked up an awful amount of debt with his dealer. If we’d had anything left to sell, he’d probably have pawned it. But there was never money to replace anything, like ever, so his only option was fleeing.

I wish I’d had some kind of warning. Kai would have come up with a plan. We could have run away to the beach and gotten married like we’d always said we would.

But maybe my dad knew somewhere in the still-functioning parts of his meth-addled brain that, given any notice, I’d run for the hills.

Hillside, to be exact.

Because that’s where Kai was living by then.

The Jordans got lucky. Somehow, they escaped Riverside’s sticky web.

I thought I’d escaped too when we moved to Ashwood.

Who knew hell had a basement?

I tried to stay in touch with Kai, even after I sent that awful letter. Told him where I’d moved to, and how much I hated the tiny one-bedroom apartment. How the stink of fried fish from the corner shop below got into every inch of that place, even my clothes.

I told him about my dad ODing. Twice.

I hated my new school. Sleepless nights meant I struggled to concentrate during class, and everyone kept calling me Fish for Brains.

But I didn’t tell him what my uncle tried to do every time my father left the two of us alone. How it got so bad that I stopped coming home after school. That I would wait at the bus stop until midnight, hoping everyone would be asleep when I let myself inside the apartment.

That, on some nights, my wish came true. But not always.

Not always.

All those letters. All those apologies .

And Kai only ever wrote back once . An angry reply to my angry letter, written right below my own angry words. Two lines scrawled so savagely, it almost tore the paper.

He wanted to make sure I’d never forget how much he hated me.

FUCK ME???

FUCK YOU!

So, yeah, when Kai calls me a fucking slut and wants to walk away like he’s dusting his hands of me…I get mad.

I get so mad, I don’t even know what I’m doing until it’s done.

Jerking his ankle, sending him sprawling to the grass, getting even more stains on his expensive white sweater.

Scrambling over to him on hands and knees like a crazy person.

Clawing at him. Possessed.

He probably thinks he looks so hot with his sleeves pushed up like that.

And he does.

He looks fucking gorgeous in white, with his corded muscles, and tanned skin.

And God, he smells good. Some rich-ass cologne that’s spicy and sexy and much too sophisticated for him, but he somehow still pulls it off.

The only part of his scent I recognize is his sweat and the smell of the sun baking his hair.

Even though I know there’s nothing left of old Kai— my Kai—my brain can’t seem to stop comparing this guy to that boy.

I think of every letter I sent that he never answered. How my heart would flutter when I got to the mailbox, and how my stomach would sink when I found it empty.

“Fuck you, Kai!” I wail in a strangled, choking voice. “I hate you!”

I think he was too surprised to react when I pulled him onto the grass, but now he’s coming back to reality.

His green eyes glitter with malice as he knocks away my clawed hands. “Stop! ”

“Fuck you!” I don’t know if I’m sobbing or howling or what the fuck is going on with me. It feels urgent, raw, so fucking deep.

Like inside my soul deep.

His arm comes up to block me, and I clamp down with my teeth. He tries to shake me off, yelling hoarsely when I don’t let go.

I taste blood, can feel hair between my teeth. And that just makes me clench even harder.

“Jesus, fuck!” He kicks, rolls. Our legs tangle. “Get off !”

Still, I hold on.

It’s only when my back slams into something, and my jaw unlocks for a gasp of pain, that Kai can rip his arm free.

His face contorts with rage as he pushes to a stand, towering over me again.

Always fucking dominating.

It was a tree I hit. My fingers scrabble against the bark as I scramble to my feet so I can punch him, kick him, fucking hurt him.

But he’s not waiting for me to attack anymore. He’s going on the offensive.

Kai grabs my hair and yanks my head up.

The pain is effervescent.

All I can manage is a whimper. My hands latch onto his wrist, the rest of my body following meekly as he slowly forces me to stand.

“Fuck me?” he whispers, his eyebrows darting up at the fucking audacity. “Fuck me ?”

He twists his fingers in my hair, and I’m on my toes with a yelp. Tears leak out of my eyes, but if he sees them, he doesn’t fucking seem to care.

“Nah.” He laughs quietly. “Fuck you .”

It’s not the cruel twist of his mouth.

Or the tremor in his arm.

Those don’t frighten me.

It’s when he glances over his shoulder, scanning the campus garden to make sure we’re alone.

No witnesses .

That’s when I realize I’ve pushed him too far. That whatever happens next is something that could have been avoided had I only crawled out of here on hands and knees, whimpering and begging for forgiveness like the meek little slut he wants me to be.

Forgiveness for what?

Being his friend?

Keeping him company?

Not telling anyone how his brother used him as a punching bag and his parents didn’t care?

Wanting to give him the one precious thing I had, and then getting pissed off when he didn’t want it?

Loving him?

The tears are really flowing now. It’s not all physical pain anymore. This runs deeper.

“Kai, please…”

He turns back to me, a wild light in his eyes that makes my heart patter frantically, desperately, in my chest.

“Kai—” I cut off with another yelp of pain as he uses the grip in my hair to drag me around the tree.

He slams me against the trunk so hard, leaves flutter down around us. Dragging his hand out of my hair, he grabs my face, eyes darting to my lips.

“Shut your filthy slut mouth,” he pants.

Again, his eyes flicker away. Searching.

My heart is going a thousand beats per second now.

“Stop, please, Kai, don’t?—“

His slap sends my head spinning to the side, my mind reeling.

Then he’s gripping my face again, his nails digging into the soft flesh of my cheeks.

My eyes are drawn to the row of not-quite-symmetrical-enough teeth marks on his arm.

To the rivulets of blood trickling down, staining his white sweater.

But as soon as he speaks, my gaze flashes back to him as if summoned.

“You fucked up my head,” he whispers, his voice so soft, so low, he sounds lost in the woods in the dark.

“I wanted you back. I wanted you to stay gone. I was so fucking confused.” His eyes flinch to slits, then widen with an intensity that makes my stomach churn.

“I could never stop thinking about you, Haven.”

Again, his eyes drop to my mouth. His thumb swipes over my bottom lip, then back. Pauses in the middle.

And he presses, presses, until it feels like he’s pushing my teeth out of their sockets. Bark scrapes the back of my head. I can hear my hair crunching between my skull and the tree.

My hands come up, flattening against his chest, trying to push him away.

Useless.

So I slide them up, wrap my fingers around his throat.

I can feel his pulse. Throbbing. But my fingers don’t touch. His neck is too thick. Muscle and bone and windpipe I can’t damage.

His thumb invades my mouth, bringing with it a bittersweet hint of grass. Skin slightly rough, mostly warm.

He leans his hips forward, crushing them against mine. “Try it. You might just like it.” Which is confusing as fuck, because now I can feel his cock. A rigid length digging into my pubic bone.

Is that what he’s talking about?

“I’ve strangled someone before,” he says so matter-of-fact, my knees want to give in. “It’s hard work, Heavenly. I kept at it as long as I could, but it didn’t get the job done.”

My eyes flutter as I squeeze his throat.

He lifts his chin, eyes flashing down at me, daring me.

So I squeeze harder, and harder. Harder.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

I could teach courses in compartmentalizing. Run masterclasses. I’ve been doing it all my life.

I’m only now, right now, realizing how I’ve been repressing. A hundred million thoughts bubble to the surface of my mind as I try to strangle the life out of Kai, because fuck him, I was ready to give him everything, and he just fucking ghosted me .

“Don’t hold back,” he says, and then his other hand is on my stomach, curling around my side, sliding down my ass. “Kill me. If you can.”

I grimace, my arms shaking as I strain to tighten my grip, but his face isn’t even turning red.

“Yeah, just like that,” he murmurs. “Nice and tight.”

He ducks, his hand darting between my legs from behind. If his thumb hadn’t been pressing down on my tongue, my squeal would have been much louder.

I try to knock him away, but then he has me by the throat, and I can’t even take a breath. My hands claw uselessly for his face, punch his waist. But he has me pinned with one fucking hand.

And all the while, he’s staring down his nose at me like I’m every bit the poor, needy slut he thinks I am.