Page 4 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

I mean, he has a point. I remember getting the odd smack or two if I tracked mud into the trailer after Mom had cleaned, or if I woke Dad up from one of his naps. Were they being cruel? I thought so at the time…but I wiped my feet and never ran around indoors again.

Wow. I haven’t thought of my mom in over a decade.

We were never close. I mean, she died when I was four, so I barely have any memories of her. My dad? I try not to think about him at all.

CRUELTY = INTENT + POWER? / PERCEPTION + …

Professor Rooke’s voice drops. “What about impact?”

Wide eyes—mine included—blink at him.

Even Kai, hands tucked under his armpits and feet crossed at the ankles, watches Rooke with an unwavering stare.

Our teacher swallows down the last of his coffee and then crumples the paper cup with a single powerful flex of his hand. He drops it on the floor and kicks it under the desk.

Kai flinches and runs his hands through his hair, our eyes meeting for a split second before he wrenches his gaze back to Rooke.

“Was I cruel to discard that cup?”

Silence.

Professor Rooke walks up to the desk and leans against it, crossing his arms as he shrugs. “No one has any objections to the violence they just witnessed? This appalling crime of littering?”

The girl beside me with the ultra-chic bob lifts her hand. “It’s an inanimate object. It doesn’t have the physiology to feel pain. Or cruelty.”

If Rooke’s impressed, he doesn’t show it.

He shrugs again. “I was done with it anyway. Someone’s bound to pick it up and toss it in the trash.”

“No harm, no foul,” I blurt out.

Rooke’s gaze snaps to me. There’s an almost feverish glee sparkling there as he pushes away from the desk, snapping his fingers in my direction.

“Impact.”

He picks up his chalk and scratches on the board.

INTENT

IMPACT

INTERPRET

“If we don’t understand the intention behind the act?—“

He taps his chalk on the first word.

“How it impacts the alleged victim of the said act…”

Another furious round of tapping on the second word.

“Or how both participants interpret the act?—”

The chalk screeches as he circles the last word.

He turns to us, shaking his head, the beginning of a smile teasing his mouth. I’m not the only one who’s spellbound. I swear I can hear his paper coffee cup slowly uncrumpling under the desk.

“How can we definitively say that someone is, in fact, being cruel?”

He lifts a finger, turning and heading back to the board.

“You’re not the only ones having a tough time putting a cage around this thing.

Philosophers have been grappling with it since the dawn of Hellenic thought.

Plato spoke of a man ruled by his basest desires who inflicted suffering on others for his own gain. ”

Rooke raps his knuckle beside the word INTENT. “That’s an easy one. He didn’t have good intentions, and someone suffered for it.” He raps beside IMPACT. Shrugs. “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

I take notes, alternating between chewing my pen and tapping it against my chin.

If this is what college is like, I’m fucking hooked. I still don’t know what the Lucifer Effect scrawled on the board means, but maybe I’ll have scrounged up enough guts to speak to him after class.

Professor Rooke lectures about Aristotle, Freud, Seneca, Nietzsche.

Some names I’ve heard before, others are brand new. Time slips away, his lecture so riveting that I forget I’m in a class with thirty other students…

…and a boy who would giggle with me as we jumped into rain puddles together.

How did we get from there to him spitting on me and calling me a whore? I expected some degree of anger, but this?

Then again, he has spat at me before. But the context was completely different. There was mutiny involved, for one, and a very grubby bandana that was supposed to be an eye patch. Plus, he kept saying, “Aargh, me matey.”

My head is reeling by the time Professor Rooke glances at his watch. Sighing, he sets down his chalk, keeping his back turned as his students slowly emerge from his spell. Some stretch, others take quick peeks at their phones.

But then he speaks again, and everyone is immediately straining to hear his low words .

“No matter where you think it comes from. Nature. Nurture.” He turns, arms crossed. “If you want to label it evil, or neutral, or ‘it’s complicated.’” He puts air quotes around the word, and I hear the redhead beside me huff out in amusement.

“We all have a cruel streak inside us. A muscle we’re born with.” He holds out his hand, then slowly closes it into a fist, the dark blue-green veins under his skin stark.

I suddenly get all the fuss about vampires.

“Much like the Native American parable of the two wolves, there are those who choose to let that muscle waste away…” he opens his hand and shows us his palm before squeezing his hand shut again. “And those who hit the gym five times a week.”

He claps his hands together, and my soul leaves my fucking body.

“Unnecessary,” I mutter, tugging in a breath to replace the air in my lungs. The redhead turns and gives me a little smile, her hand still pressed to her chest.

“Right,” Professor Rooke announces. “I touched on some assignments you’ll be completing for me this semester, but I left the best for last.” He extends his index fingers, hands still clasped, and points at us.

“Journals are all the rage these days. Or maybe you kept a diary as a kid?” He laughs, but the sound is sardonic.

“Christ, what am I saying? You’re all still kids. ”

There’s a smattering of laughs and a few groans.

He gives us a genuine smile, and damn it if I don’t feel that warmth all the way down into my toes when he glances over at me.

But his voice is frosty when he says, “Mr. Jordan?”

There’s a jolt inside me. It’s as if Professor Rooke is asking me what the hell my deal is with Kai.

But then my all-grown-up childhood friend stands, snatches the stack of notebooks off the desk, and saunters over to us.

Even though I’m the closest, he walks right past me and starts handing them out at the far end of the row, working his way up and telling the students to pass the notebooks along until everyone has one .

Except me.

I guess because he waited until last to come and give me mine…in person.

Oh God, is he going to spit in my face again? I doubt he’d get away with it in front of Professor Rooke.

But there’s still a nervous flutter behind my belly button as he heads in my direction, a couple of notebooks dangling from his fingers, his other hand shoved in his pocket.

Kai locks eyes with me as he swaggers over, and it’s like time slows down so I can properly appreciate how much he’s changed.

God, he’s gotten handsome. His round face has melted around a sharp jaw and a proud nose. Round eyes more hooded, eyebrows casting deeper shadows.

His freckles are still there, though. His golden brown tan.

And here I am. Mousier, paler, a ghost of the girl in the woods.

And I’ve gained weight—physically and emotionally. Enough that I’m considering starving myself so I don’t have to hunt through bargain bins for larger clothing.

The corner of Kai’s mouth twitches, and I’m flung back in time and more than halfway across Agony Hollow, to the woods behind the trailer park where we stayed. He’d get the same look on his face when he was about to suggest a fun game for the afternoon, one we hadn’t played before.

Does he still have such an active imagination? He’d come up with the most unhinged role-play scenarios back then.

His favorite was Columbus and Jane, a brave explorer and his wife traversing jungles teeming with savage animals.

We’d be swatting mosquitoes and complaining about how thirsty we were the whole afternoon as he hacked at whatever foliage got in our way with a blunt kitchen knife he’d found in a dumpster outside the trailer park.

Sometimes I’d object to being the wife. But anything was better than staying at home with Dad.

Kai walks up to my chair…and just keeps going .

Past me, onto the podium.

He flops down onto his seat and tosses the last few notebooks back onto the desk, running his hands through his hair like he just used up the last of his energy. He hooks his hands behind his head and stares at Professor Rooke, completely ignoring my flabbergasted face.

“Everyone got one?” Rooke asks.

I turn to him, shaking my head, but he’s looking at the top row of students.

“Good. In the coming weeks, you’ll be keeping a diary. For those of you with experience, this will be a little different.”

I look back at Kai. He’s still watching Rooke.

What the actual fuck? I’m glaring so hard at Kai, Professor Rooke’s voice zones out.

“…three criteria for each entry, making sure…”

Three years is a long time to hold a grudge, Kai.

“…help you determine…”

Yeah, I’m one to talk. I was never good at letting go either.

“…are there any questions?”

Shit. What just happened?

My attention snaps back to Professor Rooke. He’s smiling at the class again, and it might be petty as hell, but I feel totally left out.

I lean over to the redhead beside me. “What does he want us to do?” I whisper.

She frowns at me. “Which part?”

Jeez, how long did I zone out for?

“Good. Class dismissed.” Rooke flicks his fingers toward the door, a wry smile on his lips. “Now get the hell out of my sight.”

Students pause to put away their laptops or speak to a classmate, but most head straight for the door. Kai is already on his phone, a deep eleven between his brows. I stand, my notepad smothered against my chest. The redhead nods at me before she leaves, and I quickly turn to follow her.

“A moment please, Miss. ”

I freeze in my tracks when I realize Professor Rooke is speaking to me. When I glance over my shoulder, his eyebrows twitch up as he drops his chin. “Yes. You.”

I glance at Kai. His smirk has just doubled in size.

Fuck.

What are the chances there’s a fault line right below this building that can open up and swallow me whole?