Page 78 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Haven

“You feel good, Haven? Enjoying yourself?” Ezra’s mouth is too close to my ear, but I’ve tried to push his arm off my shoulder like three times already. He just keeps putting it back.

Where’s Kai?

Why isn’t he stopping this?

But then I laugh, because Kai? Really? He literally just called me a slut.

Again.

And maybe he’s right. I let him finger me against a tree while high on molly. Just like I let him finger me under a bed while sober.

Kind of becoming a pattern.

I shove Ezra’s arm off my shoulders. “Melissa,” I manage through clenching teeth.

“What’s that? You do feel good? Yeah, of course you do. Everyone does. Even trailer trash bitches like you. ‘Cos you know that’s what you are, right?” He chuckles, and the sound makes my skin crawl.

What is he doing? Taking me on a fucking tour of the dance floor?

Is he trying to make Melissa jealous or something ?

It’s not like me and Ezra were ever on speaking terms.

I know what he did to Kai back when we were kids. I saw the marks. Kai never snitched, but his eyes did all the talking back then.

Guess they still do.

Fuck, his eyes were so…so… God , he was angry back there.

And it’s so messed up, because I swear I thought he was going to kiss me. I was silently begging him to.

That was when I was still imagining it was him, of course.

Should have known.

Who else would know my body like that? Exactly where to caress, where to stroke, where to?—

God, I’m horny again. What was in that Gatorade bottle?

Everything feels like sex. The music. The lights. The rain.

My eyes latch onto the DJ. And that’s a bad thing, because he’s hot. Not as hot as Kai, obviously, but still…the way he’s dancing is giving me a clit boner.

Or maybe I still have one from what Kai just did to me.

Did I actually come?

A thump goes through my body, and my eyes fly open. When did I close them?

I’m staring at the crowd.

But how?

I turn my head. I’m on the stage, close to the DJ box. There’s no music.

But why?

My body is electric. Pulsing with current. Mimicking the thunder-wreathed clouds above.

It’s raining.

My hair is wet.

What’s happening?

“…Haven Lee!”

I turn at the sound of my name and see Ezra nearby. Holding a microphone.

Why ?

He winks at me, comes closer. Slides an arm around my shoulder. I shrug it off, but it’s back a second later.

Stop.

But my voice isn’t working. My body is limp, unresponsive. I’m just standing here, on the DJ deck, staring at a sea of glowing bodies.

Fuck, I’m so trashed. My jaw clenches, and I taste blood as I pull my lip into my mouth.

Ow.

“…tell us what it was like?”

Huh?

My voice echoes back to me so loud, I flinch. Only then do I notice the microphone by my mouth. I bat it away, sending a screech of feedback through the speaker system.

“The fuck are you doing, man?” someone calls out behind me.

But then the rain starts.

No, it’s always been raining.

What the fuck is happening?

I touch my hair, soaking wet. My trash bag plastered to my body.

The fuck is?—?

“—and no one is more deserving than you are. Can I get a round of applause for Haven Lee, everyone?”

The music starts up again.

No, it’s just clapping. A few yells.

Someone’s calling me.

Haven Lee.

Haven Lee.

Heavenly.

…Little Miss Heavenly. That’s your new name. Because you pretend you’re such a little angel…

Kai?

I whip my head around, but it’s only me and Ezra and the DJ.

The DJ looks angry. At me? I don’t want to be up here. I try to walk to the edge so I can climb off, but Ezra seizes the back of my neck and pulls me back.

“Don’t be so fucking rude, Trailer Trash.”

I put a hand over my mouth. Was I being rude? What did I do?

Sorry.

But my voice still isn’t working. My legs are wobbly. There’s this achy, awful feeling inside me, and it’s the taste of body paint in my mouth, the burning on my lips, the way my entire body is tingling like I can still feel Kai’s touch.

What the fuck is going on?

“Got you something special, Trailer Trash. Now everyone will know who the Riversider bitch is.”

Something slips around my throat, and it’s cold and not at all like?—

Kai

—a hand, pressing me against the tree, holding me in place as he fingers me into submission. But I didn’t submit, did I, the fucking asshole he?—

There’s a rattle, a tug. I can’t breathe, but then I can.

Someone—

Ezra

—shoves me to my knees, and I yell because it hurts, and the pain brings me to the surface of the glowing bodies and the lightning coursing through my body, the rain pelting my skin.

I scrabble at my neck, feel a collar tight against my skin.

Then the metal chain attached to it.

The padlock securing both.

“No!” I try to yank at the chain, but when I throw my head back, Ezra is standing over me with a snarl on his face, the chain wrapped around his fist.

“Every bitch needs a collar. Every bitch needs to know her place. ”

I whip my head to the side.

Melissa. Hands on her mouth. Eyes like saucers. Why isn’t she helping me? She runs forward, but someone grabs her arms, drags her back .

“Yours is on your knees, eating from a bowl like the trailer trash bitch you are.”

Ezra plants a foot on my ass and shoves me onto my face. There’s a rattle, a clank, and sudden pressure around my neck.

“Eat your fucking dinner, bitch,” he grates. He puts out his foot, and there’s a metal scraping by my knees.

I look down, staring at the bowl full of wet dog food.

But I don’t smell anything. It should stink. Pet food always smells bad.

Am I dreaming?

Nightmaring?

What. Is. Happening?

“Eat it, bitch!” he yells, grabbing the back of my head and shoving me down.

And then he’s gone. And I’m tumbling, rolling. Body paint glows, and someone’s grabbing my arms. I hear thumping behind me as the DJ helps me to my feet, his eyes wide, angry, confused.

“Go,” he says, pointing. “Just go!”

…scat, bitch…

That voice propels me more than the DJ’s command. That voice, buried so deep, so far, so way way way way back it’s dusty and dry and powdery and I don’t recognize it anymore because I haven’t heard it in so fucking long.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

My heart?

The music?

No.

I swing my head around, knowing, feeling him close.

Kai is on top of Ezra. Straddling him.

Elbow rising, falling.

Rising. Falling.

As he beats his brother’s face in .

Blood.

Fucking.

Everywhere.

And Kai’s yelling, and it sounds like part of a dance track, staccato, syllables matching each punch.

“She’s mine! Mine! Fu-cking kill you! I’ll kill you!”

Each word punctuated with blood. With breaking bone.

He’s not saving me. He’s claiming property.

They’re fighting over me like dogs over a bone.

I scream and surge forward. I don’t know if I want to pull them apart, or get in a few punches of my own.

But I can’t touch him before I’m dragged away.

“No, stop. Stop! Haven, no!” Melissa’s snatching me, her nails digging into my arm as she pulls me over the DJ stand. “Come on!”

Shouting. Yelling. A few screams.

But we leave it all behind, and then it’s just leaves snapping as we race through the foliage. Lights blur in my vision because I’m crying?—

it’s raining

—and I can’t stop sobbing?—

yelling

—and then I’m flat on my face on the lawn, my fingers digging into the grass as I try to haul air into burning lungs.

Melissa falls down on her knees beside me, grabbing my arms. “Come on, get up. We’re almost there.”

I shake her off, roll onto my back. Cover my face with my hands.

Can’t stop crying?—

screaming

—as the rain lashes my face.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

I surface from the depths of my ocean mind at the sound of Professor Rooke’s voice. Strong hands grip my wrists, drag my hands away from my contorting face.

“What did you give her? ”

“Molly. She was fine, but then, fuck, he?—”

My fingers brush against a strong jaw that clenches at my touch.

“Get me out.” I grab a bow tie.

Out of what? The collar? The party? This life?

“Out!” My fumbling hand finds the dog collar around my neck. “Off!”

“Breathe for me, sweet girl. Breathe.”

Melissa appears beside Bastian, her eyes dark, her jaw clamped closed. She wipes hair out of my face, bites her lip.

There’s a tug around my throat, an uncomfortable chafing as Bastian drags the collar around.

His eyes narrow. “Where’s the key, Parker? Where’s the fucking key?”

My drugged mind fractures.

The collar around my neck tightens as I yank it so hard it burns, and suddenly I’m not here anymore.

I’m seventeen years old, and Uncle Lenny is dragging me by a leash made of his belt.

“Bitch needs training,” he says, but it’s Ezra’s voice and Lenny’s voice, merging into one.

But it’s not about training. It’s about breaking. Just like Ezra tried to break me. Just like Kai’s been breaking me. Just like Bastian will break me.

“No!” I thrash in Bastian’s arms. “Please, I’ll be good! I won’t stay out late again, I promise! Please, I promise!”

“Haven, girl, you’re safe,” comes another voice from a different time. Firm, sincere...almost like he cares. “Look at me?—”

But I can’t see Bastian anymore. All I see is Uncle Lenny’s face, twisted with the same sick smile Ezra wore.

“You know when it’s time to come home,” I rasp, my eyes rolling back. “Don’t make me come looking for you again, bitch.”

“What the fuck is wrong with her?” Melissa yells.

A lifetime of trauma finally caught up with me. And I don’t know where I end and the trauma begins.

Every man who’s touched me is here.

In my head. On my skin.

I’m everyone’s and no one’s and nothing and everything and?—

“Get the fuck out of my way, Parker!” Bastian, harsh and cruel as Lenny.

“But what?—”

“She’s having a psychotic break! Now move !”

Then I’m bundled against Bastian’s chest, and the world is bobbing up and down. He’s so warm that I curl against him, put my cheek on his heart, and listen to it beating urgently, desperately…for me?

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Like Kai’s fists on Ezra’s face. Like the music that made me lose my mind. Like Uncle Lenny’s footsteps coming down the hall to my room at night. I’m being carried away from one predator…in the arms of another.

And I’m too broken to care anymore.

Everyone saw the collar. The bowl.

Me on my knees.

Tomorrow it’ll be all over campus. Proof the scholarship girl was never one of them.

Never will be.

Always a joke, a lesser-than, a fraud.

Kai fought for me, but it’s too late.

The damage is done.

Haven, Kai & Bastian’s story continues in book two.