Prologue
Thwack.
The punch bounces off my shoulder, grazing my cheekbone.
Slam.
Another hits my ribs.
I brace myself, using elbows to protect from further blows, but the hits keep on coming.
I take them.
Each one, I deserve.
Each one, I’m owed.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I ask, wiping the blood from my chin.
The crowd, a sea of orange, laughs and cheers at my obnoxiousness. My opponent grins, his body slick with sweat. “Not even close.”
I lift my fists, the scabs from a prior fight torn off.
“Then bring it,” I say, wanting the pain.
No one steps in to stop my destruction. They all want me to go down. There’s nothing better than a king dethroned.
* * *
“Hawk,” a voice calls in an attempt to drag me from the cozy warmth of unconsciousness. “It’s time to get up.”
I roll over on the hard mattress. There’s no springs underneath. Just a flat metal frame. The springs could be used as a shank or some other kind of weapon. In here, I just have my fists. They ache and throb, like every other muscle in my body.
“Hawk.” The voice is louder—firmer. A hand grips my shoulder. I react on reflex, grabbing his fist. I blink, opening my eyes. A familiar face swims in my blurry vision.
“Dorian?”
“You’ve been released. To me.” He helps me off the bed. “Let’s go.”
“I don’t want to go. This is where I deserve to be.”
He sighs and rubs his face, clearly exhausted. “They’re kicking you out, Hawk.”
“They’re kicking me out of detention? Is that even possible.”
“Yeah.” He looks me over, taking in the bruises. The split lip. “Before you get yourself killed.”
He tosses me a paper bag. It’s filled with the clothing I wore at intake. I stare at the jeans and Sparrowood football T-shirt. “I don’t want to go back to that hellhole.”
“So what? You’re just going to walk away from the guys? From the agreement you made with Banks? From her?”
I glare at him for mentioning her at all. Eden and I didn’t part on good terms. We’d both made mistakes. Costly ones. I deserved to be punished for letting her down. She deserved the freedom of being away from an asshole like me.
“The guys are fine. If they need a leader, they can follow you.”
He grits his teeth. “Those days are over for me, Sawyer. You know that.”
I laugh. “There’s no escaping this and you know it. Man up and take your place, because I’m not doing it.” I lower my voice. “I don’t deserve it.”
His reaction is quick. Fierce. A speed I didn’t know he possessed. I see the flicker in his eye, a familiar darkness. He slams me against the wall, arm pressed against my chest.
“If you need some fucking therapy, Hawkins, I’ll clear some time in my schedule. But I’m not looking for that guy. I’m looking for the current leader of the K-Boys. The one that needs to fix what he screwed up. The one that needs to suck it up and stop having an epic melt-down so he can help me repair things with Eden before it’s too late.”
He pushes off of me and straightens his shirt.
“Get dressed. The guys are waiting.”
He barges out of the room, slamming the metal door behind him. I look down at the paper bag that I’d dropped during the altercation. For the first time in days, I feel the blood run through my veins, a pulse telling me I’m alive, and despite Dorian’s arguments about leaving the life behind, that guy, the one that showed his temper in my cell?
That’s proof there’s still a K-Boy lurking inside.
That makes two of us.
Chapter 1
Eden
I’ve never set foot on a university campus before, but it’s not unlike Sparrowood. The buildings carry the weight of age, weathered and important. Held together with columns and stones, they have large windows and arching doorways that promise education and fortune to all those that enter.
The girls' dormitory sits in the middle of the campus, flanked by grassy lawns and benches and bike racks. It’s Christmas break and no one is around, but that doesn’t stop my stomach from twisting with conflicting, nervous energy. Hope may actually live here, but she is probably gone for the break. Both options set me on edge.
“How long are we going to stand here?” Rochelle asks, shivering from the cold. “Do you want me to just go in and ask?”
“No,” I reply, aware that I need to do this on my own. This search has gone on longer than I’ve known Ro. She’s not part of this. I take a deep, futile breath. “Okay, I’m going in.”
We comb the halls, four stories in all. The dorm isn’t completely empty—a few rooms on each hall are occupied by a college-aged girl. Music floats down the hallways and each door is decorated with photos, whiteboards, and little notes. Some have little cards with the names of the residents in glitter. I can’t imagine Hope with a glittery name, in a calm, quiet dorm. Probably no more than she could imagine me at Sparrowood Academy.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s one of two people. Gray or Dorian. They’ve both called over and over since Ro and I left. I check the screen.
Dorian.
Like every other time, I send the call to voicemail and tuck it back in my pocket.
“You’ll have to answer at some point, you know.”
“I don’t.”
She laughs. “You think they won’t tear the walls down to find you? It’s like you don’t even know them.”
I thought I did, at least a little. I thought I knew Theo and his sweet nature fighting to survive an evil addiction. And Gray who is sex on legs, teaching me it’s okay to feel. I even thought I knew Hawk, until he betrayed me. Until I betrayed him.
The taste of bile lingers in my throat. The taste of him.
“Here’s a Hope,” Rochelle says, stopping before a door. “It’s a single. No roommate. It’s the kind of thing reserved for kids with money.”
I’ve told Rochelle nearly everything at this point, everything except the fact me and the K-Boys were explicitly brought in to bring down the Brats running the school. She thinks we’re just scholarship kids. In a way, we are. Our debt is to clean out the toxic environment. She knows we don’t have any money, which is why a single dorm room is definitely a red flag.
With a hammering heart, I step up to the door and look at the photos. A rush of emotion rolls over me and tears pinprick my eyes. I touch the picture of the girl with long dark hair, streaked with golden highlights. Eyes that match my own stare out at me, but as much as the girl in this photo is my sister, she’s not the person I know.
This girl is dressed in expensive clothes and has nice jewelry hanging from her ears and neck. Her smile is wide and carefree. It’s like I’ve stepped in an alternate universe, one where we were never ripped out of our suburban life and dumped in the ghetto.
I swallow and say, “That’s her.”
I try the door. Unsurprisingly, it’s locked. Part of me is relieved.
“Should we break in?” Rochelle asks.
“No, I don’t think so.” I finger the photograph, trying to adjust to the changes.
Movement down the hall forces me to drop my hand. A girl walks our direction, and I shift to try to blend into the environment. Rochelle takes the opposite approach.
“Hey, we’re looking for the girl that lives in this room, Hope. Have you seen her?”
The girl looks at the two of us, her eyes lingering on me. There’s a resemblance I can’t deny. “She’s probably gone for the holidays already.”
“Oh, shoot,” Rochelle says, her voice sweet. “I was hoping we could catch her. I guess we’ll have to see her over break, you know at, you know…”
I don’t know why she trailed off, but the girl’s eyes brighten and she says, “New Year’s Eve? Yeah, that party is going to be killer. Tyson Cohen never disappoints. Hope should definitely be there.”
At the name Cohen I visibly recoil, bile surging up the back of my throat. It brings up other memories, too. The K-Boys. Hawk. Guilt and betrayal.
“Awesome,” Rochelle says, stepping on my foot.
I look up and force a smile. “Yeah, maybe we’ll see you then.”
“It’s going to be epic. Only Tyson and Hope would have an engagement party on New Year’s Eve and invite half the school to celebrate.”
I cough, loud.
“Engaged?” I blurt. “To Tyson?”
“You didn’t hear?” She looks between us. “Happened over Thanksgiving at his parents' house. She’s so lucky.”
Rochelle waves, and the girl walks off as I brace myself against the wall. Once she’s gone, Ro looks at me, “Guess that’s a little bit of information Trip didn’t tell you.”
White-hot anger boils under my skin. “Nope. He managed to leave that out.”
“Well,” she says, linking her arm with mine in an obvious attempt to steady me, “I guess we know where we’re going on New Year’s Eve.”
I never wanted to be around Trip or Tyson Cohen again. Not at school. Not at one of their depraved parties. But they’ve sunk their claws into my life and I suspect the only way to shake them is for one of us to go down, for good.
* * *
Christmas is weird.
We arrived at Rochelle’s home and I spent a long time trying to process everything in front of me. The size. The furnishings. The hundreds of crystals hanging from the chandelier over my head. The fact that the tiny square of space of inlaid marble flooring I stood on cost more than my entire personal worth.
She’d walked over to the fireplace, a monstrous thing made of slate-gray stones. Two gold-trimmed stockings hang from the mantle. She picked up a card. “Aww…Daddy says for us to have fun, rest and relax and not to worry about anything.”
That was four days ago.
“This has been so much better than Christmas with my father,” she says now. It’s the twenty-sixth, and we’re lying in soft cream-colored robes on her bed. “It would have been ten days of watching them dry hump by the pool.”
When we arrived, I slept for three days straight. I think my whole body finally accepted that for the first time in months, I wasn’t in imminent danger. I finally relaxed. The live-in maid, Ruby, made us breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A masseuse, ordered off some magical wish list Rochelle pulled up as needed, arrived to attack my aching, exhausted muscles. We spent time in the indoor pool where I practiced the lessons Theo taught me. Like him, I’m learning the pool water has healing properties.
During it all, I tried my hardest not to think about them.
They made it impossible. Text messages arrived on Christmas, filled with best wishes but little information. Dorian, Gray, and Theo. Hawk was silent, off brooding somewhere, probably.
I can’t bring myself to reply. Instead of better, each day I feel worse. How had I fallen for Trip’s manipulation? Me? The one that championed these girls to take a stand, learn self-defense, and respect themselves. What had gone wrong? How had he tricked me?
Sprawled on Rochelle’s king-sized bed, eating chocolates from a box sent from France, I think about them and how I blew it.
God. Did I blow it, well, no I blew Trip, and that’s how this whole thing got so fucked up.
A white Christmas tree sits in the corner of the bedroom. The remains of a pile of gifts wrapped in silver and gold paper is scattered underneath. The only color in this place is a splash of red here or there. Shiny balls hanging from the tree. A bow on a gift.
There were gifts for me, each signed with Rochelle's name, although clearly bought by her father’s secretary, who he’s dry humping in the Caribbean. New outfits, makeup, lingerie.
“What do I need this for?” I’d asked, staring at the three different sets.
She rolled her eyes. “You may be satisfying three men, but it doesn’t mean they each like the same thing.” She walked over and paws the lace. “I thought the blue would suit Theo—match his brilliant eyes and tan skin. The black is definitely sexy, a little dirty—like Gray.”
I held up the white. “And this one?”
She laughed. “Oh, that’s for your protector. Hawk obviously fetishizes you as a virgin.”
I swallowed back the statement that I am a virgin. Technically. “Tell me you bought these before all hell broke loose at school.”
“You can pretend this little arrangement with your boys is over because of a little misstep with Trip, but I know better.” Her eyes were dark. “They worship you, Eden. I have a feeling Hawk is probably punishing himself as we speak.”
“They hate me,” I replied. I tried to hide the quiver in my voice.
I hated myself.
I shoved the scraps of lace back into the box and shoved it in the corner. I hadn’t looked at it again. But I did think about them. All the time.
Rochelle cackles from her side of the bed. “Bingo.”
“What?”
“My invite came for the engagement party.” She smiles wickedly. “We’re in.”
Rochelle doesn’t quite understand my distress over everything going on. That this isn’t just another party. And it certainly isn’t a celebration. At best, my sister is marrying into an evil, disgusting, corrupt family. At worst? She’s been brainwashed or blackmailed into it.
I’m out of my depth here, and I reach for my phone, like I’ve done a dozen times the last few days. I stare at the screen and drop it back on the bed.
I fucked up when I walked out like that, but the hurt in Hawk’s eyes. The betrayal I felt.
Chapter 2
Dorian
The three boys sit on the couch, too big for this small space. These apartments weren’t meant for families, but teachers and staff at the Academy. My eyes keep flicking to the spot where Eden had propositioned me. I can still feel the weight of her on my lap. The sensation of her body so close to mine. It was wrong, which made everything more confusing, because it felt right.
Saying no to her was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. I thought she was trying to break me—pull me back into the K-Boys—force me to break down an unspoken barrier for her and the guys. I’d misread the situation entirely. It was out of character, and I should have known there was something more to it.
She needed my help. Trip was closing in, and I’d left a gap. I was as culpable as Hawk. Both of us failed as leaders. Failed her.
And here we are, two days after Christmas, stuck in this tiny apartment trying to figure out how to get our girl back.
“Dude, you’re going to have to just own it,” Theo says, glancing at Hawk. “Apologize and admit you fucked up.”
Hawk’s jaw is set, although it’s so swollen from being punched it’s hard to see the sharp angles that make him intimidating. He looks worn out. Beaten down. It’s hard to see the leader inside.
“We have to find her first,” Gray mutters. He tosses his phone on the table. “She still won’t answer my texts.”
I look at Theo. “Tell us again what she said to you that night?”
Theo runs his hands through his blond hair. “I told her we would work it out. That we just needed a little time to cool off. She seemed good with it. Gave me a hug.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t realize she was about to bolt.”
“She’s an enigma,” Hawk says suddenly. He’s barely spoken since I dragged him out of detention. I let him go simply because I didn’t have anywhere else for him to stay, and I thought a little solitude may do him good. Little did I know he had plans to become a human punching bag. “Also, she doesn’t trust us. Understandably.”
“I can understand why she doesn’t trust you,” Gray says, crossing his legs, “but Theo and I haven’t done anything.” He glances at me. I haven’t told them about what happened between me and Eden. How I was forced to reject her. I don’t plan on it now.
I look at the young men on my couch. Wise but dumb. “I think this may go back to the uncertainty of everything. Eden got brought in to Sparrowood alone. She was grieving for her sister, had her defenses up from years in Kingston. She was hazed and bullied, forced into using drugs and sexually assaulted.”
Theo shakes his head. “We had her back.”
“Did you? Or did you just have a deal that you implemented at your convenience.” I glance at Gray. I’d seen the video of them together. “How far did that arrangement go? Did you really care for her or did you just take advantage of the situation?”
Gray hops up from his seat and rushes at me. I stand and hold my ground. “I didn’t take advantage of her. What happened between us was real.”
“Do you think she knew that?”
“I told her so, yeah.” His forehead furrows, and he steps back. I return to my seat. “I’ll admit though that much of the time we were close, we were doing it for show, trying to fool the other students.”
He curses under his breath, and I look at Hawk. “What about that night at the party? Was that the drugs or something else?”
He looks at me, eyes a hard steel. “I don’t know. It was confusing.”
“It didn’t look confusing,” Gray says. “It looked like if she hadn’t passed out, things would have gone a lot further.”
Hawk doesn’t deny anything, and an uncomfortable vibration of energy settles in the room as the truth comes out. We may have been mind-fucking Eden as much as anyone else.
“I told her I needed time,” Theo says, eyes flicking at each of us. “We kissed in the pool, but I was still unsteady. I wanted to be the best for her.”
“So one of you was honest.”
“I knew she was struggling. She told me during our swim lessons. The weight of her father’s death, her mother’s addiction, Hope’s disappearance. She worried about the female students and fought daily to face her fears.” He frowns and looks at me. “I should have told you that she was having a hard time.”
“What about you,” Hawk asks, his tone accusatory. “What did you do to her?”
I grip the arms of the chair. “I’m just as guilty as the rest of you. I hid behind my job, unwilling to be the person she needed me to be. Eden didn’t need a therapist. She needed someone to lead you all. Set the pace.” I look at Hawk, knowing I’m likely stepping on toes, but I’m surprised to see he’s watching me closely. “We thought she was strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Trip. We left her to the wolves, so caught up in the game-play of it all, so afraid to admit our real feelings, that we left her vulnerable.”
“What do you think we should do?” Gray asks.
“Find her. Tell her the truth and then help her heal.”
Hawk shifts on the couch. “What if she doesn’t want to see us?”
“Then we’ll deal with that at the time, but we can’t let this end like this.”
For once in their lives they don’t argue, signaling that I’d been right. This went way beyond any sort of fake arrangement. They cared for her, as much as I do, and although I’m not in a position to act on my feelings, there’s no reason they can’t figure this out. If she’s willing.
Gray’s phone buzzes, and he reaches for it on the coffee table. He reads the message and his eyebrow raises.
“Is it her?” Hawk asks.
“It’s Rochelle.”
As a group, we lean forward. “And?” I ask.
“We’ve been invited to a party.”
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