AURORA
── ? ──
I skipped it. Told myself I needed to study. Needed to catch up on readings for Political Theory. Needed to do literally anything other than stand in a room full of wealthy alumni and pretend I have any chance of networking my way into their world.
The truth is simpler: I couldn't stomach another event. Another performance. Another few hours of pretending Evander Laurent doesn't exist while simultaneously being hyperaware of exactly where he is in any given room.
Last night in the alley is still playing on repeat in my head. The way he touched me. The things he said. The possessive certainty in his voice when he called me his like it was a fact as immutable as gravity.
I need to stop thinking about it. Need to focus on something—anything—else.
I'm cutting through the athletic complex because it's faster than walking around the building, a shortcut that'll get me back to the library in half the time.
The hallway is deserted except for the distant sound of basketballs echoing from the main gym and the mechanical hum of the ventilation system.
I'm almost to the exit when I hear footsteps behind me.
Fast. Deliberate. Getting closer.
I don't turn around. Don't acknowledge it. Just keep walking, my hand already reaching for the door handle—
A hand grabs my arm. Spins me around.
The guy is Inner Circle. I recognize him vaguely from Macroeconomics—tall, athletic build, wearing high-end workout gear that screams trust fund from a mile away.
His name is something pretentious. Chad or Blake or Hunter.
Some bullshit WASP name that sounds like it belongs to a yacht club president.
"Hey," he says, his grip on my arm tight enough to bruise. "You're that scholarship girl, right? The one Laurent's been playing with?"
My stomach drops. "Let go of me."
He doesn't. Just pulls me closer, crowding into my space with that particular brand of entitled confidence that comes from never being told no. "What's he paying you? Because I've got money too. Probably treat you better than he does."
I try to yank my arm free. His grip tightens.
"Come on, don't be difficult," he continues, his other hand landing on my waist. Heavy. Possessive. Making my skin crawl beneath layers of fabric. "I'm just trying to be friendly. You scholarship girls are supposed to be grateful for the attention, right?"
The touch makes something violent spike in my chest. Hot and immediate and absolutely done with this shit.
"Get your fucking hands off me," I say, my voice low and dangerous.
He laughs. Actually laughs. "Or what? You'll report me? Who do you think they'll believe—an Inner Circle legacy student or a ghost-tier scholarship case?"
He's right. That's the worst part. He's absolutely right. If I report this, if I make it official, it'll be my word against his. And his word comes with money, with connections, with a last name that opens doors and closes investigations.
Mine comes with nothing.
His hand slides lower on my waist, fingers digging into my hip. "So why don't you stop playing hard to get and—"
The rest of the sentence dies in a wet, choking sound.
Because Evander Laurent just appeared out of nowhere and slammed the guy face-first into the concrete wall.
The impact is brutal. Immediate. The sound of bone meeting concrete echoes down the empty hallway like a gunshot.
The guy's nose explodes. Blood sprays across the beige paint in an arterial pattern that's going to be impossible to explain to maintenance.
Evander doesn't say anything. Doesn't warn him or threaten him or give him a chance to apologize.
Just grabs him by the back of his designer workout jacket and starts hitting him.
Methodically. Precisely. Each punch calculated for maximum damage.
The guy tries to fight back. Tries to swing, to defend himself, to do anything other than take the beating. But Evander is faster, stronger, and operating on a level of cold fury that makes resistance pointless.
I stand there, frozen, watching it happen.
I should stop this. Should scream or run or call security or do literally anything other than stand here watching Evander Laurent beat someone unconscious in a gym hallway.
But I can't move. Can't think. Can barely breathe.
Because some dark, fucked-up part of me is glad. Is satisfied. Is watching this violence and thinking good, he deserves this, he put his hands on me and now he's paying for it.
Evander lands one final punch—a vicious uppercut that snaps the guy's head back with enough force to rattle his brain—and then drags him by his collar down the hallway.
Toward the locker room.
The door is heavy metal, institutional grade, designed to withstand decades of abuse from teenage athletes. Evander kicks it open with enough force to dent the frame.
And that's when my paralysis breaks.
"Evander, stop!" I run after them, my feet pounding on the cracked linoleum. "You're going to kill him!"
He doesn't respond. Just drags the semiconscious guy through the doorway into the men's locker room beyond.
I follow. Don't think about whether I should, don't calculate the risk, just move.
The locker room is exactly what you'd expect—rows of metal lockers painted institutional gray, wooden benches bolted to the floor, shower stalls with moldy grout and water stains that suggest the maintenance budget ran out somewhere around 1985.
The air is thick with steam from showers that are running somewhere deeper in the complex, carrying the sharp chemical smell of industrial body wash and old sweat.
Evander throws the guy toward the showers. He hits the tile with a wet smack and doesn't get up.
Just lies there, groaning, blood pooling beneath his face.
I grab Evander's arm. "Stop. He's done. You proved your point."
Evander turns to look at me, and the expression on his face makes me take an involuntary step back.
His eyes are wild. Not cold and calculated like usual. Wild. Feral. Pupils blown so wide they've almost swallowed the blue entirely.
There's blood on his knuckles. Splattered across his white button-up. A drop on his jaw that he doesn't seem to notice.
He looks like something out of a nightmare. Beautiful and terrible and absolutely unhinged.
"Did he touch you?" His voice is rough. Raw. Each word scraped out like it's physically painful to speak.
"What?"
"Did. He. Touch. You." He steps closer, and I can see the muscle jumping in his jaw, the barely controlled violence vibrating through his entire body. "Did his hands touch your skin?"
I swallow hard. "He grabbed my arm. My waist. But I was handling it—"
"Where?" He grabs my wrist—not hard, not hurting, but firm. Absolute. "Show me where he touched you."
This is insane. This entire situation is completely insane.
But I point to my arm. "Here. And here," touching my waist over my sweater.
Evander's eyes track the movement. His jaw clenches so hard I hear teeth grinding.
And then he turns and walks back to the bleeding guy on the floor.
"Evander, no—"
He kicks him. Hard. Right in the ribs. The guy curls into a fetal position, wheezing.
"If you ever look at her again," Evander says, his voice deadly calm now, "I will end you. Not figuratively. Not as a threat. I will actually, literally end your existence. Do you understand?"
The guy nods frantically, blood bubbling from his broken nose.
"Get out."
He scrambles to his feet—or tries to. Ends up crawling toward the door on hands and knees, leaving a trail of blood across the tile.
The door slams behind him with a metallic clang that reverberates through the empty locker room.
And then it's just us.
Evander and me. Alone. In a room that suddenly feels much smaller than it did thirty seconds ago.
The silence stretches. Heavy. Charged.
I should leave. Should walk out right now while I still can, while the door isn't locked, while I still have the option.
I don't move.
Evander turns to face me slowly. His chest is heaving, his breathing ragged. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides, blood dripping from split knuckles onto the tile.
"You're a fucking psycho," I say. My voice is shaking. Not from fear—from something else entirely.
"Probably." He takes a step toward me. Then another. "But he put his hands on you."
"I could have handled it."
"You shouldn't have to." Another step. "You shouldn't have to handle anything. Not while I'm breathing."
My back hits the lockers. Cold metal through my sweater, the impact jarring enough to rattle my teeth.
He doesn't stop until he's right there, inches away, his body caging me in against the wall of lockers. His hands come up on either side of my head, palms flat against metal, trapping me.
"Do you have any idea what I wanted to do to him?" His voice is low. Dark. Vibrating with barely suppressed violence. "What I still want to do?"
"Stop talking," I breathe.
"He touched what's mine." His eyes are locked on my mouth now, pupils still blown, breathing harsh. "Put his fucking hands on you like he had any right—"
"I said stop talking."
"Make me."
It's a challenge. A dare. And some reckless, self-destructive part of me rises to meet it.
I grab his shirt—my fists twisting in expensive fabric, probably ruining it, probably getting blood on my hands—and I pull him down.
The kiss is violent. Desperate. Nothing soft or tentative about it.
His mouth crashes into mine with enough force to bruise, lips hard and demanding, teeth catching my lower lip in a way that sends sharp pain shooting through nerve endings and makes something hot coil low in my stomach.
I hate him. Hate what he's done to my life, hate the way he's trapped me, hate the control he has over every aspect of my existence.
But right now, in this moment, with adrenaline singing through my veins and his body pressed hard against mine—I need this. Need to feel something other than trapped and powerless and scared.
Need to take something back.
His hands are in my hair immediately, fisting the strands and yanking my head back to change the angle, to deepen the kiss, to devour me completely.