Fiery Little Thing: A Dark Academy Romance

“Chug. Chug. Chug. Chug.”

The cold liquid goes down my throat without effort. I haven’t got a clue who’s chanting or how this drink ended up in my hand, but what I do know is that I well and truly owe Tony one.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

And Duke.

Whoever the fuck Duke is.

Oh, he’s the one who’s chanting. Wait… That Duke. I think he sits behind me in history class. He has a funny nickname… What was it?

Something tightens around my thigh while I tip back onto the hard chair to finish off the strawberry flavored… vodka? Gin? Fuck knows.

Who cares? This is the most fun I’ve had in… ever.

Slick sweat glistens across my body, sticking my uniform to my skin as my pulse hammers harder than the bass. My nose twitches with a numb tingle. I wouldn’t mind another bump right about now.

Or two.

I drag my eyes up as the faint sound of chatter rings all around. Everyone looks blurry yet completely clear. Other than Duke, I don’t think I know anyone else here, except maybe the girl in the green ripped jeans who’s flashing her phone in people’s faces. I think she’s in my history class too.

Have I been here before? Maybe. It looks like the living room of every college flat I’ve ever been to. Beer bottle caps litter the floor, drinks are on every flat surface, and random sporting items hang on the wall.

Vibrations hit my back, followed by tumbling laughter. I blink once, swing my gaze to the hand sliding up my thigh, then to my warm chair—chest?

Duke’s chest. When did I end up on his lap? Wait—isn’t it a school night? How many hours until I need to get ready for it?

God, how much have I—

“Come on, baby,” he purrs against my skin.

I barely feel when the ridge of his nose runs down my neck or when he takes control of my hips to grind me against his slowly hardening cock. I turn my head into him, and I can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of my chest. Didn’t I think he had bad BO when I first got here? He doesn’t smell so bad now. He doesn’t smell like anything, actually.

After I called Tony, he picked me up and drove us to this party he knew about. Then he gave me a couple lines on the house and followed it up by thrusting someone else’s box of drinks in my face. Next thing I knew, Duke was my best friend because he had a bag of pills with my name on it.

His blue eyes flash to mine, lips splitting into an excited grin, showing slightly yellowed, crooked teeth. He looks wrong. His eyes should be hazel, not blue. And he’s so skinny and he doesn’t have an ounce of muscle on him.

I jolt when his teeth scrape against my jaw. “You owe me some fun, Blaze.”

My brows knit together. I don’t owe him anything, but I wouldn’t mind some fun. It’s been months since I’ve been laid. Maybe longer. I can’t remember. I don’t like anyone in Tony’s crowd—and you should never screw the crew—but we’re at some college student’s flat, so who gives a shit?

I definitely don’t. Not after the shit Mom pulled and all the fuckery I’ll have to deal with up until I graduate—and Kohen Fucking Osman. How dare he steal the wallet from me.

“I’ve been wanting to get a feel of that—”

“Stop talking. You’re not hot enough to open your mouth too.” I slam my lips against his, effectively shutting him up. For a couple seconds, at least.

Duke chuckles, moving out of time with my lips. My eyes close, and golden-moss irises and black hair flash through my vision, and I push my ass down against his groin. Cool air kisses my legs as he pulls the skirt of my uniform up to sink his fingers into my bare flesh, kneading it uncomfortably. My head swims as his other hand fists my hair to deepen the kiss.

“You like what I have to offer,” he mumbles against my lips, pulling away long enough to take two pills out of a bag. One ends up on my tongue, the other on his.

I snicker to myself because I definitely didn’t end up on his lap for his personality. This is what I needed. I’m three sheets to the wind and couldn’t give a shit if he’s just offered me cyanide. I’m not missing out on anything if I die.

My equilibrium shifts when Duke yanks me back to his lips. Either he’s an awful kisser, or it’s my fault there’s so much teeth going on right now. I bet Kohen’s kisses would be all pillowy and bruising with all that anger and his thick, kissable lips.

Duke keeps kissing me. And kissing me. And kissing me. It’s a dizzying cycle that tips and turns.

I’m distantly aware of someone hooting in the background over the music playing. I think I hear a giggle as well. Nothing makes sense because I blink, and the music becomes muffled, and a door slams somewhere around me. The room is dark with only the yellow light of a lamp to illuminate the unmade bed and clothes on the floor. We’re in someone’s bedroom.

He yanks off my uniform top and grabs my tit. “Fuck, Blaze,” a head of blond hair groans around my nipple. “I knew these’d be good.”

A whimper drags out of my throat when he—Duke?—squeezes my free tit. My eyelids feel so damn heavy.

I gasp, and the next time I blink, I’m on something soft. Glazed blue eyes bore into mine from above me, blond hair swaying in time to the jolts going through my body. God, he’s ugly. Is this what my life has come to? Sex with men whose best lighting is no lighting?

A strangled moan comes out of me in the next blink. My fists curl around the sheets, and I watch the wall inch closer and closer from the force of his thrusts. He might not be good to look at, but his dick game isn’t half bad.

My head hits the wall, but I barely feel it. I laugh—it feels good. At least it should feel good. I can sense the stretch and the slap of him against me and the heat of my skin against the sheets. But it’s pressure without the sensation. I feel nothing, and it’s fucking phenomenal.

I’m free. My body is weightless and numb; my brain free of all problems. Just this moment. Just sweat, heavy breaths, and the muffled sound of the world around.

I cry out for the sake of crying out and arch my back to meet his thrusts. Another laugh tumbles out, and it feels better than anything else. This is why I do this, to feel exactly like this. Soft snores fill the air somewhere by my ear in another blink, and a heavy weight lies over my middle. Then everything plunges into total darkness.

“Fuck,” I groan, slapping around the bed to stop the incessant beeping noise.

“Stop hitting me,” another voice rasps.

I freeze.

I peel my eyes open and shut them straight away.

Oh fuck. I moan into the pillow and fumble around for my phone that’s somewhere in the sheets. The alarm stops when I press a random button.

On top of the killer hangover from the copious amount of alcohol I consumed, I’m coming down from who-knows-what. But above all, that is what I’m waking up next to? Kill me now. It also smells horrendous in here. I thought rock bottom would at least smell better than this.

I’ve done walks of shame before, but shame isn’t an adequate enough word for sleeping with Duke Morrison—one of St. Augustine’s resident drug dealers, and—rightfully—nicknamed Shitcake after what happened when he ate the food he made in cooking class. Nothing beats this kind of low.

I push myself onto my elbows.

Uh oh.

“Where’s your bathroom?” I stumble out of the bed and scramble for the door. My head spins, and my stomach does the same thing double-time—Jesus Christ, why is it so bright?

“What?” He sounds as shit as I feel.

“Where’s your fucking bathroom?!” Bile lurches up my throat.

“Uh…”

Fuck his response. Whipping the door open, I sprint to the only open door down this hallway. If it’s someone’s bedroom, well, tough. Everything I consumed last night is coming out—and it’s all coming out now.

I crash onto the floor in front of a toilet and throw my head forward just in time for everything to go hurtling out. The acid burns its way up my throat as I empty my stomach into the bowl. I’m never drinking again.

Shivers rack my naked body as the cold of the tiles sinks down to my bones. Over and over, I hurl until my throat is swollen and my cheeks are soaked with tears. I clutch my stomach as cramps radiate out from every nerve ending in my body.

Somewhere in the distance, I hear someone having the same reaction as me. The two-night bender wasn’t my brightest idea. I wish I could say that it got out of hand, but last night was exactly what I wanted. I came here to forget about my shitty mom and the theft of my vice, and I did. If Duke has anything on him, neither of us will have to deal with the second part of our hangover. The aftermath never gets easier, no matter how many times I’ve ended up at this point over the years. I never seem to get used to it either.

When there’s nothing left to come out of my stomach, I stay put, staring at the bowl and wondering how many more mornings like this I can take before one day I don’t wake up at all.

I leverage the door handle to pull me onto my unstable feet, my fingers tightening around the metal as the room spins with the motion. It feels like an impossible feat, but I manage to find mouthwash before sitting back on the floor.

After a while I leave the bathroom, my bare feet shuffling along the carpet as I try to locate the shithole room I’ve been sleeping in for the past however long. Both of our cell phones blare with the alarm, and I rush as much as my body will allow to shut it off. Why on earth would I set an alarm this early on a weekend—

Shit, I forgot.

“Want a ride to school?” In front of me stands the unmistakable embodiment of regret, butt naked at the foot of the bed, and the urge to repeat last night’s mistakes surges within me. Gross.

I stare at him. Dear God.

Hmm, being seen walking with him into school, or walking solo from who-knows-where to school, risking who-knows-what fate along the way. The latter sounds more appealing, but if I skip a day of school, Grandpa’s punishment will be far worse. That’s another week before I get my allowance, or money to fix the window, and an extra day before my grandpa sends groceries.

Incentivizing me to stay in school is his way of keeping up with appearances as if everything in our life is all pixies and butterflies.

“Yes.” I’m a goddamn ray of sunshine today; why not let everyone see that Blaze Whitlock fucked Shitcake. “Got anything to make today bearable?”

He shakes his head.

I doubt Duke is disappointed about last night’s events, but we are both well and truly hating ourselves right about now as we take turns showering, and then shrugging on our itchy, used uniforms. Neither of us speak during the drive or when we park and go our separate ways—me with my head down and sunglasses on, and Duke mirroring me down to the way we both clutch our stomachs.

I’m better than my parents—I am. Drugs don’t control me. I still attend school, show up to all my classes, get sent to detention, and pass over 70 percent of my papers.

Hell, no one is—or will be—getting hurt by me consuming my vice of choice. I’ve got no kids or a partner I need to stay loyal to. I can stop drinking and taking drugs whenever I want. It’s just a bit of fun—of course, until every step taken feels like a fight not to run to the closest trash and throw up.

A few people give me the side-eye, and a lot more whisper when they see me walk inside the class. I must look like one of Satan’s experiments. I’d scream at them, but I’m worried I might pass out if I exert any more energy than necessary.

Chatter fills the air as I enter the classroom. I keep the shades firmly on my nose and sink into my seat, dropping my head toward the back and rhythmically tensing and untensing my jaw. To say I feel like dying would be an understatement. I need to sleep for a solid forty-eight hours, and if my hibernation starts in first period, that’s fine by me.

The shrill sound of the bell indicating the start of the class makes me wince, and I slump lower in my seat, trying to hide behind my chem book.

“Miss Whitlock.” A woman’s voice breaks through the haze. Fuck. “May I speak to you outside?”

No, not particularly.

I take a deep breath and force myself onto my feet, leaving behind my sunglasses on the table to follow my teacher Mrs. Yang into the hallway. My stomach swims as I step forward, fighting the urge to use the desks as support. The last thing I need is for the school to complain to Grandpa so he has another reason to delay sending me food or money. But fuck it. Let’s just get this over with.

As I scooch between tables, a hand lands on my arm, and I whip my head around. “What?” I snap.

Cindy Masterton—an overly friendly girl whom I have yet to figure out completely, unable to tell if she’s fake or not—snatches her hand away and plasters a pitiful smile on her face that, frankly, grinds my goddamn gears. She doesn’t know shit about me.

“I’m sorry about what happened. If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.” Her voice is candy-sweet, but not in the condescending way everyone else says it around here.

“Right,” I mumble, pulling a face. “Thanks.” I don’t know what on earth she’s offering to do for me, but I might as well keep it civil until she makes it out of my good book.

Mrs. Yang’s downturned lips greet me the second I step outside. Why is everyone looking at me like I’m a charity case? Seeing her so softened up is weird when she usually doesn’t hesitate to slap a ruler on someone’s desk when she doesn’t get her way.

Don’t tell me she’s about to stage an intervention about how I’ve been showing up to school lately. I’ve only gone to school hungover twice this week, and once last week. It’s hardly a problem.

“Look,” I start, feeling my temper rise up my throat. “I just have a cold and—”

She cuts me off. “We didn’t think you would come to school today.”

First of all, who is we? Second of all, why wouldn’t I come to school today? If I’m absent, they’ll call my grandfather, then there go my groceries right out the broken window.

“Uh, okay?” What else am I meant to say to that?

“It’s okay to feel upset about what happened. None of us can begin to imagine what you are going through.” I glance around, trying to see if there are cameras on us, or a bunch of cops ready to snatch me up for possession of drugs. “It’s never easy when something so traumatic happens.” Wait. What? “Think of it this way”—my eyes fall to the hand she places on my arm—“at least no one got hurt.”

Is this some sick joke? I knew the socialites of St. Augustine were proficient at mind games, but no one’s laughing now.

I rip myself out of her bony hold. I can barely handle her weaponizing a ruler and attempting to embarrass me in class with questions she thinks I wouldn’t know the answer to. This is a whole other level of bullshit I refuse to put up with. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Her face hardens at my choice of words before her brow line drops in confusion. “Your house?”

“What about it?” My temper laces those three words. If this is a trap, I’m going to be giving Grandpa another reason to starve me and cut me off from affording Tony’s goods.

She gapes at me like I’m the one who’s fucking with her. “Your house… last night? Don’t… don’t you know?”

I cross my arms, even though the added pressure on my stomach is less than ideal, and wait for her to continue.

“Blaze… It burnt down.”

I blink. “What did you just say?”

She shifts her weight. “It was on the news,” she explains. “Your house caught fire around dinnertime last night, and the firefighters… they couldn’t salvage it.”

Blood rushes through my ears. No. She’s lying. She has to be.

I spin on my heels and storm down the hallway. Mrs. Yang calls after me, but I can’t find it in me to react. There’s nothing wrong with my house. It’s completely fine. All my things are completely fine. This is a prank. My collection is untouched, and my room looks exactly the same as I left it yesterday.

The sound of my footsteps bounces along the empty corridors, echoing against the rows of metal lockers and glass cabinets filled with trophies. The exhaustion I felt before is hidden somewhere beneath the blanket of adrenaline.

If Mrs. Yang were telling the truth, I would know. Someone would have called me. My phone would have exploded with missed calls from my grandpa, or my grandma would have contacted me for the first time in my life. Maybe my uncle would have touched base to see if the scums of the family had finally been killed off.

My breath rushes out of me, and I stumble backward until my back hits a locker. I grind my teeth as I make out the face of my attacker.

“You mother—”

“Fucking bitch.” Kohen presses his forearm against my throat. The venomous look in his eyes makes me stall for half a second too long, giving him enough time to put more pressure on my windpipe. “You deserve everything that’s coming for you.”

Rage emanates from him in violent waves, and I can’t make sense of it or why it’s even there. What if he’s the one who’s setting me up? He’s making this one big practical joke because he somehow knows about the power Grandpa lords over me, and Kohen’s using him to exact punishment against me for skipping out on school and acting out. That’s probably why he was asking me if I’d be home yesterday. Fuck if I know. I’m so sick of everyone’s bullshit, and I have to see the lies for myself.

I shove him off me and duck under his arm. “Stay the fuck away from me, or you’ll pay for it!”

I whirl around and charge out of school. He yells something at my back, but I’m too far away to hear.

Once I finish high school, my house is the only thing I know for certain. Maybe I find a job, maybe I make it to college, but either way, there’s somewhere for me to go back to. I have a room with everything I’ve ever owned—clothes, books, a torn blanket underneath my pillow that I’ve had since I was a baby.

All the trinkets and bits and bobs along my dresser and shelves tell a tale. Like the thimble I pocketed the first and only time I visited my grandparents’ house. A fraying Michael Kors wallet that I took from a woman who yelled at me in the grocery store.

Tucked away in the corner of one of the shelves is a single AA battery and a stone from the Dollar Tree that says Live, Laugh, Love. Dad gave it to me at Christmas one year and tried to make it seem like a life lesson that I have to “stay solid and power on.” It was the smartest thing I’ve ever heard him say.

I can’t pinpoint the moment I got to the start of the long, winding driveway leading to my house, but it’s as if I blinked and found myself here. The nausea that lurked in the back seat since I left school comes to the forefront. My stomach isn’t just a passenger now; it’s the one calling the shots, steering me toward a nearby tree where I double over, dry heaving, wishing I could be anyone but myself.

Mrs. Yang was right.

I don’t need to trek down the path to know that fire touched the only solid thing in my life. Smoke and ash clog the back of my throat, spreading char down to my lungs. The distinct pattern of large tires has left black imprints on the once-gray concrete. I can hear it too. The slight groaning of what was once my home.

I force my feet forward. I have to see it with my own eyes. I could be imagining the rest. The smell is from a bonfire, the sound of chatter is from my parents’ friends. My shitty beat-up house will be at the end of the driveway. I’ll be able to see my shirt taped to the window, and broken pot on the front porch. I’ll walk up to my room and crawl into my bed and pretend this was one big joke.

But my delusions come crashing down when I see the fallen, charred remains of the place I’ve lived in since I was old enough to string a sentence together and not need a nanny to reach into the cupboard for me and drop a slice of bread into the toaster. All that’s left are the bare foundations of the only solid thing in my life.

I stumble back and gasp for air as a heavy weight presses down on my chest.

Two voices play in my head. The cracks in my own voice whisper, “They were right.”

And the second, much more sinister voice, is of a pyromaniac who makes every muscle stiffen and my veins flood with another burst of adrenaline.

“Are you going to spend another night alone in your shitty house?”

“I’m disappointing my family and ruining yours at the same time.”

“You deserve everything that’s coming for you.”

Kohen did this.

He fucking did this.

That building is the oldest place I’ve ever known. There isn’t a single inch of it I haven’t explored. Not a tree around it I haven’t climbed. It is the only thing that hasn’t let me down. Every single day, from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep, the only certainty I had was that there would always be a roof over my head and a place for me to rest. I could be sober or out of my mind, and the shithole of a house would still be there.

Tied to the broken headboard in my bedroom is a dirty piece of ribbon and a smashed-up chocolate bar Mom gave me as an apology when I was five after coming home from a two-day bender. It was the only memory of my mother where she acted like a mother. She sat me down on the steps and braided the ribbon into my hair. Granted, she forgot to brush my hair out first, which she blamed on her “migraine,” but at that moment, I remember thinking this is it. Mom’s coming home for good. We’d finally be a family. Then I didn’t see her for another two weeks.

And I’ll never see any of my things—my memories—again.

It’s gone.

Hatred courses through my veins, drilling down into my bones and turns the world into shades of black and red as I charge down the street, getting farther and farther away from the graveyard of my memories. Somewhere along the way, I feel wetness slide down my cheek as I run from my nonexistent home. It isn’t until the Cape Cod–style mansion is in front of me that I realize thunder has cracked through the sky and rain is battering the ground, soaking through my uniform and saturating my hair.

Kohen is going to pay for what he did to my house.

I barely feel the wrought iron fence dig into my skin, or the trickle of blood that runs down my stomach. The liquid fire coursing through my veins turns my body numb. It doesn’t hurt when I kick down their $100K outdoor sculpture, using its remains to break the tail off the mermaid fountain. I hardly even register the splinter sticking out of my finger as I grip a shovel and bring it down on their marble pavement. I flip off the security cameras before grabbing a rock and throwing it at the window beside the back door to unlock it.

Each movement is another drop of gasoline to my wrath.

I need him to pay.

The alarms don’t go off when I step into the kitchen. Instead, an older woman wearing a stained apron meets my stare with wide parted lips. I grab the knife on the kitchen counter and look her dead in the eyes and mouth a single word.

“Run.”

She scurries out another door and into the rain. I pick up my pace, running up the stairs and into the room I know he sleeps in.

I throw the door open, and a wave of patchouli and mint crashes into me, making me stall for a second before fury rears its ugly head, and my hand goes flying, intent on ruin. His room is covered in junk: ripped up magazines, half burned posters, a hoodie that looks just like the one Mom took from me, buttons and knick-knacks, and the wallet he stole from me yesterday. There’s no rhyme or reason to my path of demolition, stabbing into his bed, slashing into his pillow and his stupid fucking Egyptian cotton sheets and waffle duvet.

My vision is a violent, pulsing crimson as I scan the room for something that looks like his soul would perish at the thought of losing it. I need to find a keepsake. Something sentimental. His old boxing gloves fall victim to the blade next. Then, his championship belt and signed shorts. The rage courses through my veins, intensifying as I destroy Kohen’s things, one after another.

I exchange the knife for the bat leaning against the foot of his bed, taking it with my trembling hands to bring it down on his computer, then the walls and windows. I can’t stop even if I want to. Nothing is free from my wrath. Not Kohen, and sure as fuck not his parents. They’re the ones who let their pigheaded son get this way. They taught him to shit on anyone who isn’t him.

Their grand bedroom is easy enough to find. Designer dresses and suits become torn, and their lamps and fancy ornaments are broken, along with the hideous modern art hanging above their bed. Mrs. Osman’s jewels and Mr. Osman’s expensive watches find a home in my pocket.

My heart races and sweat beads along my forehead as I picture my bedroom and everything I’ve lost. In the bottom drawer of my bedside table—my destroyed bedside table—there’s an empty instant noodles wrapper from the first time I successfully used the stove without burning myself. On my bedside table, sunglasses I saw my dad wear one day, even though they didn’t belong to him. In a porcelain jewelry box, there’s a hairpin from my cousin whom I’ve only met once—I don’t even remember her name. And there’s the very first thing I stole from Kohen—an empty green and red BIC lighter.

I will never see any of it again. It’s all fucking gone.

Fiery goosebumps explode over my flesh as the rage burns hotter. The sound of a shattering mirror isn’t enough to calm the beast that’s left its cage and has no intention of going back in. Nothing is soothing it. Not the antique vases in the hallway, their wedding photos, the expensive cars in the garage, the various sculptures and art pieces that look as hideous as the family, or the dents and holes I’m leaving throughout the house.

I can just imagine their faces when they see what I’ve done to their precious art. I bet the rich assholes around here would call the pieces one of a kind. I bet they argued over who would buy each one and paid more than they’re worth at an auction filled with more pretentious rich fuckers. They probably cracked a $5,000 bottle of champagne afterward and laughed as they watched the help struggle to carry the pieces through the gigantic house.

Their pretty art is gone now. They’ll never get it back; nothing from their insurance payout. The artists are probably in their graves, turning with the knowledge that the Osmans will pay a run-of-the-mill artist to replicate each piece for a tenth of the price they bought it for.

Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them.

I hate them all.

I fucking hate this place.

Red and blue lights flash behind the curtains, but I don’t stop. The china cabinet groans in protest as I push it forward, sending each delicate item flying to the ground in a symphony of shattering pieces. A resounding boom reverberates throughout the room while I aim for the cupboard stocked with liquor worth more than I could earn in a year, and—

“Stop! Put your hands up!”

Of course I don’t listen; I haven’t caused enough hurt yet. My grandparents need to pay for sending me here. The Osmans need to pay for treating me like shit. They all need to suffer like I did—like my mother and I did.

Arms trap me before I can take a broken chair leg to their bay window, but I still manage to kick my leg out to send cracks radiating outward from the point of contact. Another officer manages to wrangle the chair leg out of my hand while the one holding me sends me sprawling onto the floor with my hands locked behind my back.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”

I throw my head back and laugh. “Tell Kohen I’m not done yet.”