one
Trigger Warning: The world of Faulkner is dark, gritty, and at times fucked up. The books set here may contain any of the following: cheating, dub-con, non-con, abuse, assault, rape, coercion, sharing, suicide, unapologetic feminism, neglect, adults using children for their own gains, rich kids with no consequences, poor kids with nothing to lose, and people living in abject poverty, doing things to survive and escape that might make sensitive readers uncomfortable.
If you don’t like the thought of teenagers participating in questionable acts such as unprotected sex, violence, sexual violence, drugs, pornography, gambling, bullying, and other acts of debauchery and desperation, this series is not for you. Also, if you’re offended by people taking the Lord’s name in vain or the word cunt, please return this book for a refund. This author is probably not for you.
Lastly, this is a work of FICTION. It does not portray a healthy relationship nor is it meant to. If that’s what you are looking for, dark romance may not be for you.
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Harper Apple
Just walk in, I tell myself. It’s no big deal. You did it yesterday. Anyone who has anything to say can fuck right the fuck off.
I stand next to the bike rack outside the towering stone building of Willow Heights Preparatory Academy, ironically named since there’s not a spot in Faulkner, Arkansas, that could reasonably be called the heights of anything but degradation. I squeeze my hands into fists, reminding myself that I am stronger than anyone in this fucking place. I want out of this town, and this is my ticket, and I’ll be damned if a bunch of entitled pricks are going to take it from me.
Still, I can’t seem to get my feet to move, even when thunder grumbles in the dark clouds overhead, threatening to unleash cold drizzle in response to my cowardice. I’m frozen next to the expensive-ass bike one of those assholes got me, which I’m still riding because fuck if I’m not going to get something out of what they’ve done to me. Since I couldn’t stop the video from being leaked, a bike is all I’ve got.
I can do this. I know I’m strong enough.
I walked in the other day, after Royal Dolce the royal asshole fucked my face while his brothers stripped me naked and held me on my knees on the stone floor of the basement. I walked in the next day, not knowing everyone had seen the video of me blowing my old math teacher. I walked in the day after, thinking it would start to die down. But it’s gotten worse every day, and now it’s Friday, when all the football players will be treated even more like gods than usual, and their Dolce girls all wear little jerseys with their numbers like those boys wouldn’t do the exact same thing to them they did to me, and I just… Can’t.
The bell rings, a soft little chime that sounds so sweet you’d never know what monsters lurk in the halls of Willow Heights.
Yes, I’m strong enough. I could go in.
I just don’t want to. I want to turn and walk away.
No, I want to run.
I want to turn and run away from this fucking place and all the bitches in it—the girls who have made a point to make my life hell since I arrived wearing all the wrong clothes, the dangerous psychos who tell the teachers what to do and treat girls like dogs, and the asshole administration that does nothing to change it because those assholes’ daddies pay the salaries of everyone in this place.
I want to run back to Faulkner High, where being coerced into blowing a teacher was the worst thing that happened to me. Where I may not have had friends, but at least the entire school wasn’t full of enemies.
It doesn’t matter what I want, though.
As Gloria reminded me, I’m not a runner. I’m a fighter.
But all the fight seems to have been sucked out of me this week, and there’s no cheerleader to give me a pep talk today. I reach for the bike I put up when I still thought I could face the leering crowd.
“Skipping school already?” drawls a male voice behind me.
I nearly jump out of my skin, my heart pounding and my fists raising automatically as I spin around, light on the balls of my feet.
Colt Darling—tattooed rebel boy and the closest thing to a friend I’ve got—stops on the sidewalk, brow quirked as he takes in my fighting stance. At first glance, you’d think he fits right into the world of wealth and privilege inside these halls. Designer shades perch on top of his longish blond hair, his dress shirt probably costs more than all the clothes I own, and his left hand rests casually in the pocket of his Diesel jeans.
A critical eye picks up all the things you don’t see when you skim over him, assuming he fits in. Above the collar of his expensive shirt, his neck is tatted right up to the chin. The hand hidden in his pocket it tattooed as well, the ink covering burn scars that stretch across his hand and over his wrist to his forearm. A finger is missing. The first two fingers on his right hand are tinged with tobacco stains.
“Fuck,” I snap when I see his slightly amused smirk. “If you want to walk away with your balls intact, don’t sneak up on a girl like that.”
“Care for company?” he drawls in that refined Southern accent that’s so posh you’d think he stepped out of an Antebellum movie. Colt talks slow, strolls slow as he moves toward me, brow raised with bored indifference. But under the carefully cultivated blasé exterior, I know he cares about something. I’m just not sure that it’s me.
“What you got in mind?” I ask, dropping my fists and tossing my hair back. I stare him square in the eye, daring him to say something about the video the Dolces released.
“I said I’d give you some clothes,” he says, letting his gaze do a lazy sweep over me. “You can come to my house, and I’ll give you a makeover.”
I can’t help but laugh at the image of bad boy, fighting-ring coordinator Dynamo giving me a makeover like some chick in a bad 90s movie. “Are we going to braid each other’s hair, too?” I ask. “And paint our nails?”
“Maybe,” he says with a little shrug, cracking a smile back at me. “Do we get to have a naked pillow fight?”