Page 5 of Lessons in Cruelty

“Haven motherfucking Lee. Thought I smelled trash and cum.” He tilts his head, so close I can catch a whiff of his expensive cologne.

The malice in his green eyes keeps me pinned like a hand on my throat. And then, because I’m an idiot, and I don’t run, it is his hand pinning me against the wall.

I gasp in shock, but it only takes a second before he’s cut off my air.

He was always bigger and stronger than me, but the feel of his hand wrapping around my entire throat…? It used to take both his hands, back when we⁠—

“Holy fuck.” He chuckles darkly. “Guess they’ll let any diseased cunt into this place now.” He shakes me so hard my head bangs against the wall.

What. The. Actual?

My entire body is shaking. I guess it’s shock. I expected him to be angry, but this?

“K-K—” I stammer, my hands flying to his wrists to pull his fingers off my throat.

“Thought you could ghost me for years, then show up out of nowhere, and I’d be happy to see you?” His fingers tighten, black spots swarming my vision as my oxygen cuts off. I try to kick him, but he just crowds in closer.

“What’s wrong, slut? Did you finally run out of Riverside cocks to choke on? News flash. This place is for people with futures, not used up whores with daddy issues.”

Woah.

Hang on one fucking minute.

Did he just call me a slut? Then a whore?

I rally the last air in my lungs to wheeze out, “I’m enrolled here, you fucking asshole!”

He grunts in surprise, and that’s when I realize I punched him in the stomach. Not that it does me any good, because somewhere between now and the last time I saw him, he got abs.

“She says, her breath still stinking of dick,” he mutters, eyes in narrow, glittering slits. “I bet if I flipped you upside down, all the cum from last night’s gangbang would come dripping out of your holes.”

Rage seethes from him like an aura.

For just a second, his grip on my throat changes—less violence, more possession. His thumb strokes once across my pulse before he catches himself. As if he’s shaking himself out of a trance, he blinks rapidly and shifts his weight.

Oh, fuck.

He’s hard.

I should be shocked that the sick bastard is actually getting off on this…but I’m not even mildly surprised.

He spits, hitting me on the cheek. I wipe my face, gaping at him in shock and disgust.

“Let go of me!” I struggle in his grip, but I’m stuck where I am.

We both flinch when his latest model iPhone, which costs more than my car, rings in his hand. When he glances at it, I frantically scan the hall for help. There’s a girl walking in our direction, but she’s so fixated on her phone screen, a unicorn could have trotted past her and she’d have missed it.

But he sees her too, and I guess he doesn’t want anyone spotting him giving the new girl a non-consensual hand necklace, because suddenly I can breathe again.

He chuckles again, vicious and mean. “Better get to class, Haven. Rooke hates it when his kids are late.”

And then I’m being dragged inside class 102, his hand gripping the back of my neck so hard I can feel his fingernails digging into my skin.

“You’re gonna regret coming home, you filthy fucking cumrag,” he hisses in my ear. “I’m going to destroy you so completely, so utterly, you’ll be begging me to let you drop out on hands and fucking knees. Should come easy to you by now, right, Heavenly?”

Green-eyed Kai, my best and only friend for all my life, shoves me so hard I fall to hands and knees, my things scattering on the linoleum. Behind me, the lecture hall’s door bangs shut like a coffin lid.

I scramble up, dragging in a rough breath as I stare back at a sea of faces, all turned to look at me.