The taxi is looking like an alien craft between all the black sedans. It’s a spot of yellow that just won’t fit, standing out like a sore thumb in this scene of Bentleys and BMWs. I have never seen this many expensive, extravagant cars in one place before. The same goes for drivers opening doors, pages loading suitcases onto gilded carts, and fashionably dressed young adults saying goodbye to their rich parents in polo shirts and trouser suits.
The taxi is crawling down the congested street. The row of luxury car upon luxury car just won’t end. Nervously, I am folding the page with the directions to find my dorm in my hands, on the lookout for students not looking like they got their clothes from Rodeo Drive. Isn’t there anyone normal studying at this university at all?
“House 17, Ma’am?” the driver asks me with a thick Southern accent. I nod at him. We couldn’t be any farther removed from Texas here. “I’ll stop up there, then.”
I nod again as he indicates his turn and waits for as many as three pages crossing the street with ten suitcases. The student next to them, talking on her phone as she is walking, looks as if she hasn’t ever even touched a suitcase in her life before.
The moment the group has crossed the street, a red sports car is dashing past us, engine howling, only to brake right in front of the taxi and slide into the only free parking spot anywhere in sight.
A student in a close-fiting azure shirt, his hair a golden brown, emerges from it, casting a glancing look our way before turning to a blonde with three suitcases who is jumping to welcome him, screaming like some groupie.
“Dickhead,” I mutter, watching the guy’s hands slide under the girl’s scant skirt. His fingers sport ostentatious signet rings, and he’s reeking of money like a dung heap reeks of manure.
“I can’t stop here, Ma’am,” the driver says with an apologetic smile back at me. He ends up parking half a mile away at the very end of the row of sedan cars, turning off his taximeter. “That’s 28 dollars and fifty, Ma’am.”
I give him thirty, even though I can’t really afford tipping.
When the driver gets out of the car, I enjoy a moment of feeling as if I were going to have help just like the other freshmen. He leaves it at loading my many bags, two totes, and my broken suitcase onto the sidewalk, however, before clapping me on the shoulder and driving away without another word.
There I am standing, at the fringes of elegant society, with more luggage than I can carry, and at least half a mile’s distance to walk back to my dorm.
It’s alright. The euphoria of having been accepted at Kingston University – by far the most renowned one in the country – is drowning out my dull feeling of not belonging here.
With two bags over my shoulder, my suitcase’s handle in one hand and the two totes in my other, I set out down the sidewalk. Everything else has to stay behind for the moment because I simply cannot carry it on my own. I am feeling eyes on me as soon as I have passed the first group of parents embracing their charges.
Keeping my head high, I try to pretend not to notice the derisively set mouths, the disgusted eyerolls, and the pointed pity on the adults’ faces. I stubbornly trudge along, feeling more and more like a condemned woman on the way to the scaffold with every further step. That’s bullshit, of course. I have been accepted at Kingston because I worked hard for it.
Why would I feel bad about that?
From afar, I can spot the red sports car with a few students crowded around it. I try to focus on that spot in the distance as I keep walking, dragging my suitcase and ignoring the pain from the tote cutting into my hand.
No one is offering me any help. I hadn’t really expected it, but the part of me that loves a good fairy tale would have loved to get some. Once I have finally reached the red car, I drop totes and suitcase to treat myself to a break. This is where I have to turn onto the footpath through the park. It's just a few more steps now.
“Oh, look there. A homeless girl from the city.” The high voice is coming from the group of students. Some of them are glancing my way with wry smiles before turning away again. The blonde who has spoken is studying me as if I were some animal in the zoo, a different species that may have wandered in here by accident. “Isn’t she cute? Maybe we should give her a few bucks to buy a new tote with. That one seems about to break any second.”
The women standing around the blonde are laughing at me.
“Leave her alone, Clarisse,” one of the students, reveling in a muscular man’s arms, tells her. Her lip curls derisively when she notices me looking at her. “She’s not worth your notice.”
Putting on a mirthless smile, I bend down again to pick up my things. I’ve only taken two more steps before the blonde moves away from the group to stand in my way.
“This isn’t a place for you, Cinderella,” she hisses, narrowing her pretty eyes to small slits. Not even her personality can destroy her amazing looks. Her face is doll-like without any blemishes, her figure as athletic as it is elegant. She’s wearing a modest blouse and a short skirt, and I remember that she was the one greeting the guy who took aways our parking spot. “Go and crawl back to where you came from.”
Clarisse. The name fits her.
My mouth feels dry as I struggle to respond. A smart response, some glib retort – why can’t I think of anything? Talking in front of all of these rich people looking at me as if they hated me isn’t easy. I may have imagined a hundred times what I would do if such a thing were to happen, but reality feels so many times worse.
Since the blank in my head just won’t morph into words, the only thing I can do is step around the stranger to simply pass her by. I should have expected her to make it a bit harder for me, but her brutality does come as a surprise. Clarisse deliberately takes a step towards me, pushing me. Laden as I am, I lose my balance and fall.
My totes scatter their content on the sidewalk, causing laughter to surge up around me. Blushing a deep red, I scramble back to my feet, picking up my things from the ground, and only noticing that I have cut open my right hand when blood stains my new writing pad red. Fuck it all. Tears are burning in my eyes. I keep my head down as I stumble forward with what I could get my hands on quickly, leaving my suitcase behind. I need to get to my room. That’s the most important thing right now.
Maybe the students will have disappeared into their own apartments – there are barely any simple dorm rooms in Kingston at all – by the time I come back.
Luckily, none of them are following me when I step through the door to house 17. I am enveloped by the acrid smell of cheap detergent in a corridor that looks like it hasn’t been inhabited in years. Nine other scholarship holders were admitted to the Tyrell Foundation’s program along with me. Where are they?
“Hello?” I ask cautiously. There is no response. The building seems abandoned. I find my room, trying the key I only just collected from the main building. It fits, and I enter. The doors wasn’t locked, and my room isn’t empty.
Sports Car is sitting on one of the two beds, his head thrown back, his legs spread far apart, and a delicate woman between them is giving him a blowjob.
I freeze, staring at them. It’s the only thing I am able to do for a moment: Stand there. Watch. Watch the girl’s lips quickly jerking down the guy’s dick. I’ve stayed away from men so far to never experience what happened to my mother, but I’m quite certain that this guy is rather well-endowed. It isn’t the first time I walk in on someone having sex. It’s not a rare thing to see johns fuck our neighbors on Saturday nights in the trailer park.
This is different, though.
The entire guy is different.
His azure t-shirt is loosely pulled up to reveal an athletic, impeccably tanned belly underneath. The signet rings on his hands seem elegant rather than ostentatious, and his hair catches the sunlight in a golden shimmer, making his relaxed expression look downright angelic.
Since this is my room and I do need to put my things down, I clear my throat to draw their attention.
The air in the room seems to change when the guy opens his eyes. His look captivates me so intensely that the skin on my arms breaks out in goosebumps. Then he lifts his hand, putting it onto the neck of the woman in front of him, holding her down dominantly. She whimper when he presses her head into his lap while keeping his eyes fixed on me.
His eyes flash with the gleam of lust. His lips open sensuously, his hip twitches, sending a cold shiver down my entire back. As he comes, the stranger is looking at me as if I were the one making him do so. As if the girl crouching between his legs were just a side note.
Following his orgasm, he drops back, releasing the student, and treating me to a lopsided smile. “Does the hole you’ve crawled out of not have any doors?”
“What?” I ask, perplexed.
The girl is retreating from him, casting a shy glance at me as she wipes her mouth. She remains kneeling in front of him, like the women in the trailer park do when their johns want them to pretend to be submissive.
“I asked if you’ve never seen a door before?” the Adonis repeats his question. He remains sitting in front of me with his fly shamelessly open. “Since you don’t seem to know to knock before you enter a room.”
Now that he’s entirely uncovered, I can see his impressive length. His shaft is glistening moistly, binding my attention as if I’d never seen a male member before.
“And dicks are new to you, too, eh?”
Biting my tongue, I turn my eyes to the ceiling. “This is my room and I’d like to put my things in it now.”
There’s not a sound in the room. I try to pretend that the two of them weren’t there while I put the books I am carrying in my arms onto the other bed. When I am about to turn back to the door, I hear his voice.
“Leave.”
I vaguely understand that he doesn’t mean me. Not planning on staying either, however, I reach for the door handle.
“I didn’t mean you.”
Blushing deeply, I turn around while the girl – a slim Asian in a scant summer dress – slips past me. “I’m aware,” I tell him firmly. “But the last thing I’m going to do is take orders from someone like you.”
The stranger raises an eyebrow, suddenly straightening to his full size and closing his belt. The rings on his hands are flashing in the sun. “Is that how it is?” he asks, his rough voice causing an unpleasant tingle in my stomach as he advances on me.
Even though I am frantically trying to find some words to throw at him, my tongue is curling up and keeping me from speaking. Once again, the only thing I can do is flee.
“You mean you’re not going to suck my dick just because I tell you to?” he asks, his voice even lower.
The question is so impertinent and his entire behavior so disgusting that I want to hurt him. I have learned early on how to defend myself against men.
When I turn around again to look at him, however, the world seems to grind to a halt for a moment.
He’s smiling at me from underneath his long eyelashes, and my heart skips a beat.
Maybe it’s just not my day. Maybe I haven’t had enough water, or the many super-rich students out there in the street have caused my brain’s synapses to melt. In any case, I am standing there for a moment, unable to do anything other than stare at the stranger as if he were radiating some sort of glamor. As if he were reflecting his surroundings like clear water. His eyes are as blue as the sea, and his smile is as welcoming as a warm summer morning. Feelings suddenly stir in me, a flicker of yearning, the certainty that this man has sprung right from the fairy tale my mother told me when I was a child.
A savior.
A prince.
A promise that is going to last forever.
His face looks sculpted. Distinctive cheek and jaw bones set the stage for a straight nose and sensuous lips. He truly does look like an angel. A fallen one.
“No, I won’t,” I mutter in response to his question, which seems to have been asked a lifetime ago. When he takes another step towards me to overcome the invisible threshold of polite distance between us, I move back, hitting the door.
Though the guy certainly is an asshole, I find it hard to hang on to any clear thoughts. His entire posture is brimming with masculinity. His movements are determined, his muscles well-defined under his skin, and his fashionable clothes are merging it all into a perfect appearance.
My mouth is drying up as he reaches out for me. I stop, filled with the energy his proximity produces in me, trying to make myself push him away while at the same time expecting him to grab me – when he reaches past me to open the door again.
“Pity. I’m sure I could come again a second time in your mouth right away.”
I move aside to let him through. “In your dreams.”
“I will.” His smile widens into a lopsided grin as he pulls the door farther open. Before passing through it, however, he treats me to another look. His expression changes. The look on his beautiful face becomes more disparaging as a dangerous gleam appears in his eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Mable,” I say immediately, before biting my tongue. Why do I even respond to this guy rather than ignoring him?
“Amabelle Weaver?” he speaks my full name.
I gape at him in surprise. How does he know my name?
“I’m Jaxon. Jaxon Tyrell.”
My breath catches.
“My father is funding your new life of luxury, and I am going to make it hell. The way you’re looking, you won’t last a week. Less than that if you don’t give me a blowjob now and then. Think about it, Belle. Maybe you’d rather take my orders after all.” His mouth twitches into a diabolical smile before he yanks open the door all the way, disappearing through it and slamming it shut behind him.
I don’t dare take another breath before the last sound of his exit has dissipated. “Fuck,” I mutter, trying to rub the goosebumps from my arms. This was not how I had imagined a meeting with Jaxon Tyrell, son and heir of the Tyrells, whose foundation is funding my scholarship, to go like. I hadn’t even known that he’s still studying here. On the other hand, I try not to put too much store by his threat. He clearly is the sort of spoiled dickhead who has looked down on everything and everyone all their lives.
Once I have pulled myself together – and waited for long enough to give Jaxon plenty to time to get lost – I go back outside to get my other bags and suitcase.
The dorms are sitting concealed behind the imposing other buildings on campus. It’s much calmer here, in the shadow of the architecturally impressive structures, than it is out in the street. This seems to be one of the buildings that hasn’t been fully renovated yet. Hotel-like apartment buildings with glazed balconies, full-depth windows, and ornaments painted white on the facades are stretching on either side of it.
My dorm building is an eyesore between those glamorous buildings.
Did they do that on purpose? Is Kingston University making sure we don’t forget who belongs in what caste?
As I walk down the gravel path, I notice a student leaning against the building across from me in a spot of shadow. I smell tobacco. I look at the guy’s face the same moment he glances at mine. It’s as if the shadows around him were a part of him.
Everything about him seems dark. His black leather jacket with sleeves turned back, his black boots, black chinos, the black tattoos on his arms, and, last but not least, his eyes, his black hair, and his stubble.
I nod at him in greeting, maybe because I think that having been accepted at the country’s best university also means that I’m expected to be polite.
He doesn’t respond, merely tapping off his cigarette and keeping his eyes fixed on me as I pass him by.
Okay, I tell myself, almost like a mantra. The college is full of freaks. The important thing is not to let them keep you from studying.
Coming back to the street, I notice the many spots of color scattered among the meadow. I pass by quite a few of them without paying them any heed, until I spot the black-and-white script of my favorite jumper on one of the fabrics in the grass, making me realize that the many scattered spots are my clothes.
“Fuck it!” I look around in anger to spot whoever has come up with this idiocy. I lay eyes on the blonde who was blocking my way before. She’s watching me with an ugly smile, sitting on the hood of the red sports car, surrounded by her clique, leaning closely into Jaxon, who is now wearing sunglasses and seems to be the only one not caring about what happens with my things.
I roll my eyes at the incredibly childish prank as I start gathering my clothes. “Too funny!” I call out to the group once I have collected everything to stuff back into my tote. “You’ve made it to kindergarten level, haven’t you? Too bad that this is college.” There. That’s the reasonably cool retort easily flying from my lips. The next moment, I wish I’d just kept silent.
The blonde doll is moving away from Jaxon, taking a few steps towards me. Her pretty lips are drawn back in disgust, her eyes reflecting pure hate. “You’re nothing but garbage, just like your cheap second-hand clothes. It’s hardly our fault that they’re begging us to give them the funeral they deserve rather than having to be worn by you again.”
Taking my suitcase, I ignore her.
“Go home, bitch!” she is calling after me. “You and your smelly clothes will never belong here!”
Laughter is following me across the lawn. I am angry enough to make my knuckles stand out white from grabbing my suitcase handle with all my strength. What do these rich kids have to gain from treating me like this? How can they be looking to fulfil such a ridiculous cliché? They seem to have sprung right from some Netflix show on mobbing at elite schools, picking me as their favorite victim.
Just great.
If the next four years are going to be like a Netflix show, I’ll be fucked.
Two more steps down the path, my suitcase’s handle suddenly tears off. Argh! My arrival at college is slowly but steadily turning into pure torture. Dragging my suitcase onwards, I once again meet the gaze of the guy in the shadows. He is still leaning against the wall. He is still smoking. He is still barely moving.
“Thanks so much for your help!” I yell at him in anger.
He doesn’t even twitch.
“Fucker,” I mutter, fighting my way to the dorms. I no longer wonder that no one is helping me. I seem to have slid right into a parallel world of rich people who see me as nothing but the embodiment of the worthless proletariat. I labor up the steps to the door of the dorms, dragging my suitcase. It slips from my grasp at the last moment. “Shit!” I swear, almost in tears as the few things I have brought to college are tumbling down the stairs.
“Oh no!” A shrill voice is coming from my right, and a woman is rushing forward, trying to collect the pages and printouts that I prepared for my first week of lectures, and that are now being swept up by the wind, before they hit the lawn.
“It’s alright, thank you.” I take the pages from her and am about to turn away. I am not expecting anyone to be nice to me without a good reason anymore today.
“I’m so sorry about your suitcase.” The stranger is bending down again to collect the contents of my toilet bag. “I once dropped a suitcase down an escalator. It was in Paris, in the Metro. They have these enormously long stairs there, and in the end, it broke open and all my souvenirs shattered on the ground. It sounded like such a cheap excuse when I tried to explain it to my friends.” She straightens again, pushing the filled toilet bag into my hands. “Hi, I’m Harper.”
“Mable,” I respond shily, finally looking at her properly.
Her hazel eyes widen as she hears my name. Her full lips part slightly. Her entire appearance is enchantingly elfin. I am starting to feel as if I have walked onto a catwalk that has no space for me at all. How can every single person on this campus be so pretty? Harper’s dark blonde locks are enchantingly framing her narrow face, and I can’t imagine her ever doing anything mean. Don’t let her looks deceive you … “That’s an incredibly pretty name,” she says reverently, repeating it: “Mable.” With her saying it, it sounds a good deal prettier than I’m used to.
“My full name is Amabelle, but…”
“Mable is prettier, definitely.”
“Thank you.” I turn away, uncertain of what else to do, and stuff everything I just collected into my totes.
“I brought your things along.”
“Hm?”
Harper points at my backpack and another one of my bags that I’d left behind on the sidewalk before because I couldn’t carry everything at once.
“You carried them all the way here?” I ask, perplexed.
“I wanted to help.” Harper winks at me, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “I know, there are few here who would. Most are just spoiled rich kids. I’m in my second year. I’ve had to watch them bully people like you so often. This time, I’m here to help.” She gives me a radiant smile and I don’t know what to say.
“That’s nice of you…”
“Nice? I am throwing myself before the hungry sharks for you! It’s not just nice! I’m reckless!” She laughs a tinkling laugh, shouldering my bag, taking my backpack, and holding open the door for me. “I’ll come inside with you, and once you’ve put away your most important things, I’ll give you a tour of the campus!”
Since I don’t want to put her off by admitting that I’d rather be alone after all of this, I follow her to my new dorm room without another word.
Harper stops in the middle of the room for a long moment before heaving a sigh. “Well, at least you don’t have to share it, do you?”
“I don’t?” I ask, surprised.
“The ground floor has ten rooms. You’re five girls on scholarships. Once past freshman term, you’ll be admitted to sororities. At least that’s how it’s always been. Yeah, I think the bedbugs under the blankets are the only company you’re going to have.”
My head jerks up, but Harper is laughing again.
“Just kidding. There shouldn’t be any bedbugs here. But… well.” She puts my things down on the left-hand bed, dropping onto the mattress of the other one. The dorm room is small, but it’s generously sized for a single person, affording me more space than I had ever dreamed of having. The window is facing the park, and a desk and cabinet are flanking each of the two beds. The entire room is screaming of luxury to me. “Where are you from, Mable?”
“Woodlyn, Philadelphia.”
“Oh, that’s not too far from here. Are you going to spend many weekends at home?”
“I might…,” I evade. In truth, I should go home every weekend to check up on Mom and my sister. On the other hand, I am glad to have escaped from the trailer park, and Mom won’t miss me while I keep sending her some money.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Harper asks me straightforwardly. She’s leaning back on her hands and has crossed her legs, rocking one of them up and down. I’d really like to say yes, but I shake my head.
Maybe she can explain to me what has just happened, and why I’ve barely been on campus for an hour and am already feeling as if the university’s elite class had teamed up against me.
“That’s great. I wasn’t planning to.” Harper jumps up, linking her hands. “Do you want me to help you unpack, or would you rather do that later? I could show you around. I don’t have anything to do until six tonight.”
“A tour would be great,” I admit, smiling as well now because Harper’s radiance is catching.
She threads her arm through mine, leading me out of the room. “You’ve already seen the ugliest building on campus now. It has to be part of any proper tour. They’ve been debating whether to renovate this last dorm building as well for years but then they bicker about whether it shouldn’t be torn down instead after all.” Stopping in the corridor, she points upwards. A fine line of ornamentation is running along the walls. “See? They say the building should be a protected monument. It’s said that Jefferson lived here.”
“The president?”
“That’s the one. They’ve already torn down the dorms where the other nine presidents of the Kingston era studied. Seems they want to keep the Jefferson one.” Leading me out the door, she turns to the right. In contrast to me, who is only wearing a simple jumper and comfortable leggings, she is fully made up. Her wrists are jingling with golden bracelets, her white sneakers decorated with emblems, her jeans look tailored to her slim legs, and her top bears a Fendi imprint that’s impossible to miss. “This is the physics building. Two lecture halls, a few exercise rooms, and the physics lab.” Harper stops outside one of the many architecturally splendid buildings placed in a circle around the round lawn. The campus is enormous, with many nooks and corners, and many places that are more reminiscent of the castle in Harry Potter than a modern university. Instead of on a mountain top, however, it’s built in what feels like an infinite forest, visible from all the upper floors and surrounding Kingston like a defensive wall. It not only renders cell phone reception bad but also creates an always-mystical atmosphere even on a sunny day like this one. Even though I had printed out a map for myself and learned it by heart, I am very grateful for the tour. “You know, I have been most interested in physics so far. Maybe I should change my major.”
We are walking through an atrium that connects the faculty of physics to further lecture halls. All the benches and lanterns placed between the properly trimmed lawns are decorated with metal ornaments, making them look like particularly precious pieces of furniture.
“What are you studying?” I ask Harper.
“Law,” she says, miming putting a finger down her throat. “My father is the Chief Justice.”
“Wow. Robert Mitchell is your father?”
“Yeah. That degree is, unfortunately, a sort of a family tradition.” She sighs, beckoning me onwards. “What’s your major?”
“Business administration. I’ll try to take as much philosophy as I can, though.”
“Oh, that’s exciting. The philosophy of success. That’s quite the reasonable combination.”
“Combining opposing disciplines appeals to me.“
“You’d consider money and philosophy general opposites?” Harper thinks about this for a moment. “Isn’t it just that philosophy is a way to explain the money? Money doesn’t really have any intrinsic value at all. It’s just paper… Oh, no, that’s psychology. Psychology is a really cool subject, too.”
I’m about to launch into a long answer but realize just in time that her question was purely rhetorical, and she’s already moved on to the next subject in her head.
“The library.” Harper stops again, gesturing widely. “No student with her wits together would study there. That makes it the perfect place to avoid everyone.”
“Got it.”
“You know, Mable,” she starts after a while, once she has shown me the other buildings and walked out with me through the atrium of the main building with all of its old, awe-inspiring lecture halls. “I’d love to end this tour of the campus in the student restaurant, but there’s one more thing I need to show you first.”
She leads me up some swerving stone stairs towards a number of crowned lion sculptures in stone before entering a long corridor made to look like a hall by its high, ornamented ceiling. The walls are hung with pictures, starting with immense paintings, followed by yellowed photographs, and ending in brilliant, sharp ones. All of them depict men. Young, white men posing in front of a wood-paneled wall reminiscent of a hunting lodge. “The Hall of the Wise Men,” Harper says derisively, stopping in front of the last picture with me. “Here they are.”
I need a moment to recognize the man posing among three others behind an armchair on the last photograph. Jaxon.
“Remember all of these faces, Mable, and stay away from them. Stay as far away from them as you can.”
I’m tempted to ironically ask her: “or else?” but I can about imagine it. Three of the four men look like predators thirsting for something. Jaxon Tyrell is standing there, his hand patronizingly resting on the backrest of a chair that might have been a throne.
His near-invisible smile is the smile of a devil hiding behind angelic beauty. He is enjoying his role as the ruler of hell to the fullest. Tyrell’s eyes are glinting like opals that are going to break into pointed, cutting shards if he is angered. His lips are sensuous and beautiful like a forbidden fruit in the paradisiacal garden. His harmonious face suggests kindness and openness, but I know that his light skin and dark blond hair only camouflage the darkness inside him. It’s as if the photograph were speaking to me, as if his spirit were captured in the picture. I’ve only met him for a few minutes, but his threat and the roughness of his words, along with the memory of him getting a blowjob, are impossible to push from my mind.
I already know that I am going to heed Harper’s advice and stay away from him. I don’t need a second helping of his arrogance.
Although the photograph centers on Jaxon, there’s someone else sitting in the red cushions: a young man who is capturing my attention for a little longer even than the cruel angel by his side. Unless I’m very much mistaken, this black-haired man is the guy who’d been smoking in the shadows near my dorm before.
The photograph makes him seem a lot less dark. He almost looks pious. All his tattoos are covered up by his stylish suit, and the circles under his eyes are less pronounced than they’d been today. I am somewhat curious about how his actual looks fit with the man in the picture.
“Sylvian Silvano,” Harper is whispering behind me. “The guy in the chair. And Jaxon Tyrell right next to him. And this one is Reece Crescent.” She points at the man to the left of the throne-like chair. His hair is somewhat lighter than Jaxon’s and his beauty even more perfect. If Jaxon is the fallen angel, then Reece is still flying high in the heavens. He's the only one in the picture sporting a broad and friendly smile, which makes him stand out from the others. He doesn’t really seem to belong. He seems far too nice for what Jaxon told me today.
“Who’s the guy at the very back?”
Harper sighs. “Romeo.”
“His name is Romeo?” I ask, giggling, and quickly clearing my throat. Harper seems a bit too serious for making jokes.
“Don’t imagine him like Juliet’s Romeo. Romeo Portcharles is like a sharp knife. He’s a living weapon. Stay away from the others. Run fast and hard from Romeo.”
Her words send a shiver down my spine. Romeo seems nondescript in the background next to those three beautiful faces. His hair is dark like Sylvian’s, but his skin is milky, and his eyes are lackluster.
“Jaxon, Sylvian, Reece, and Romeo. They rule the campus. They have been in control of everyone and everything for three years now. Even the professors do what they say. They make no secret out of hating the scholarship holders. Jaxon hates his father, and his father established the foundation that pays for your scholarships after all.” Harper turns to face me, giving me a serious look. “Mable, I’m so sorry to tell you about it this openly, but hardly any of the scholarship holders have made it through their first year so far.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “What?” is all I can say.
“The scholarship program is in its fourth year. Fifteen women started studying on scholarships here. Three of them are still with us. Don’t let them bring you down, will you?” Harper gives me a concerned look. Once again, I don’t know what to respond.
“What do students have to do to get onto one of these pictures? Be particularly mean?”
Harper is still serious. “Graduate with best results.”
So they’re both mean and smart. “Is there such a gang for women, too?”
“There isn’t.”
“Women aren’t printed in a picture if they perform the same or better…?”
Harper makes a face. “This is Kingston. Just be glad they let us study here at all.”
I raise both eyebrows, but I say nothing else. In all the things I’ve read about the university, I’ve never come across a bad word about it. Yes, Kingston has a conservative attitude and political activism is pretty much absent from campus. On the other hand, they are maintaining a strict female ratio and supporting students of all origins – as long as they have enough money.
“You think I’m making this up, don’t you?” Harper asks me, turning away from the wall and towards the heavy winged door leading into the next room at the end of the hallway. “I hope you’ll believe me once you’ve made it through the first few weeks. Maybe this year will be different, hm?”
I nervously wriggle my fingers. Harper’s suggestions don’t sound particularly uplifting. “What happened, exactly, that so many scholarship holders left again?”
Harper gives me a bitter smile. “Many things did. Listen to me and stay away from the Kings. That’ll make things easier.”
“The ‘Kings’?” I ask, chuckling.
“The Kings,” Harper repeats seriously. She lets a few seconds pass for the silence of the empty corridor to reinforce the echo of her words, before suddenly beaming at me again. “What about it now? Would you like some coffee? I’ll pay!”