Wicked Love | √

One

I don't know what it is about the campus at Binsfeld University, but darkness hangs in the air here. The students breathe it in and let it sink heavily into their lungs before it settles into their souls. Every fall when it's time to come back to school I take in the ornate gothic church that sits on the south side of campus, the grand billowing oak trees that dance in the wind, and the grand library covered in twisting intricate vines.

Maybe it's because the town the college resides in is only miles from where I grew up. I watched this university become the epicenter for sins. The residual darkness flowing out into nearby cities, but the pulse was always here. This was where it was birthed.

But I guess the kind of wealth we have only aids in our sinning. We don't shy away from debauchery. We embrace the dark and twisted and turn it into our own chance to rise. Our own chance to step on the throats of others to get what we want.

Binsfeld University was created in wealth and has only succeeded in it. It is home to an exclusive staff of beyond qualified professors, and a student body whose families thrive in the top 1% of wealth of this country.

A university for the elite, the leaders, the feared.

I learned at a young age to not be scared of the monsters under my bed. They aren't as scary as they pretend to be. Their bark almost always harsher than their bite. Especially when I saw real monsters, because they weren't the creatures I created in my head that only lived in the dark. They were normal people, like my parents, doing terrible things and using their money to get away with it.

So I hardened my heart and pushed the weakness away. Because a woman can't be perceived as weak in this world. Not if I want to succeed. Not if I want to prove my father wrong.

Wind wraps around my ankles as I sit on a hard stone bench lost in thought. My eyes cast around to look at the picturesque school grounds that surround my friends and me.

"It's going to be weird," Annabelle, my roommate since freshman year, confesses from beside me. Her short brown hair is pinned up as the humidity sits heavily around us. The main campus is abuzz, as the fall semester has just begun.

"So weird," her cousin, Elizabeth, agrees. Her black wavy hair is longer than her cousin's as it brushes against her chest in the warm wind, and her dark skin shines in the sun.

"What is?" I question having not caught the beginning of their conversation as we sit in the courtyard. A tradition we began a year ago as we all realized we liked watching people more than actually speaking to them.

"The Heirs are seniors," Annabelle tells me as if I'm not painfully aware of them and the time left they have at this school. "Only one more year of them on campus," she says sitting back against the warm stone bench engraved with old, crusty men's names. Our donors. Most people can count at least four generations back of family names in this courtyard.

"That means I only have a year left to try and hook up with at least one of them," Elizabeth emphasizes with a sigh. She begins to lazily braid a random chunk of hair to the side, an old habit that is considerably less annoying to my mother than the one I have. Biting my nails.

Her cousin scoffs. "They're disgusting Liz," Annabelle chastises with an annoyed groan.

"Yeah," Elizabeth agrees easily. "Disgustingly hot," she adds with a smirk lifting her lips that seem to always be painted with cherry red lipstick. Red, bold, and in your face are the three words that not only describe her favorite color but the woman herself.

"They'll really be able to get away with anything this year," I remark with a slight roll of my eyes. Even speaking about these men makes my skin heat with anger at the way they are admired yet feared. Desired yet despised.