I had once dreamt of being able to attend Draven University. Out of all of the colleges in the country that cater to the Gifted, Draven is well known for being the best. It offers all of the usual classes that the human schools do, but with classes specifically structured for us too, like History of the Gifted and Impulse Control 101.
I had given up any sort of hopes for a higher education when I was forced to give up school to go on the run so, while I am angry and frustrated at being forced here, I guess I’m also pretty thankful that I have the opportunity to be here and learn at such a distinguished college… for as long as this lasts. It doesn’t mean that I’m not trying to find a way to escape, as long as the Resistance is after me, I will never truly be comfortable staying in one spot, but I’m going to soak in as much information and knowledge as I can.
I wake up early on my first day, my stomach a riot of nerves, and I take extra care with my appearance. My bags were already in my room when North had dropped me off, I hadn’t even known the Tactical Team had grabbed them when they found me.
I don’t have designer clothes like most of the other girls in my dorms but I can look clean and well put together, which is what really matters. I hope I don’t stand out too much, I just want to blend the hell in until I can get out.
By the time I’m braiding my hair, my phone buzzes with a text from North. My stomach drops when I see his name, but the text itself isn’t too bad.
Gabe will pick you up from your dorm to escort you to your classes this morning.
So I get my own guard to walk me into the building. Great. Out of all of my Bonds, I guess Gabe is the one I’d choose to walk me in though. He looked as miserable as I felt last night, so hopefully that means he won’t try to talk to me or anything. We can just get into the building together in total silence. Yay.
Once I’m ready, I sit on my bed and stare around my sparse room while I wait for him to arrive. I can do this, I can totally catch up to everyone around me. It’s not a big deal, I’ve spent so much time in libraries reading and using the internet there, I’m going to be okay. I keep telling myself this, over and over again, and freaking pray it’s true.
The knock at my door startles me out of my daze.
I stand and sling my bag over my shoulder, fussing with the hem of my shirt for a second to delay opening the door for a second longer. I take a deep breath and throw it open, plastering a fake-ass smirk on my face.
My heart stutters at the perfection that is my Bond, and then I remember he hates me and I need to get the fuck out of here before we all get slaughtered by the Resistance while our guards are down.
Fuck, I can’t think about them right now.
Not without my hands starting to shake and my entire body breaking out in a sweat.
His eyes drag over my outfit, a little too much like he’s assessing me for my liking, and then he says, ‘Better than the last time I saw you, I guess. How was your first night in the dorms?’
Fuck him, I’m not rising to the bait. Instead, I shrug. ‘It was fine. I’ve slept on the street before, it’s much better than that.’
He grimaces at me, his lip curling a little, and then jerks his head at me to follow him, as if I’m a fucking puppy. We walk down the hallway together and I notice all of the interest he gets from the other girls here. Now my mind doesn’t care about this, I know he hates me, I know they all hate me, but it’s like I can feel my bond in my chest protesting at the attention. The lack of concern he’s showing me is like salt in the wounds, and I’d love nothing more than to rip the bond out of myself and watch it fade. If only that was my power. Instead, I do what I do best and shove my bond out of my mind and leave my face carefully blank.
Gabe doesn’t notice this internal battle I’m waging. No, he’s too freaking busy flirting his way down the halls, winking at girls on the staircase, and blowing a fucking kiss at the building TA. He’s a fucking player, clearly having bedded half the girls here, and a plan already in action to do the rest later.
When we get outside I’m not expecting him to turn on me, all of the easy smiles and lit up eyes gone. ‘Do you even fucking care? Do you care about anyone else but yourself?’
I hold in a flinch and roll my shoulders back, looking around like I don’t know which way we’re heading, when really I obsessively Googled my surroundings last night. ‘If you have something you need to get off your chest, then you may as well do it now.’
He grabs my arm and shoves a piece of paper under my nose. ‘If a guy shoved his phone number into your pocket around me, I’d rip his fucking throat out and yet you’re standing there, unbothered and ready for fucking class?’
I blink at him like an idiot. Is he kidding me? ‘So you want me to be pissed off at girls flirting with you? It’s not like you tried to stop them. Why should I give a fuck about where you’re sticking your dick?’
If I thought he looked seriously pissed before, I had underestimated his rage. ‘Nox was right. You are just a selfish bitch. What the fuck did we do to get a Bond like you?’
He drops my arm like I’m diseased and stalks off, not waiting for me as he crosses the road.
I tell myself this is a good thing, that the more my Bonds hate me and want to get away from me, the quicker I can be on the move again, but my own bond inside me is freaking devastated by his words.
I have to run to catch up to him because I really don’t want North up my ass for getting left behind this early in the day. We make it to campus just in time for my first class, and it soon becomes very obvious that everybody at this college knows exactly who I am.
No one wants to look at or speak to me at all. It only gets worse as the day goes on, every time I take a seat in class, I find that all of the seats around me stay empty. Gabe has the exact same classes as me all day, something I know was meticulously planned, but he sits as far away from me as possible at all times, and every student here follows his lead.
It’s as if I have the plague.
After five years on the run, I’ve never felt so lonely in all my life as I do here. It started as a nervous flutter in my stomach as we walked around, but by the time we let out for lunch, that flutter had turned into a cavernous void. I want to throw up.
I think about calling my Bonds out on it, telling them that I will never complete the bond if this is the way they’re going to treat me, but instead I clamp my mouth shut and ignore it all as best as I can. It doesn’t get any better once we make it to the cafeteria for lunch. Gabe continues to laugh and flirt his way there, giving me side eyes and filthy looks that I do my best to ignore. I don’t even bother looking at the food choices for the day, I just grab platefuls mindlessly. Food was hard to come by and I would never let anything go to waste. I had never gotten to the point where I was starving, thank God, but I’m also going to enjoy having the easy access to it.
Gabe is much more selective about how he feels his plight. He looks like the poster boy for nutrition; protein, vegetables, and a small amount of starchy carbs. I shake my head at him without even realizing I’m doing it.
‘What? You think I look this good while eating crap?’ he says, and it almost feels like he’s flirting with me. This boy could give me whiplash.
‘I really couldn’t care less about anything you do,’ I say giving him an apathetic look.
His eyes narrow at me in a glare and he mumbles, ‘Cold-hearted fucking bitch.’
Yeah, that’s totally me.
So cold that I ran away from the people fated to love me to try to stop the end of the freaking world as we know it. Total fucking bitch.
I take the closest table with an empty seat and the three students already sitting there get up and walk away. I roll my eyes, kind of getting immune to it now, and dig into my food. The pizza is a little overcooked but still delicious enough.
Gabe sits down with me, dammit.
‘Is there something else you need?’ I say around my food because I doubt his opinion of me can get any lower.
He smirks at me over his healthy plate. ‘You’ve been getting some interest today. I’m making sure that everyone knows you’re off limits.’
I can’t stop myself from gaping at him. ‘Interest? People have been treating me like I’m diseased, I doubt there’s anyone that holds any sort of interest. What’s your real angle here?’
He shrugs. ‘I told you, I’m making sure you don’t think about running off with anyone else. You might not think your bonds are good enough but you dressed up today to catch someone’s eye.’
Ok, he’s clearly fucking with me.
There is no way he could possibly think my jeans and an old thrifted tee is dressing up. God, why does he have to be such a dick? I get it, they all hate me, but just leave me alone then.
I go on the defensive, my smart mouth always kicking in when I need it to. ‘When do you want to bond then? I can schedule you in for next week.’
His head jerks back. ‘What?’
I smirk. ‘You want me, right? That’s why you got so pissed that I left? Well, I’ll fuck you and get this over with. Just tell me when.’
It has the exact effect I was looking for, his head jerks back like he’s been slapped. He’s clearly a romantic, someone who was crushed when I left, he probably had our whole lives mapped out together before he even knew I existed.
‘I think I’d rather have any fucking Bond but you,’ he hisses, and I shrug.
‘I feel the same way. Leave me to my food, it’s not like I can go anywhere now that you’ve fucking chipped me.’
His brows draw in and then he shoves his plate away, stalking off toward the door.
Finally. Peace and quiet.
It lasts for about a second.
A quiet, mousy girl creeps up and slowly slinks into the chair across from me, her head down and her hands shaking just a little as she reaches for her coffee. I try not to stare at her too much, clearly something is up with her, but my eyes just keep drifting over to her.
‘I hope it’s ok to sit here,’ she mumbles, and I nod.
‘Of course. Are you sure you want to sit with the social pariah?’
She shrugs and a smile tugs at the corners of her lips. ‘The elbow room here is pretty great and no one will come over here, thanks to Gabe.’
My mood turns sour. ‘You know him?’
She winces at my scathing tone. ‘Everyone knows your Bonds, sorry. We’re not friends or anything, I just know about you running away because… well, everyone knows about it.’
This isn’t news to me, but it still stings. I wonder how much shit they all got for me leaving, and then I think about North’s cold reception and Nox’s loathing-filled eyes. Nope, I don’t think I care.
At least they all had each other. I had no one.
‘I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just wanted to eat in peace,’ she mumbles and snaps me out of my thoughts.
I frown at her. ‘Why wouldn’t you eat in peace?’
She pokes at her salad. Her food looks even sadder than Gabe’s had. ‘I’m kind of a pariah here too. My Bond prefers his other Bonded. Riley has made it clear to me that I’m not good enough for him. He’s already graduated, but Giovanna still attends Draven. She hates that she wasn’t the center of the Bond, so she’s made it her mission in life to freaking ruin me. There, I think we’re even now. You know all my shitty stuff too.’
I don’t miss the distinct word usage there. Bonded. In our world, there’s always one Central Gifted person in the bond who is fated to be with two or more people. Once the Central has completed their bond, with sex, they become Bonded, something revered and highly sought after. Your power grows and you forge an unbreakable connection.
Her Bond has chosen that with the other girl but not her.
I already hate him.
My skin prickles under my clothes. ‘Do you really want to hang out with someone who rejected her Bonds though? I mean, you’re kind of on the other side of that.’
I should just shut my mouth and accept the friendship, because it’ll probably be the only one I have offered to me, but I’ve never been good at faking this kind of thing.
She smiles at me and nods. “That fact that you have no idea who I am, or anything about my mess of a bond, means you’re the perfect person to be friends with here. My name is Sage, by the way, and I really wouldn’t mind hanging out with you. I could help you with your assignments, I know it must be hard coming in halfway through the semester. Besides, having the entire table to ourselves will be… nice.”
I guess that’s one way to look at it.
BECAUSE MY DAY is freaking cursed, my first class after lunch is History of the Gifted. Normally, that would be right up my alley. I love learning about where we came from and how our abilities have evolved. The problem here?
My timetable shows the lecturer is Nox Draven.
Fucking kill me now.
Of the four of my Bonds I’ve met so far, he’s been the most vocal in his hatred and loathing of me.
As I walk with Sage into the lecture hall, my eyes are immediately drawn to the front of the room where Nox is talking to two female students, one of whom is caressing his arm and giggling.
Great.
My stomach drops and I tell my stupid bond to get over it; he hates me and I think he’s a self-centered dick. It doesn’t help that every eye in the room is on me as I slowly make my way down the stairs to sit as far away from Gabe, who is smirking openly at Nox, as I can. I take my seat and ignore it all.
Of course I’d have to end up with Bonds who are super freaking hot and popular, pillars of our society and renowned for their acts of service.
Of course I’m the villain.
I mean, I am the villain in this story right now. Even if they were to find out about what the last five years have been like for me… even then, I’d probably be the bad guy. Not that they will ever find out. If they do, they’ll be dead. It’ll be right when the Resistance comes here and murders us all. Not me though, nope, they’d keep me.
I’m too fucking valuable to die an honest death.
Thank God Sage is here with me and I have someone to roll my eyes with over the utter bullshit of this room. The whispers aren’t even subtle, they’re just openly talking about how shit I am.
Oh well.
“Wow. He’s really pissed off at you, isn’t he?” Sage whispers as she unpacks her laptop and settles in.
I shrug. “Pissed means he might get over it. I’m pretty sure we’re beyond that and firmly in the ‘I wish Fallows would die’ phase.”
Sage grimaces. “That’s… really freaking awful. Giovanna is like that too.”
I shrug again. There’s nothing I can do about it except to find a way out of this hell-hole before I get us all killed.
Even as the room fills up, the seats around us stay empty, as though we have the plague or something. The whispers aren’t even a little bit discreet, no one here gives a fuck about what I think of them all talking about me.
I enjoy the fuck out of the elbow room this bullshit affords me.
The girls at the front finally step away from Nox and take their seats in the front row, their flirty giggles loud in the room, even as everyone starts to quiet down. My bond squirms deep in the pit of my gut, unhappy with the entire situation, but I squash it down.
“Alright. Settle down, everyone! We have a lot to cover today.”
The room quietens down pretty quickly, the guys all seem to respect him and the girls in the class are all making eyes at him. Even the girls who are bonded are looking at him appreciatively, which I get.
He is really fucking hot but he’s also a dick, so I guess it cancels itself the hell out.
He doesn’t look up at me once as he starts the lesson, but he shoots flirty grins at the girls in the front row the entire time he speaks. “So last week we left off at the beginning of the Gifted split and the rise of the Resistance. Does anyone remember the very first thing the Resistance did as an act of violence against the Gifted?”
One of the girls raises her hands, pushing her chest out and arching her back like she’s on a porn set and not in a lecture hall. Hell, the thought of spending the next three years trapped here with these girls… nope, that’s a whole new layer of fucked up.
Nox smirks at her as he calls on her and she beams at him as she answers, “They found all of the Ungifted that were born from the Gifted. The anomalies and those without Bonds. Then they hunted them and killed them, claiming they were unworthy of our bloodlines.”
Fuck.
I know exactly what Nox is thinking but nothing prepares me for him turning that dark gaze of his over to me. Sage shifts in her chair, uncomfortable with his blistering glare now that it’s pointed in our direction, but she shouldn’t be worried. It’s my blood he’s after.
“Fallows, join me for a demonstration.” Nox’s eyes bore into me, a branding challenge, and my skin prickles as I feel the entire class turn to look at me as well. I raise my chin, even as uncomfortable as I am, I won’t back down to the asshole.
He has no idea of what I’ve sacrificed for him.
I stand and walk down the rows until I’m at the front of the class, the entire lecture hall staring down at me. The giggles of the girls in the front row are bordering on asinine and they sound like twelve-year-olds.
“Ungifted Bonds are rare but, unfortunately, they do happen. Oleander here is a prime example of when things go wrong.’
It’s a struggle but I keep my face blank as the giggling and whispers start up. Gabe rubs a hand over his face but he doesn’t move to stop Nox, their friendship and loyalty to each other far stronger than the weak bond we share.
The one he thinks I’ve turned my back on.
‘She has five Bonds, all with above average strength and abilities, and yet she has… nothing. No ability, no affinity, absolutely nothing worth keeping her around for.’
The whispers get louder and I fight to block them out. I know what they’re thinking, rejected by my own Bond in such a grand freaking spectacle, but it’s nothing he hasn’t already said to me.
“We’re not like the Resistance, so we don’t kill people for being born lacking any real use in our society, but it’s important to remember our history, don’t you think, Fallows?”
I stare up at them all and memorize their faces.
I could kill them all right now without breaking a sweat, but I’m not a fucking monster, no matter how badly they all treat me. I’m above this shit.
I repeat my mantra in my head again. Better to be hated and alive, better to be in pain than a murderer, better to be alone and safe.
