The Valedictorian's Escape

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You promised you'd stay with me. Kade blocked the doorway, his voice cracking, broad shoulders trembling under his soaked jacket.

I met his gaze without a flinch, stepping right past him. Two years of this game, Kade. Aren't you bored yet? Because I'm completely sick of it.

For two whole years, I played the pathetic lapdog to Kade, the untouchable bad boy of our high school. It was pure survival. Stick close to the apex predator, and the rest of the bottom-feeders leave you alone.

The teachers looked right through me.

My own parents practically shoved me at him. They told me to keep the rich kid happy, dropping heavy hints about how a surprise pregnancy could secure a trust fund and an easy ride for all of us.

My brother, Chase, echoed their toxicity. He called me Kade's used-up trash, a cheap toy waiting to be thrown out.

I swallowed the humiliation every single day, right up until that afternoon by the locker room. One of Kade's frat-bro friends bumped his shoulder.

"Two years with the good girl, man. You really aren't tired of her yet? Is she that fun to play with?"

Kade leaned back against the metal doors, a lazy, reckless smirk spreading across his face. "Oh, she's a blast. You guys want a turn?"

The day the final grades dropped, I secured my spot as valedictorian with a perfect GPA and maxed-out SAT scores.

The day my full-ride scholarship to an Ivy League arrived, Kade lost his mind. He took a heavy steel crowbar to his limited-edition Porsche right outside my apartment building, shattering every piece of custom glass into the asphalt.

He stood out there in the freezing downpour all night long.

Chapter 1

Midnight. I sat at my desk, reworking the math test that currently displayed a pathetic '37' in red ink.

I checked the equations line by line. Everything in the first section was flawless. I only dropped points on the final free-response question. I exhaled, the tension releasing from my shoulders.

I had played the role of a hopeless academic failure for an entire year.

All because Kade had gripped the back of my neck one afternoon, his voice a low vibration against my ear. "Stop studying, Maren. Wherever I go, I'm taking you with me."

He had paused, his fingers tightening just enough to be a warning. "As long as you're a good girl."

My phone buzzed against the wood. Kade.

[Mountain ridge street race. Get here.]

My thumb hovered over the screen. I wanted to tell him to go to hell. It was the weekend, I had just finished scrubbing two weeks' worth of dorm laundry, and my period was tearing up my lower abdomen. I had forced myself through the math test through sheer willpower.

I was completely drained.

But Kade didn't do rejections. The screen lit up again.

[Maren, you've blown me off twice this week.]

[You know how I operate. There won't be a third time.]

I pinched the bridge of my nose and typed back.

[On my way.]

I pulled on a fresh hoodie and shoved my bedroom door open. Rick wasn't home. My brother, Chase, was parked on the couch, shoving greasy fried chicken into his mouth while screaming at his console.

He was only twelve, but pushing two hundred poundseasily double my size. Crumbs sprayed across the room as he demanded our mother buy him new in-game skins. A thick layer of grime coated the coffee table.

My mother stood nearby with a basin of water. She watched me head for the door, instantly calculating my destination. Her face pulled into a bitter sneer.

"Shameless little tramp. Always running off to a man's house!" she spat.

"You've been attached to his hip for this long and still haven't managed to get knocked up? Once high school is over and that rich boy leaves for the city, you think he's going to remember a nobody like you?"

I kept walking, which only set her off more. She lunged forward, jabbing a wet, bony finger hard into my shoulder. I was the permanent punching bag for her miserable life.

"Are you deaf?" she shrieked. "I break my back raising you, and you can't even answer me? Am I wrong? You're going to end up as some rich kid's used-up trash"

"Used-up trash! Used-up trash!" Chase chanted around a mouthful of chicken, laughing hysterically.

I snapped my hand up, locking my grip around her wrist. "This jacket is a gift from Kade," I warned, my voice dead flat. "If you ruin it and he gets pissed, do you really think Rick is keeping his job?"

She froze, genuine shock wiping the sneer away. "You dare lay hands on me?!" she shrieked, recovering her fury. "You little bitch, sucking this family dry, making me a joke to the neighbors, why don't you just"

I met her manic stare with absolute ice. Without breaking eye contact, I lashed my foot out, kicking the greasy plate of fried chicken right off the coffee table. Pieces scattered across the rug.

Before their deafening screams could fully erupt, I walked out and slammed the door behind me.

The heavy thud of the door didn't entirely drown out her final "Go to hell!"

Neon racing flags snapped violently in the biting night wind along the mountain ridge.

When I finally arrived, Kade was just crushing a cigarette under his boot. He stood at six-foot-two, his tailored racing suit highlighting his lean, athletic build. He was the undisputed center of gravity in the chaotic crowd. Wild red hair, pale skin, and a face sharp enough to cut glasseven the lingering smoke seemed to frame him perfectly.

Kade was always the main event. Filthy rich. Ridiculously gorgeous. Half a dozen girls in heavy makeup and tight leather skirts were practically throwing themselves at him.

But the second I stepped into the clearing, his eyes locked onto mine. The dark boredom vanished from his expression.

He flicked the cigarette butt away, his long legs cutting straight through the crowd. He closed the distance between us, grabbing me by the waist and pulling me flush against his chest in a fiercely possessive grip.

"My girl," he murmured, his voice a rough rumble against my ear. "You finally made it."

Chapter 2

I wore a plain hoodie and sweatpants, my hair loose, my face completely bare. I stuck out like a sore thumb among the leather and lace.

I tried dressing like them once. But on that freezing spring night, Kade had taken one look at my heavy makeup, sneered, and splashed a cup of ice water right at my feet, soaking my shoes. "You look like a cheap joke," he had told me.

I pushed through the crowd, took the helmet Kade handed me, and climbed onto the back of his bike.

Catcalls erupted instantly.

"Damn, Kade, she's looking good."

"Can't believe you haven't traded her in yet."

"The good girl routine. Innocent on the streets, but"

They laughed, the sound greasy and hollow. Kade just smirked, a lazy warning in his eyes. "Piss off."

The tinted visor hid my face. I despised everything about this place. I just wanted to be a normal high schooler. A girl who spent weekends doing homework, safe in a warm bed, not freezing on a mountain cliff surrounded by adrenaline junkies.

But I knew the truth. Even if I wasn't here, I didn't have a warm home waiting for me.

I obediently wrapped my arms around Kade's waist.

The girls in heavy makeup glaring from the sidelines practically turned red with jealousy, but they didn't dare breathe a word. Kade didn't even bother looking at them. He just grabbed my wrists, pulling my arms tighter and forcing my hands flat against the hard, warm muscles of his stomach.

Satisfied with my grip, his gloved hand patted mine.

"Twenty grand on the line tonight," he murmured over the engine roar. "Whatever you want this week, I'll buy it. Yeah?"

I didn't answer.

The starting gun cracked. The bike launched forward like a missile.

A dark part of me often wished we would just crash. Wished Kade and I would become a fiery wreckage on this mountain ridge. But the second the speedometer maxed out and the G-force hit my chest, pure survival instinct screamed through my veins. My fingers clamped into the leather of his jacket like a vise.

I can't die.

I was getting out of this town. I refused to let this trash drag me down.

I had a long, brilliant life ahead of me.

I learned early on that my parents despised me. The reason was simple: I was a girl. In our rusted-out, dead-end town, a daughter was just another mouth to feed, a useless investment.

It took my mother five years to finally get pregnant with her "miracle" second child. Rick had just moved us into a crumbling, roach-infested apartment complex. I used to follow her to the discount grocery store. Neighbors would stare at her swollen belly.

If they guessed it was a boy, she'd beam with pride. If they joked about another girl, she would spit venom, cursing them out and screaming that they were just jealous she was carrying a son.

The pregnancy wrecked her body. Whenever the wet sound of her vomiting echoed from the bathroom, severe tremors would shoot up my spine.

Because that was the cue.

That was when Rick would unbuckle his heavy leather belt. He blamed me. Said my bad luck was poisoning his unborn son. The leather slashed across my skin.

A sharp crack. A burst of copper in my mouth.

When Chase was finally born, Rick acted like he'd won the lottery. It didn't matter that Chase failed his classes while I got straight A's. He was a boy. That was his golden ticket.

He got everything I never had. Brand-new game consoles. Junk food stuffed in the pantry. Clothes that didn't have holes in them.

If I was in the room, Rick would blow cigarette smoke right into my face. But the second Chase walked in, he would instantly crush the cigarette in the ashtray. "Second-hand smoke isn't good for the boy," he would mutter.

The suffocating stench of cheap tobacco, the peeling paint of our cramped apartment, and the absolute disgust in my parents' eyes. That was my entire childhood.

Chapter 3

Rick and my mother hadn't even planned to send me to school. They only agreed when they found out the public elementary system was completely free. They figured learning basic math would make me a better cash cow for the family later on. By the time I finally sat at a first-grade desk, I was already eight years old.

Before that, I thought everyone lived like us. I thought every family worshipped boys. I thought every girl was born to scrub floors, cook meals, and eventually bleed herself dry to fund her brothers' lives.

Then I walked into a classroom. I realized girls could be completely spoiled. They took ballet classes, learned piano, and wore sparkling clean clothes.

They would stare at me and whisper.

"Why do Maren's clothes look like that?"

"Is she wearing actual rags?"

"Do you think her mom pulled those out of a dumpster?"

Their innocent whispers were like glass shards grinding into my skin. I was the oldest girl in the class, already hitting a growth spurt, towering awkwardly over girls who looked like they lived inside a protective snow globe.

School became my only escape hatch. In those classrooms, I could read, absorb facts, and glimpse a world outside my nightmare. But the second the final bell rang, I was dragged right back to that suffocating, cramped apartment.

I scrubbed their laundry. I scrubbed the floors. If I missed a single spot, my parents' fists and heavy boots would find my ribs.

Chase, their golden ticket, was enrolled early. But he was a complete terror. By first grade, the principal pulled him into the office for violently bullying another kid.

When my parents stormed into the school, they didn't apologize. They didn't discipline their son. Instead, Rick aggressively backed the teacher and the victim's parents into a corner, screaming in their faces. He demanded to know why they were terrorizing his boy over "a little roughhousing."

My mother threw a manic fit right in the hallway, demanding the school compensate Chase for his "emotional distress."

Safe behind his parents' legs, Chase stuck his tongue out at the principal.

The young teacher was so disgusted she completely gave up on him. When she eventually found out we were siblings, she just shook her head. "It's terrifying that you two share the same blood."

Through middle school, I studied like a machine. I also started keeping a journal. Every dark, suffocating secret I couldn't say out loud went into those pages.

Then, I got caught. My homeroom teacher, Ms. Stella, snatched the notebook off my desk during study hall. She told me to see her after the bell.

Cold sweat glued my shirt to my spine. If she called Rick, he would rip me out of school permanently. My hands shook so violently I had to grip the edge of my desk just to stay upright.

But when I walked into her office, she didn't yell. She just slid the notebook back across her desk. Her smile was incredibly soft.

"Here you go," Ms. Stella said quietly. "Just promise me you'll save the writing for reading period next time, okay?"

I didn't lose my education. Instead, I crushed the eighth-grade state standardized tests, taking the absolute top score in the entire city.

Chapter 4

For the first time in sixteen years, I asked Rick and my mother for something. "I want to go to high school."

Rick didn't even hesitate. "You think you can just go because you want to? Where the hell are we going to find the money for that?"

I knew the rejection was coming, but the sheer injustice of it made my chest tight. "What do you mean, no money? Chase gets endless junk food and new games every week. You throw cash at him for breathing, but you can't afford my tuition?"

A heavy slap cracked across my cheek.

"You ungrateful little bitch!" Rick roared, his face turning purple. "You're a useless drain on this family!"

"Don't you ever compare yourself to Chase! You are nothing like him!"

"If we didn't have him, this family name would die out! He's the only real heir I've got!"

The force of the blow snapped my head to the side. My mother didn't even blink. She just turned around and went back to the stove, prepping the expensive ribs she bought specifically because Chase had demanded them for dinner.

Chase didn't even have to lift a finger to win. He just sat on the couch and spat a wad of saliva at my sneakers. No one said a word to stop him.

Right then, they crushed the last sliver of hope I had left.

My future was a closed loop. They were going to marry me off to whoever offered the biggest cash payout, turning me into a baby-making machine just like my mother. A lifetime of scrubbing floors, taking orders, and letting my brain rot until I went numb. I'd rather run away and work in a sweatshop.

But the sheer unfairness of it clawed at my throat. I needed to get out. I needed an education.

The swelling on my cheek throbbed in the dead of night. I didn't shed a single tear. I just lay there, staring coldly at the ceiling, silently vowing that one day, I would pay them back a thousand times over for the humiliation they put me through today.

I never expected Ms. Stella to show up at our door the next morning. She walked right into our cramped living room and dropped a thick envelope onto the grime-covered coffee table in front of Rick and my mother. "There's two thousand dollars in there."

I froze. My parents stared at the envelope, completely stunned. That was easily six months of their combined wages. Between Chase's junk food and video games, they couldn't save that much in years.

My mother finally found her voice. "Ms. Stella what is this?"

Ms. Stella smiled, reaching out to squeeze my hand. "Maren scored highest in the entire city on the state exams. This is an upfront academic grant from the premier high school downtown. They also guarantee a full ridezero tuition, zero feesif she enrolls."

I jolted, my eyes snapping to my teacher's face. I had never heard of an upfront cash grant for high school.

I wasn't a naive kid anymore. The realization hit me like a physical blow.

The school didn't send this money. Ms. Stella did.

Rick stared at the cash, then back at the teacher. "You can make money just by going to school?"

Ms. Stella shook her head. "Average students can't. But exceptional ones do."

"When Maren gets to college, she'll pull in even bigger scholarships and grants. It won't cost you a single dime. She's brilliant."

"When she graduates, she'll secure a high-paying corporate job. I heard you're already trying to marry her off for a quick payout."

"Think about it. How much is some guy in this rundown town going to pay you? Now, compare that to the six-figure salary Maren will be making in a few years."

"You do the math. Which one is the better investment for your family?"

Ms. Stella's voice was perfectly calm, but she stood planted directly in front of me, an unshakeable shield between me and my parents. I stared at her worn, faded cardigan, a massive lump forming in my throat.

I walked Ms. Stella out to the stairwell. Checking to make sure my parents weren't listening, she slipped a debit card into my palm.

"I'm sorry I lied to you," she whispered. "I read a little bit of your journal back then. I swear, just a little."

She let out a soft sigh, her gaze dropping to the concrete steps. "When I was your age my parents only paid for my brother to go to school. I had to"

"Ms. Stella" I choked out, my fingers curling tightly around the plastic card.

She looked up, her eyes crinkling in a warm, sad smile. She was only in her twenties herself.

Chapter 5

"But now, I get to make my own choices. You just focus on your grades. I'll cover your expenses until you hit college."

"The money is in this account. Consider it a loan. You're going to pay me back one day, understand?"

I wanted this education more than I wanted to breathe. My fingers gripped the plastic debit card so hard my knuckles turned white. I nodded, swallowing the massive lump in my throat. "I understand."

As the top scorer in the state, I got accepted into the most elite prep school in the city. I had never seen a campus so massive. The wrought-iron front gates were intimidatingly grand, opening up to a sprawling courtyard with a massive stone fountain. It was a different universe compared to the rotting brick building of my middle school.

The girls here had flawless skin and carried designer bags; the guys looked like they had stepped straight out of a catalog. They practically radiated wealth and golden-hour privilege.

And then there was me. Silent, invisible, and completely out of place.

I hid behind thick, black-rimmed glasses and let my messy bangs fall over my eyes. It gave me a physical barrier against the world. The teachers who had read my perfect test scores took one look at my shrinking, defensive posture and visibly lost interest.

The school required all students to live in the dorms. That finally gave me some actual breathing room, completely cutting me off from the suffocating grip of my parents.

But that peace didn't last long.

It started with a stupid anonymous poll on the school's gossip forum ranking the hottest girls on campus. Someone commented that they had seen me in the dorms without my glasses on. They wrote that I was actually prettier than Piper.

Piper was the undisputed queen bee of the school. Her dad was a local billionaire real estate mogul. She treated the school dress code like a mere suggestion, always showing up in high-end designer labels.

She wore flawless, heavy makeup, and her long acrylic nails were always bedazzled in rhinestones. She operated on pure, untouchable arrogance and never looked twice at bottom-feeders like me. We existed in completely different stratospheres.

But because of that one single comment, I became a target.

Piper and her toxic little entourage cornered me in the girls' restroom during the dinner rush. She dug her bedazzled acrylics into my jawline, forcing my head up to meet her furious, perfectly lined eyes.

"You really think you're some kind of goddess, you piece of trash?" she sneered, her breath smelling of expensive mints.

"You're filthy. How long have you been wearing that same pathetic hoodie? It reeks."

She scoffed, dropping her hand. "You think this pathetic face makes you prom queen material? I'd hit you myself, but I don't want your poor-kid germs on my hands."

That was the signal. Her minions swarmed me.

They shoved me hard into the tile wall. For girls who looked so fragile, their kicks and slaps carried vicious weight. They rained blows down on me, spitting venom.

"Acting so high and mighty with that slutty little face!"

"Disgusting trash!"

"You really think you're in Piper's league, bitch?!"

"Look in a mirror and know your place!"

The ambushes happened three more times. Finally, I gritted my teeth and reported it to my homeroom teacher.

She was a fresh-out-of-college hire, still full of textbook justice and moral high grounds. When I showed her the dark bruising on my arms, her face went red with fury.

She pulled Piper and her crew into the office one by one. She threatened to call their parents. She even drafted a formal report to the dean, pushing for immediate suspensions.

I naively thought that would back them off. I was dead wrong.

The next day in the hallway, Piper intentionally shoulder-checked me. Her rhinestone-crusted nails clamped down on my bicep, biting brutally deep into the muscle.

"You're dead meat," she whispered, her perfectly contoured features twisting into an ugly sneer. "Snitch."

Less than forty-eight hours later, my homeroom teacher was abruptly transferred out of the district. I never saw her on campus again. A week later, a rumor floated around that she had been reassigned to a crumbling middle school out in the absolute middle of nowhere.

I sat at my desk, a cold weight settling in my stomach. I knew exactly whose father had made that happen.

Chapter 6

A new homeroom teacher replaced her. A woman in her early forties with a kind face. I thought she would help me too.

But the moment I approached her desk, her pupils dilated with pure, unfiltered terror. "I didn't want to take over this class, but I had no choice." She gripped the edge of her desk so hard her knuckles turned white. "I have a family. I have kids. I absolutely cannot afford to cross them. I really can't. Just let it go, okay? Please spare me."

Ice water dumped straight into my veins. "Then I'll go to the cops"

"And tell them what?!" She panicked, her voice dropping to a frantic hiss. "Are they going to lock them up? They're minors!"

"Plus, what actual proof do you have? Do you have any idea who their families are? If you blow this up, who do you think is going to get expelled?!"

Expelled.

That single word hit me like a physical blow to the chest.

"Please, just don't cause trouble. Just endure it," she pleaded, guilt twisting her features. "Once they have their fun and get bored of you, it will all blow over."

fun.

My daily living hell was just "fun" to her? And when exactly would they get bored? After my failed attempt at snitching, the target on my back only grew larger.

I didn't know who to turn to. Finally, one name surfaced.

Ms. Stella.

A heavy blizzard blanketed the city the day I went looking for her. I spotted her pushing a rusted, chipped bicycle through the thick snow, the wheels crunching against the ice. She froze when she saw me, then immediately dropped her bike and rushed over, unwrapping her thick knit scarf and looping it tightly around my freezing neck.

Warmth seeped into my skin as I met her eyes.

"Maren what are you doing out here? It's freezing. Have you been waiting long?" She patted my frozen shoulders, her brow creased with worry. "Are you out of money? Let's go inside, I'll get you some"

I looked past her shoulder. She lived in a crumbling, run-down apartment complex. The brick walls were cracked and weathered, barely a step up from the roach-infested project housing Rick kept us in.

The terrified eyes of my new homeroom teacher flashed in my mind. The image of my former teacher, erased from the elite prep school overnight without a single trace.

The desperate plea for help died instantly in my throat.

I swallowed hard, forcing a tight smile. "Everything is fine, Ms. Stella. I just missed you. I wanted to see you."

That was the darkest period of my life.

My uniform was permanently stained. My skin was a canvas of purple bruises and angry scratches. But beating me up wasn't enough anymore. They escalated to psychological warfare.

Like pouring red ink on my chair to fake period stains.

Or shoving a live snake into my desk drawer.

But I refused to break. I refused to give them the satisfaction of a single tear. I wiped the red ink off my hands and stared dead into Piper's hysterical, laughing face in the back row.

"Are you exempt from getting a period, Piper?" I asked, my voice slicing through the noise. "Because if not, what exactly is the punchline here?"

And the snake.

I reached into my desk without a flinch, grabbed the twisting reptile by the back of its neck, and marched straight up the aisle. Right in front of everyone, I shoved the snake deep into Piper's limited-edition, three-thousand-dollar designer tote bag.

She collapsed against her desk, shrieking in pure terror. I stood over her, my lips curving into a cold, mocking smile. "Your new bag matches this little pet perfectly."

I started fighting back. When they pinned my arms and legs, I used my teeth. But every ounce of resistance only bought me a heavier retaliation.

Nobody dared to intervene.

They ambushed me outside the lockers, dumping my backpack upside down. They tore my meticulously kept study notes into shreds and stomped them into a muddy puddle.

"Pick it up, trash!" they jeered, kicking the muddy paper at my knees. "Isn't this garbage your entire life?!"

Later that week, Piper cornered me in the middle of the crowded cafeteria and poured a massive, ice-cold cup of cola directly over my head, reducing me to the school's public laughingstock.

The final straw was the study hall. They locked me inside the unheated building for an entire night. My thin hoodie did nothing against the sub-zero drop in temperature. I caught a severe fever and missed nearly a week of classes.

And when the midterm results were finally posted on the bulletin board.

My name had plummeted down the ranks. I barely scraped the top hundred.

Chapter 7

The fever broke, leaving behind a razor-sharp clarity. I couldn't keep taking hits. I had bled too much to get this education, and I refused to let Piper and her crew bury me here. I needed to survive. I needed a shield.

That was when I locked onto Kade.

He was the undisputed apex predator of the campus. Wild red hair, dark ink wrapping around his wrists. He brawled, skipped class, smoked, and drank. He rolled onto campus on a heavy motorcycle, the aggressive roar of the engine vibrating through the courtyard and rattling the classroom windows.

He was dangerously gorgeous, but girls kept their distance. He practically radiated hostility. Teachers ignored him. The administration turned a blind eye. The whispers in the hallways always carried the same warning: Don't cross him. Filthy rich and fights dirty.

His family held even more power than Piper's dad. A cold, calculated plan took root in my mind.

That morning, I scrubbed my uniform in the dorm sink until my knuckles were raw. I washed my hair, trimming my messy bangs completely out of my face. I took off the heavy, black-rimmed glasses, exposing my features to the world. I knew exactly what I looked like under the disguise. If I wasn't pretty, Piper wouldn't have spent so much energy trying to destroy me.

The late afternoon sun bled across the empty bleachers, casting long shadows over the track. Kade slouched on the top tier, a lit cigarette pinned between his fingers. The wind whipped through his red hair, contrasting sharply with his pale skin.

His uniform jacket hung loose over a plain black tee, exposing the heavy, solid-gold watch on his wrist. His profile was terrifyingly perfectsharp jawline, straight nose, and dark, hollow eyes that looked entirely bored with the world.

I knew exactly what I was walking into. I climbed the metal steps and stopped right in front of his boots.

"Kade."

He lazily turned his head. His dark eyes dragged up my legs, stalling on my bare face before finally meeting my gaze. "What."

I tilted my head, offering a sweet, entirely fake smile. "Are those any good? I want a hit."

Kade paused, his thumb hovering over the filter. A dark, dangerous amusement sparked in his eyes. He stood up, dropping the height advantage of the bleachers but instantly dominating my personal space. He was well over six feet, his broad shoulders blocking out the sun. My survival instincts screamed at me to back away.

Instead, he leaned in close. The smell of sharp tobacco and expensive cologne hijacked my senses. Without warning, he exhaled a thick cloud of smoke directly into my face.

I choked, coughing violently as the acrid burn hit my lungs.

Kade tilted his head, watching me hack up my lungs with absolute malice. "Does it taste good to you, straight-A?"

I wiped my watering eyes and glared at him. "Tastes like garbage."

The smirk vanished, leaving his eyes completely dead. "Then don't play in the trash."

I didn't listen to his warning. It was basic math. Piper's crew wouldn't come within a ten-foot radius of him. So, I shadowed him. The rooftop. The convenience store behind the gym. The dark corner under the bleachers. The stairwells. Even the concrete hallway right outside the boys' locker room.

The calculation paid off. Piper started giving me a wide, deeply paranoid berth in the hallways.

"Fuck." Kade shoved the heavy locker room doors open, shaking water from his wet hands. He stopped dead, glaring at me leaning against the concrete wall. "What exactly is your problem?"

"I'm trying to catch your attention."

He let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. "Catch my attention? You watch too many teen movies, good girl. You really want to play house with me?"

"I"

"Fine." A cruel, reckless glint flashed in his eyes. He grabbed my wrist, his grip like a steel vise. "Skip study hall tonight. You're coming with me."

"Where?"

He didn't answer.

That was the first time he dragged me to the underground street races. Neon flags snapped violently along the mountain ridge. Kade's wild red hair, which made him an outcast on campus, fit perfectly here. The girlsno, the womenleaning against the customized sports cars were dripping in heavy makeup and tight leather.

The biting wind roared off the cliffside. My stomach dropped like a stone, every nerve ending in my body vibrating with a profound, terrifying anxiety.

Chapter 8

Kade returned, zipped into a red, black, and white racing suit. It clung perfectly to his broad shoulders and long legs, maximizing his intimidating build.

"The back half of this track has no guardrails," he stated, his voice completely flat. "It's pure mountain edge. A sheer drop."

"A rock kicked up by a tire shatters into dust when it hits the bottom. Imagine what happens to a human body."

I swallowed hard. I caught his underlying threat perfectly.

"Yo, Kade. Brought a girlfriend?" A guy holding a wrench smirked.

Kade watched my throat work as I swallowed my panic. His lips curved up. "Something like that."

"I can't do this," I whispered.

"Can't?" Kade shoved a heavy helmet directly into my chest. "I think you can. You ever felt absolute speed, Maren? It scrambles your brain. In one second, everything just vanishes. Every problem, every piece of garbage you don't want to deal withwiped out."

Really? A complete wipe? My fingers dug into the hard shell of the helmet. Under Kade's heavy, calculating stare, I slammed the visor down.

The sheer, bone-rattling velocity ripped my breath out of my lungs.

For one deranged second, I thought that dying like this wouldn't be so bad. It would be instant. But the sheer terror overrode everything. The deafening roar of the engine slammed into my chest, syncing with my overloaded heartbeat. Pure, violent adrenaline flooded my veins, creating a weightless, falling sensation in my gut.

The human fear of death is primal. In my darkest moments at home, I had genuinely wished it would all just end. But with the concrete blurring inches from my boots, my survival instinct roared to life, fighting for every single breath.

The bike skidded to a violent halt. I dragged in a sharp breath, fighting the violent hammering in my chest, and yanked the helmet off my own head. Kade stood over me, his dark eyes analyzing me like a predator assessing a kill. I didn't flinch. Despite my pale face, I tipped my chin up and flashed him a cold, mocking smirk.

Kade stepped into my personal space, his gaze dropping to my lips before snapping back to my eyes. "So," he murmured. "Which is worse? This, or dealing with Piper?"

I held his gaze. He knew exactly what I was doing.

I thought my calculated play had failed. But after that night, Kade silently allowed me to shadow him. I carried the heavy backpack he tossed at me, ignoring the shameless stares of his frat-bro entourage.

"Kade, you cuffed now? Seriously you're into the innocent honor-roll type?"

The wind whipped Kade's faded red hair. He bit down on his cigarette filter, his tone lazy. "No hand-holding, no making out, no sleeping together. What kind of relationship is that? By that logic, I'm dating half the campus."

Piper witnessed the entire exchange. She cornered me by the back exit of the classroom. "Are you hooking up with Kade?"

"Yep," I shot back smoothly. "So can you back off and leave me alone now?"

Piper gripped the doorframe, her knuckles turning bone-white. "You actually think you found a sugar daddy to protect you?"

"Protection or not, until he gets bored of me, you just have to choke on it. Right?"

All the color drained from Piper's meticulously contoured face.

In that suffocating silence, a rush of pure, vindictive satisfaction flooded my veins.

Kade didn't show up to campus every day, and he certainly didn't think about me constantly. But his phantom presence was enough. For the first time since enrolling, I tasted actual peace. During breaks, I could just sit in the sun and listen to the dry autumn leaves scraping across the concrete.

I naively thought I had secured a permanent ceasefire. I severely underestimated Piper.

I walked back into the classroom after lunch. My canvas tote bag lay dumped on the floor. My cheap pens and notebooks were scattered across the linoleum.

And sitting right in the middle of my spilled belongings was a heavy, handcrafted black leather wallet.

Chapter 9

"Wow." Before I could even open my mouth, one of Piper's minions marched right up into my space. "Maren, why the hell is Piper's wallet inside your bag?!"

"At least have some dignity about being broke," the minion sneered. "Stealing? Really?"

Whispers instantly erupted around the classroom.

"That wallet alone is worth a fortune let alone the cash inside."

"Do you think she actually took it?"

"I saw her walking past Piper's desk earlier today"

"I mean, look at her. She's desperate. I wouldn't put it past her."

Piper soaked up the murmurs, a triumphant smirk on her perfectly contoured face. "Is the honor-roll student that desperate for cash? If you needed a handout, you should have just begged. Taking it like a rat is a whole different story."

I met her gaze dead on. "Where's your proof?"

"It was literally found inside your bag. That's proof."

"Did you watch me take it out of your desk and put it into mine?"

The minion gritted her teeth. "Well, no, we didn't physically see"

"Oh, I get it," I cut her off smoothly. "I can't prove I didn't steal it, and you can't prove I did. But since it magically appeared in my bag, you've decided I'm a thief."

I leaned against the desk, crossing my arms. "In that case, I say you're all a bunch of pathetic bitches. I can't prove you're bitches, and you can't prove you aren't. So, going by your logic, let's just assume you're all a bunch of pathetic bitches."

Someone in the back row choked on a loud laugh.

"Keep talking trash," Piper snapped, losing her cool. "Let's see what the dean says. Stealing means instant expulsion."

"Don't panic," I said, my voice perfectly calm. "You don't have proof. But I do."

My cheap burner phone couldn't record video. But audio wasn't an issue. During lunch, I had stayed behind to study. When I went to the water fountain, I overheard them plotting in the hallway to plant the wallet. The second I heard my name, I hit record. Ms. Stella had made me buy the cheap prepaid phone so she could keep in touch. It was garbage tech, but it had one major feature: the speakers were incredibly loud.

I tapped the screen. Piper's nasal voice instantly blasted through the quiet classroom, explicitly detailing exactly how they were going to frame me.

Piper lunged forward, her face turning crimson. "That's a fake! We never"

"She's with me. Why the hell would she need to steal your cheap garbage?"

I jolted, turning around. Kade was leaning against the doorframe, his uniform jacket slung carelessly over one shoulder. He crossed his arms, his tone dangerously lazy. When his eyes flicked to me, there was a spark of dark amusement in them.

Nobody expected Kade to show up.

The minion swallowed hard, instantly backing down. "Kade this is just between us girls"

"Too bad. I love minding other people's business."

Piper stood up, her chest heaving. "Kade, don't forget your mother and my family!"

The lazy smirk vanished from Kade's lips. Like a provoked beast, he lashed out, driving his heavy boot straight into the front of Piper's desk.

The heavy solid wood desk flipped over with a deafening crash, shattering every single piece of high-end makeup scattered across its surface. Piper collapsed backward into the mess of splintered wood and crushed cosmetic palettes, a sharp scream tearing from her throat.

Gasps tore through the classroom, but Kade didn't spare her a single ounce of pity. He stepped closer, his dark eyes radiating pure violence.

"Don't ever mention my mother again."

Piper's eyes instantly filled with red-hot tears. It was a rare, pathetic sight.

I tilted my head, looking down at her. She sat shivering in the wreckage, trembling with humiliation and rage, looking like she had just suffered the greatest injustice in the world. It was a complete joke, considering the pure hell she inflicted on everyone else on a daily basis.

Piper transferred out of our homeroom the next day. She used her upcoming performing arts exams as an excuse to take an extended leave of absence for "training." Our desks went from being right next to each other to being separated by two entire floors.

Chapter 10

Another sunset bleeding over the bleachers. Kade leaned against the metal railing, lighting a cigarette and staring down at me. "I handled a little pest problem for you," he drawled. "How do you plan on paying me back?"

"Buy you dinner?" I offered.

Kade let out a dry, sarcastic laugh. He dragged on the cigarette, thinking it over. "Come home with me."

"Home with you?"

"Too scared?"

Of course I was. His smirk didn't reach his eyes. He looked completely drained, like there was a dark cloud hanging over him that the adrenaline couldn't shake.

"I'm starving. Cook me something to eat, and I'll let you go," he said, already reaching out to lock his fingers around my wrist. "Let's go."

His place was a massive, ultra-modern penthouse spanning the entire top floor of a downtown high-rise. But beneath the high-end luxury, it felt completely hollow. There wasn't a single trace of anyone else living there. I spotted a pair of women's house slippers near the entrance, but a quick glance at the massive shoe rack revealed zero women's shoes. My mind flashed back to the sheer violence in his eyes the second Piper had mentioned his mother.

Kade shrugged off his jacket, tossing it over a leather sofa before steering me directly into the massive marble kitchen. He pulled open a stainless-steel fridge, grabbing a bottle of juice and handing it to me. I stood there stiffly. I had never been inside a place this ridiculously expensive, let alone standing in the dead center of a guy's private territory.

"What's with the face?" Kade stepped into my personal space, his imposing frame backing me against the cold marble counter. "You look almost disappointed. Unless" He leaned in closer, his voice dropping an octave. "You were hoping for something else?"

I aggressively shook my head, my grip tightening on the cold glass bottle.

Kade stepped back, letting out a genuine, rumbling laugh. The heat rushed straight to my cheeks.

The penthouse really was a ghost town. The pantry held nothing but a box of pasta and some eggs. I worked with what I had. As the water boiled, filling the cold, sterile kitchen with a warm cloud of steam, Kade leaned against the island, just watching me.

"Other than the housekeeper, my mom is the only woman who's ever cooked for me," he said quietly.

I paused, the wooden spoon hovering over the pot. I turned to look at him.

"But she's just the mistress," he continued, his tone completely deadpan, like he was discussing the weather. "She wouldn't even dare bring me back to the main house. She squeezed enough cash out of my so-called father to buy this place and dumped me here. Maybe when I'm old enough to be useful for the family business, they'll call me back."

He dragged a hand through his red hair, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows. "I've lived alone since middle school."

Dead silence suffocated the room, save for the low, expensive hum of the stainless-steel exhaust hood.

Kade kept his eyes fixed on the boiling water. "Wish me a happy birthday, Maren."

Something sharp physically yanked at my chest. My heart gave a violent, irregular thud against my ribs.

After that night, Kade started claiming my weekends. He was addicted to pure adrenaline. Jet skiing. Bungee jumping. Even skydiving. But I never broke again. I never threw up or violently shook like I did after that first street race. Kade found that endlessly fascinating. Every time I stepped up to the edge without flinching, his dark gaze would stick to me a second longer, tracing my features like he was trying to crack a code.

He dragged me to the movies, too. One night, we were sitting dead center in a massive IMAX theater. When the hyper-realistic 3D effects leaped off the screen, I actually flinched back into my seat and let out a sharp gasp.

Kade leaned over, suppressing a laugh. "Never been to the movies before?"

"No, this is" I caught myself. It was only my second time.

The first time was right after middle school graduation. I had spent that entire brutal summer hauling heavy boxes for a local grocery store owner just to scrape together some cash. She threw in a small bonus on my last day. I bought a heavily discounted matinee ticket and stepped into a theater for the first time in my life. It was some depressing indie romance movie, and I sat alone in the dark, crying like an absolute idiot for two hours.

Kade didn't press for details. He just leaned back in his leather recliner, his eyes glued to the massive screen. "Doesn't matter," he said casually. "There's a lot of stuff you still need to experience in this life. I'll take you to do all of it."

A sudden wave of heat rushed up my neck. Before I could even process the weight of that promise, he shoved a massive, warm bucket of buttery popcorn right into my chest.

Chapter 11

For his birthday, Kade took me down to the riverfront and set off fireworks for half an hour.

I had never seen anything so massive and explosive. The sky lit up in vibrant, deafening bursts, making me feel like I had stepped into an entirely different universe. And I never imagined I'd ever find myself belonging in a world like that. It felt like walking on clouds, a strange, fluttering heat spreading through my chest.

But that warmth was violently ripped away the second I stepped back into the roach-infested apartment complex.

I had just gone back to grab some clean clothes when Rick stumbled in, reeking of cheap liquor. He had obviously heard the rumors from someone. His bloodshot eyes were wide with a manic, calculated greed.

"You hooked up with that rich kid from your school? What does his family do? I hear they're loaded." He stepped closer, rubbing his calloused hands together. "He must be giving you a ton of cash. We raised you all these years. Don't go hiding all that money for yourself, it's time we get a cut of the good life!"

Bile rose in my throat. "We aren't together, and he hasn't given me a single cent."

The manic grin instantly vanished from Rick's face. "You let him screw you for free?!"

"Watch your mouth!" I shot back.

He violently hurled his lit cigarette directly at my sneakers. "Playing the innocent virgin? What else do you think a guy like him wants you for?! You cheap tramp. You humiliate me by selling yourself out there, and now you talk back to me in my own house? You ungrateful little bitch"

I tuned out the noise, just staring at his mouth opening and closing, his yellowed, nicotine-stained teeth flashing.

Chase watched from the couch, eating it up. "Cheap tramp! Cheap tramp!"

My mother just stood by the kitchen door, gloating, eagerly pressing Rick for all the dirty details about who I was supposedly hooking up with.

The air in the room became physically suffocating. I turned on my heel and slammed the front door behind me.

The paper-thin walls of the complex hid nothing. As I hurried down the cracked concrete stairs, I could hear the muffled, judging whispers of the neighbors pressing their ears to their doors.

The winter wind was brutal. It cut straight through my thin jacket as I stood frozen on the gray, cracked pavement of the alley. No money. No home. Not a single friend in the world.

Right then, Kade's name surfaced in my mind. It was like I had subconsciously stored him away as a lifeline, waiting for a moment exactly like this