CHAPTER FIVE: The Academy of Wolves

The photo is already viral by the time I step out of Lucian's car.

I don't know it yet. Won't know until I'm three steps into the main building and feel every eye turn toward me like I'm wearing a sign that says FRESH MEAT. But someone caught us in the parking lot. Lucian's hand on my cheek. The way we looked at each other through the windshield. The five minutes I waited alone in his car like an obedient puppy.

By second period, I'll have been called seventeen different names, none of them kind.

But right now, I'm just trying to find the main office.

The academy looks like something out of a movie. All stone and ivy and arched windows that probably cost more than my college fund. Students flow through hallways in perfect uniforms, but there's nothing uniform about them. The girls wear their skirts rolled shorter, their blazers tailored to fit like second skins. Diamond studs glint in ears. Designer bags worth thousands hang off shoulders like they're nothing.

I feel like a fraud in my borrowed uniform, my drugstore makeup, my Target backpack.

A girl shoulders past me, hard enough that I stumble. She doesn't apologize. Doesn't even look back.

"You're the new girl."

I turn. A girl with warm brown skin and box braids pulled into a high ponytail stands there, smiling. Actually smiling, like she's genuinely happy to see me. It's so unexpected I almost don't know how to respond.

"Yeah. Aria."

"Mia." She falls into step beside me. "You look lost. Let me guess, trying to find the office?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"Only to people who've been where you are." She guides me around a corner, down another hallway that looks identical to the last twelve. "Scholarship student, first year. I know the new kid panic well."

Something in my chest loosens. An ally. Maybe. "Thanks. I was starting to think I'd die in these hallways and no one would find my body until graduation."

Mia laughs, but it fades quickly. "Listen, I'm going to give you some advice because you seem nice and I have a thing about watching nice people get destroyed."

"That's ominous."

"It's realistic." She lowers her voice as we pass a cluster of girls who stop talking to stare at us. At me, specifically. "You arrived in Lucian Hayes's car. People saw. Photos are already circulating on the academy's social app."

My stomach drops. "What?"

"You're going to want to distance yourself from that as fast as possible. Lucian Hayes is untouchable around here. The girls want him, the guys want to be him, and anyone associated with him becomes a target."

"We're not associated. He's mine…" I catch myself. Stepbrother sounds worse than whatever they're already thinking. "Our parents just got married. He was giving me a ride."

Mia's eyebrows rise. "Wait. You're Adrian Hayes's new stepdaughter?"

"Is that worse?"

"It's complicated." She opens a door marked ADMINISTRATION. "Get your schedule, then find me at lunch. I'll show you the safe zones and the kill zones. Trust me, you'll need to know the difference."

The woman behind the desk looks me up and down like I'm something stuck to her shoe. She hands me a schedule without a word, then dismisses me with a flick of her wrist.

Welcome to elite education.

First period is Advanced Literature. I slip into a seat in the back, hoping for invisibility. The teacher, an older man with kind eyes and wire-rimmed glasses, introduces me to the class.

"Everyone, we have a new student joining us. Aria Hayes, please stand."

Hayes. He said Hayes, not Bennett. Because that's my last name now, apparently. The name that makes twenty pairs of eyes snap to me with varying degrees of interest and hostility.

I stand, awkward and exposed.

"Welcome, Aria. I'm Professor Greene. I hope you'll find our discussions stimulating." He gestures for me to sit, mercifully ending my public display.

The girl next to me leans over, all glossy blonde hair and sharp smile. "Hayes, huh? You're the one who married into the family."

"My mom married Adrian Hayes, yes."

"And you moved into the mansion? With Lucian?" Her smile sharpens. "That must be cozy."

Something in her tone makes my skin crawl. "It's a big house."

"Not big enough, apparently." She turns away, whispers something to her friend. They both laugh.

I spend the rest of class trying to focus on Professor Greene's lecture about forbidden love in classical literature. The irony isn't lost on me.

Between first and second period, I check my phone. Seventeen text notifications from numbers I don't recognize. Against my better judgment, I open one.

gold digger

Another: stay away from lucian

Another: you don't belong here

I delete them all, but they keep coming. By third period, I've turned off notifications entirely.

Lunch is when I really understand what Mia meant about kill zones.

The cafeteria is massive, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking manicured grounds. Round tables cluster in obvious social hierarchies. I spot Mia waving from a table near the windows, and I'm halfway there when the room's energy shifts.

He walks in.

Lucian, flanked by two other guys who look like they stepped out of a cologne ad. One is tall and blonde with an easy smile. The other is darker, more serious, scanning the room like a bodyguard. But it's Lucian everyone watches. Lucian who makes conversations stop mid-sentence. Lucian who moves through the cafeteria like he owns it.

Because he basically does.

His eyes sweep the room, land on me for half a second. Something flashes in them, dark and intense, before he looks away. Deliberately. Publicly.

It hurts more than it should.

He sits at the center table, the one by the windows with the best view. The blonde guy says something that makes him smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes. He looks bored. Untouchable. Nothing like the boy who touched my cheek this morning and confessed he wanted to claim me.

"That's Brandon Locke," Mia says when I finally reach her table. "The blonde one. Tech genius, genuinely nice guy, Lucian's best friend since middle school. The other one is Marcus Chen. Quiet, loyal, protective."

"And the table full of girls staring daggers at us?"

Mia doesn't even have to look. "Tiffany Monroe and her disciples. Queen bee, wannabe queen consort. She's been after Lucian since freshman year."

Tiffany is everything I'm not. Tall, willowy, with honey-blonde hair that catches the light like spun gold. She's wearing the uniform like it was designed specifically for her body. Diamond earrings, designer bag, perfect makeup. She's laughing at something Lucian said, her hand on his arm, possessive and confident.

He doesn't pull away.

I force myself to look down at my lunch. "They look good together."

"They look like what everyone expects," Mia corrects. "Doesn't mean it's what anyone wants."

Before I can ask what she means, my phone buzzes. I shouldn't check it. I know I shouldn't. But I do anyway.

Unknown number: enjoying the show?

Me: what show?

Unknown: watching me pretend you don't exist. watching you pretend it doesn't kill you.

My head snaps up, searching. Lucian is still at his table, phone in hand, not looking at me. But I know it's him. Feel it.

Me: you told me to stay away

Him: I lied. I can't stay away from you. been thinking about you all morning. about this morning. about what I want to do to you.

Heat floods my face. I glance around, paranoid that someone can read the texts over my shoulder.

Me: stop

Him: can't. tried. failing. meet me after school. west wing of the library. tell no one.

Me: this is a bad idea

Him: everything about this is a bad idea. meet me anyway.

I'm about to respond when Tiffany's voice cuts through the cafeteria chatter. She's standing now, phone in hand, and her smile is venomous.

"Oh my God, everyone look at this."

The cafeteria quiets. Screens light up around the room as students check whatever Tiffany just posted.

Mia's face goes pale. "Aria…"

My phone buzzes with a notification. Someone tagged me in a post on the academy's social app.

I open it.

It's the photo from this morning. Me in Lucian's car. But it's been edited, zoomed in, captioned with: New gold digger in town. Guess the Hayes fortune has a new leech. #CharityCase #DesperateMuch #StayInYourLane

The comments are already rolling in. Hundreds of them. Vicious. Creative in their cruelty.

The room spins. I can feel every eye on me, judging, laughing, tearing me apart.

I don't look at Lucian. Can't. If I see pity or worse, indifference, I'll break.

I stand, my lunch untouched, and walk out of the cafeteria. I don't run. I refuse to run. But my vision blurs and my hands shake and by the time I reach the hallway, I can't breathe.

The bathroom. I need to get to the bathroom.

I push through the door, grateful it's empty, and lock myself in a stall. My phone won't stop buzzing. Notifications. Comments. Tags. Everyone has an opinion about the girl who doesn't belong.

I press my back against the stall door and slide down until I'm sitting on the floor. This is day one. Day one, and I'm already drowning.

The bathroom door opens. Footsteps. Multiple pairs.

"I know you're in here." Tiffany's voice, sickly sweet. "We should talk. Girl to girl."

I hold my breath, praying she'll give up and leave.

"Come out, Aria. Unless you want me to crawl under the door to have this conversation."

I stand, unlock the stall, step out.

Tiffany and three other girls block the exit. They're all beautiful in that calculated way. All smiling like predators.

"Let me make something very clear," Tiffany says, examining her perfect manicured nails. "Lucian Hayes is off limits. Not your stepbrother. Not your friend. Not your anything."

"I'm not interested in…"

"I don't care what you're interested in." Her eyes snap to mine, cold and hard. "You're nothing. A charity case playing dress-up. And if you get in my way, I will destroy you."

One of the girls steps forward, coffee cup in hand. Before I can react, she tips it. Hot liquid splashes across my uniform, soaking through the white shirt.

I gasp, stumbling back, but there's nowhere to go.

Tiffany smiles. "Oops. How clumsy. You should be more careful."

They file out, laughing, leaving me alone in the bathroom, soaked and shaking and wondering how badly I can fail at staying invisible.

My phone buzzes one more time.

Lucian: where are you? what happened? I felt…

I turn off my phone.

Whatever he felt, he's going to have to feel from a distance.

Because Tiffany was right about one thing.

I don't belong here.