Dissolving Classroom

Ace Rivera only wanted to hand in a late assignment. Instead, he walked into his empty classroom and found his professor being silenced by a stranger in cold blood. Panicked, he ran. He didn’t see the killer’s face—but the killer saw him. Desperate to escape, Ace cuts through the back streets…only to witness a second murder in progress, in the abandoned building he took refuge in. This time, he recognizes the perpetrators instantly. Nikolai and Ivan Volkov. The twins. He doesn't recognize them at first but they are his former high school seniors. The boys who were brilliant, beautiful, terrifying—and untouchable. Now they’re mafia bosses. Now they’re standing over another man’s body. And now they’re staring at him. The twins should kill the witness. Instead, they claim him. Because Ace isn’t just a loose end. He’s the boy they wanted years ago. The one they never approached…because they both wanted him, equally, painfully, obsessively. Fate has delivered him back into their world. And Nikolai and Ivan have no intention of letting him slip away again. They strike a deal “become our new toy… and you live, you will have all your desires and protection from whomever wants to hurt you..” Caught between fear and a past he never knew existed, Ace must learn to survive the twins’ world… …and the twins’ attention. Together, they are intoxicating. Terrifying. Possessive. And they are willing to share everything. Including him.

Someone is killing unmarked souls, and Ru Roberts is the only one that can stop them. That's a bit of a problem, though, since she has no idea she's a Keeper. Adopted as a small child, Ru knows next to nothing about her birth parents. Her new mom insists she was given up because she "ruins everything." Hence, her name-Ruin. Yet, Ru has managed to make a life for herself in the small town of Reaper's Hollow, working as a fourth grade teacher, which she loves. If it wasn't for her inability to touch anything electrical without starting a fire, she'd be the happiest girl in Upstate New York. That is, until the charming and devastatingly handsome Cutter Michaels moves into the classroom across the hallway and starts filling her head with all sorts of unbelievable fantasies. He claims she is the lost Keeper, the daughter of a half-angel and a half-demon, and she is the only one who can help him locate three portals the Reapers, as in Grim Reaper, are using to ferry souls away to the Underworld. Ru knows he's lost his mind, and yet she finds herself being sucked into his delusions more and more each day. The fact that he can shoot blue fire out of his hands might have something to do with that. Once she begins having strange dreams where she comes face to face with Thanatos, the most powerful Reaper of all, Ru begins to think there might be more to Cutter's story than she's been giving him credit for. Will joining Cutter lead her to find her biological parents and discover the powers coursing through her veins, or will Thanatos claim her for his own?

My crippled sister, Monica Porter, jumped from the roof of the classroom building. The day before she died, she had just been fitted with the custom prosthetic legs I had paid for with ten years of savings. She was glowing, excited to finally stand up on her own. But my wife's best friend, a guy she said was just like a brother to her, locked Monica inside an empty art room. He smashed her new legs, forced her to crawl on the floor and lick paint clean to retrieve the broken parts, and recorded everything on video. And my wife, a judge, ultimately ruled that the case could not stand. "The video cannot confirm the time it was recorded and may represent consensual performance art between both parties," she said. Sandra Pauley's final judgment was simple. "The deceased had a history of depression. The school and the defendant bear no responsibility." I smiled and cooked her a full table of food. The next day, I hung the bully, Eric Hoyles, from the school's flagpole and livestreamed it to the entire internet. "Honey, remember how you said Monica had such pretty legs?" I raised a claw hammer and brought it down on his ankle. "If you don't hand over the video evidence right now, I'll hook out his Achilles tendon one strand at a time and let him learn what it feels like to crawl!" The wind passed through. His screaming broke apart in the air, mixing with the strained creaking of the flagpole until it sounded almost like music. The live chat went insane. Meanwhile, I laughed until my eyes filled with tears.

Elena Hayes, a disgraced she wolf born of a rogue bloodline, has spent her life clawing her way out of shame. As a graduate apprentice at the elite Lycan Academy, she dreams of stability beside her long time boyfriend, Marcus Blackthorn the Alpha heir who once promised her everything. But behind closed doors, Marcus is controlling and cruel, and when Elena discovers his betrayal with her wealthy best friend, her fragile world shatters. One fateful full moon night, Elena gives in to despair and to the primal hunger of her wolf. Her reckless escape leads her into the arms of Aiden Blackthorn, Marcus’s rebellious cousin. Their encounter is wild and forbidden, a single night that brands her soul. But when Aiden walks into her classroom the next day as her new student, their dangerous bond explodes into obsession. Haunted by desire and hunted by rumors, Elena becomes trapped between two powerful heirs Marcus, who will destroy her to reclaim control, and Aiden, who refuses to let her go, claiming she is his fated mate. As scandal consumes the academy, Elena loses everything her scholarship, her reputation, her future. Fleeing into exile, she hides in rogue lands, pregnant and alone, certain the Blackthorns will hunt her down. Years later, Aiden finds her and the child who bears his golden eyes. Their reunion rekindles both passion and war. Now, with Marcus’s vengeance and the council’s wrath closing in, Elena must choose between fear and freedom, shame and destiny. In a storm of blood and moonlight, she rises not as the broken outcast they once scorned but as the Luna who defied them all.

After transferring into an elite high school, I was bullied. However, it was not my classmates that bullied me; it was every object in the school. The private bathroom in my dorm only ran icy cold water when I showered, forcing me to trek to the public bathhouse in the dead of winter. When I begged the dorm supervisor, Mrs. Linda Mercer, to submit a repair request, she rolled her eyes and said, "The students who lived here last year never had this problem. Why is it suddenly broken when you move in?" My student ID card never worked in the library or the cafeteria. Every single time, it failed to scan, and I had to register manually. The multimedia equipment in the classroom froze whenever I touched it, dragging down the entire class schedule. I went to the teachers for help. They frowned and complained instead. "Everyone else can use it just fine. Why does it only malfunction when you do?" Even my deskmate rolled her eyes and mocked me. "You put on such a show every day. You are the only one who's so special. Are we supposed to stop studying just for you?" One strange incident after another completely isolated me at my new school. I cried and begged my parents to let me transfer again. They said, "The college entrance exam is right around the corner. Stop making trouble. Just endure it, and it will pass." I listened. I decided to grit my teeth and push through. Then, on the day of the college entrance exam, the security gate malfunctioned and started leaking electricity. Everyone else was fine. I was the only one who was electrocuted to death on the spot. Until the moment I died, I could not understand why the entire school seemed to be pushing me out. I was just a newly transferred student who had no grudges with anyone. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day I arrived to register at the new school.