Nightshade: An Enemies to Lovers, Dark Academic Romance (Sorrowsong University Book 1)
Nightshade: Chapter 11

The spider in my bedroom has extended its web from the ceiling to the window.

The rugby team won their first match of the season in Edinburgh.

Cortinar won the monthly swimming tournament this week.

Around me, the world moves on. Inhaling and exhaling a steady beat of everyday happenings and extraordinary events, but for me, time stopped a week ago.

When Sofia’s father held a gun to my head and asked me what happened, and I saw the rage in his eyes was just an ugly manifestation of the grief of a father.

Jaden Adeoye was reported missing shortly after Mr. Ivanov’s arrival, but I know he wasn’t to blame.

Glued down by the feeling of blood on my hands and the sadness in my heart, I haven’t managed to leave my bedroom this week. On Saturday the sun came out, but it only illuminated the decaying corners of my mind.

I know I’ll have to leave soon, mostly because by my calculations I’m due to run out of shortbread biscuits by this evening.

And also because I need to eat something, anything that isn’t shortbread.

My phone chimes with a notification, a sound that, a couple of weeks ago, made me feel less alone, but now it just fills me with dread. I roll onto my belly to see the phone on the floor. There are two notifications from this morning, and Vincenzo’s makes me smile. I’d like to live inside his head for a while.

Dinner. Dinner means dining hall, and dining hall means hundreds of people. Hundreds of eyes and hundreds of questions. I shut the screen off and roll onto my back.

I’ve never felt as torn as I do now. I dreamed of a university space for a long time, watched my dad proudly tell supermarket cashiers and dentists alike that I’d be the first in my generation to get one. Maybe I didn’t envision it here, but I envisioned it somewhere.

But then I remember my dad cried when I broke my ankle at seven. Cried when I felt lonely at school at ten. Cried when I first looked in the mirror, pinched the skin below my belly button, and said I’d do anything to look like someone else. That man would cry if he saw me now, and I know in my heart he’d tell me that no victory is worth it if you lose yourself on the way.

Maybe a better way to honor my parents is to just live a beautiful, blissfully ordinary life.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed, my feet planting on the cold stone floor. Stretching my arms above my head, I take a failed attempt at a deep, calming breath. I swear, I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have two unblocked nostrils, but if I ever get to experience such bliss again, I’ll never take it for granted.

I pad into the bathroom and for the first time in a while, turn the mirror back around. Heavy violet circles sit under my eyes, my skin so pale it’s almost translucent. Even now, I see my mother staring back at me. It’s an odd thing, to look so much like her. It’s a reminder of how lucky I was to have her and how bereft I am now she’s gone.

I turn the shower to freezing and step under the spray, letting the cold breathe life into my rotting limbs again. I allow myself to feel grateful my stalker has been silent since Sofia’s death. Perhaps it was her after all.

By the time I’ve dried my hair and stepped into my joggers and giant jumper, I feel like a human again.

A human with a mission.

I crack open my bedroom door and creep down the stairs. Two Nightshade students in the foyer raise their eyebrows as I hit the bottom step.

“Almost forgot you existed, Winters.”

The other one snorts. “Careful, mate. She’ll kill you in your sleep.”

I shove my headphones over my ears and keep walking through the mansion and out into the gray drizzle outside. If people talk to me, I don’t notice. I breeze under the portcullis and into the castle courtyard, through the chapel and into Achlys’s Hall. She sneers down at me like she knew I wouldn’t last here.

“Fuck you,” I mutter, rapping on the well-concealed door in the painting. The hall is silent for a few moments until the sound of heels clicking on tile draws nearer and the door swings open. Eva, Carmichael’s PA, looks me up and down beneath her thick eyeliner. “Ms. Winters.”

“Please can I see Chancellor Carmichael?”

She pushes her red glasses up her nose and spins on her heel like a soldier. “Follow me.”

We traverse the wooden steps up to Carmichael’s office in unfriendly silence, and she gestures to the red chesterfield sofa opposite his desk. “He will be free shortly.”

I nod, running my eyes over the infinite books and boxes that cover every wall of the office. Even in this era of smartphones and unmanned drones, Carmichael’s office is lit solely by candles and dull light from the windows. I wait for the sound of Eva’s heels to fade away and stand, pacing the perimeter of the room. My mission to avenge my parents’ death sits abandoned at the back of my mind, but as the minutes stretch on, the three red boxes on the second to top shelf look so tempting.

Too tempting.

I’m up on the sliding ladder before I know it, lifting the lid from one of the boxes. My fingers carve three lines through a thick layer of dust.

I flick through year after year of the staff shuttle helicopter maintenance sheets, moving to another box until I hit one from the month and year I lost my parents. A rush of adrenaline courses through me as I tug the file from the box and open the faded brown cover sheet.

There’s a record of preflight checks for every time the helicopter is used on a Monday morning and Friday evening. I run my finger down the November dates, stopping on the final one. The helicopter had a full annual service the day before it went down.

Beneath, the words aircraft scrapped and recycled due to age are scrawled across the remaining empty boxes, and the paper crinkles in my fists. Scrapped is an interesting word for crashed. The initials in the final box are M.S., and a desperate part of me wants to replace out who that is and what they know.

“Has a book taken your fancy?”

I jump so hard I nearly topple off the ladder, hunching over the box to try and block Carmichael’s view of the shelf as I shove the file back and close the lid. I must come back to get it. “Um…yeah. Sorry.” I hold up a random book and wave it in his direction.

“The Male Body, an Owner’s Guide?”

I glance down at the clothbound book in my hand and wish I’d fallen off the ladder. “Yeah…always good to be…informed, you know?” Christ.

He strokes his goatee and eyes me suspiciously. “Indeed.”

I descend with very little grace and sink onto the sofa. “I came to tell you I need to leave.”

“You are free to come and go from the campus as often as you please, so long as it does not impact your attendance.”

I fiddle with the tassel on my joggers. “No, I want to leave. Quit. Unenroll, whatever you want to call it.”

He takes his thin-framed glasses off and places them on the giant desk. “Your father would be most disappointed.”

It’s a punch to the stomach, but I square my shoulders. “Do you think you’re doing a good job of running this university if students can just kill other students?”

“People will kill other people, Ophelia. It’s a sad but inevitable fact of life. It happens in universities, schools, hospitals, prisons, homes. I can, however, try and create well-rounded individuals who know how to cope with hardship. As Shakespeare said, ‘death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.’”

The quote triggers an alarm bell at the back of my head where it joins the growing pile of literature quotes I have been fed since I joined Sorrowsong. I narrow my eyes at Carmichael, trying to discern between meaningless coincidence and a well-hidden confession. “I’d like to leave.”

“Leave if you wish. Your first term’s fees will be due at the end of October.”

My mouth drops open. “My fees? You said I was on a scholarship.”

“Yes, should you complete your degree, you’ll receive your scholarship.”

“What?” I rake my hand through my hair. “I obviously don’t have twenty-five thousand pounds lying around.”

“Twenty-three.”

“Oh,” I throw both hands in the air, “twenty-three! Excellent. You should’ve said so before, I can pay that now.”

“Can you?”

“No!” My head drops down into my hands. “Why are you doing this?”

“I am sorry that Mr. Ivanov interrogated you. That was an oversight on my part. It is not a reason to give up on your degree.”

“It’s not just that. It’s the creepy anonymous texts. It’s the students. It’s the dead girl in my room. It’s the weather.” Tears sting my eyes, but I’m on a roll. “It’s the sound of that fucking helicopter taking off on a Friday afternoon. It’s the fact that I know my mother planted the geraniums outside the Nightshade mansion. I’m sick of it all.”

He regards me with a serious expression, the gray mustache on his top lip moving as he presses his lips together. For a moment, I think he’s considering my request. He checks his pocket watch. “Shouldn’t you be in a social psychology lecture? Wouldn’t want to lose your scholarship due to lack of attendance, would you?”

The sofa scrapes along the floor with the force with which I stand. The edges of my vision are clouded red, but I force myself to appear calm. “Have a wonderful day.”

“And you, Ms. Winters.”

I don’t have my laptop, textbooks, or my notepad, but I wind my way into the pointed spire in the farthest corner of the castle for my social psychology lecture. I can’t think a week, day, or even an hour into the future, so I just focus on the next step. Left foot. Right foot. Don’t cry. Open door. Close door. Don’t cry.

There are murmurs as I walk into the lecture hall, where everyone is sitting in their pairs for the project. Half of them believe a false rumor that I murdered my roommate for snoring, the other half believe I’ve seduced the Alex Corbeau-Green.

Unfortunately for me, Divya has fallen into the first category. I don’t blame her. She knows I wouldn’t sleep with Alex.

Even if both rumors are falser than Colette’s eyelashes, I think I’ve impressed some people, and that can’t hurt. Ascending the carpeted stairs, I sink into the seat beside Alex, sliding a little lower down the wood. My fingers itch with the urge to text someone, anyone, about my talk with Carmichael, but I’m not sure who’d care.

Beside me, a low, soft voice cuts through Professor Andersson’s lecture. “You ignored my emails. I shouldn’t have made that comment in the bathroom, I’m sorry.”

I stare down at my hands, picking the brown nail polish off with my thumb. “I haven’t checked them.”

“Two weeks ago, you lectured me about not pulling my weight on the coursework.”

“That was before I woke up beside a dead girl.”

His fingers pause over his keyboard, and I sense his eyes turn to me. “Are you all right?”

The one question I’ve longed to hear, from the only person I don’t want it from. “I’m doing fine.”

“I think your T-shirt is backward.”

I look down at the neckline of my jumper where the label of my top pokes out from beneath my sweater. I scowl at him. “Deliberate.”

His voice drops to a husky whisper, his scent filling my nostrils as he leans toward me. “Given a rumor that we’re together holds up our dreams of being, oh, I don’t know…not in prison, maybe you should act like you’re not physically repulsed by me?”

“This is me trying.”

I look up at him to see him pressing his lips together in an effort not to smile, flecks of gold glittering in his irises. “You didn’t like our alibi?”

“I think it’s sad you had to make up a whole story just to convince people you could last an hour in bed with me.”

He tips his head back and laughs. It’s genuine and throaty, and like the rest of the room, it makes it impossible for me to look away from him. He doesn’t seem to notice. “You’re funny, Twist, when you’re not actively being insufferable.” He resumes his typing. “I could show you the best ten seconds of your life.”

Now I’m laughing, and I don’t know if it’s at his dumb joke or at the hysterical state of my life, but it does feel good. “I’m all right. Cheers, though.”

He angles his laptop so I can share the screen, opening up our report. His sections are almost finished already, as well as half of mine. My chest sinks. I’m drowning here. I’m behind on my other modules too. “I’m sorry. I’ll catch up.”

“You can repay me by not strangling me again.”

Whoops. I almost forgot I did that. That whole night is a tangled mess of memory and hallucination. “It was an accident.”

He raises an eyebrow. “An accident?”

“Tripped and fell onto your neck. That’s how I remember it anyway.”

He grins, but I sober my expression, horrified at the small upturn in my mood. I cannot get friendly with Alex. He’s probably only here to take on his father’s wicked empire. He is his father.

Professor Andersson’s heels click to a stop at our desk, her red lips forming a smile in Alex’s direction. “How are you two getting on?”

“Fine,” we both say, a little too tensely.

She hums in disapproval. “Maybe you’d benefit from a little icebreaker, you know? Get to know each other?”

“Oh, they know each other well enough all right,” interjects a student somewhere behind us. I roll my eyes, ignoring the look Andersson is giving Alex that says I wish you weren’t my student.

The girl in front of me swivels round to face us, eyes brimming with curiosity. “How was it?”

I give her a shy smile. “It was great. The big ones hurt, so…Alex is perfect.”

He laughs in disbelief beside me, leaning forward to be closer to our curious neighbor. “Best two inches of her life.”

She turns back around, face laden with disappointment. A warm breath tickles my ear, a hard thigh pressing against my own. “Ophelia, Ophelia, Ophelia. What am I going to do with you?”

Something hot and unfamiliar unfurls in my lower stomach. “Leave me alone, hopefully.”

A gravelly hum sounds in his throat. “No longer an option.”

His thumb presses against the spot where my pulse hammers below my ear. My breathing betrays me, but his does too. He shifts in his seat. I press my thighs together. The ping of his phone injects some common sense into me, shattering the strange atmosphere around us. I shuffle away from him on the bench, trying to lose everyone’s attention.

When the mortified lecturer moves on in a swish of platinum hair and red lipstick, Alex rests his chin on his palm and stares over at me beneath long, dark lashes. He’s playful, but something about him seems sinister, like he’s luring me into a trap. “Maybe she’s right, Twist. We should get to know each other.”

“That would be pointless.” The second I hit Submit on this project, I’ll never see Alex again.

“Awh, come on. I want to know things.”

“Such as?”

His eyes flicker with something that isn’t his usual disinterest. Sinister curiosity. His fingers drum on his lower lip. “Such as, what’s your real reason for being here?”

I fire back a question of my own. “Do you get on with your father?”

“Why’d you lie about who your parents are?”

“Why’d you drop out of Yale?”

I watch the shutter of indifference fall back over his eyes, the line of his shoulders tensing. He turns his gaze back to his laptop. “You’re right. This is pointless.”

I press my lips together, a flicker of regret slithering up my spine. I’ve hit a nerve, but I don’t apologize. Hating him is easier when he hates me too.

We return to our notes in complete silence, neither one willing to open up to the other. I wish I wasn’t so aware of him, of the aftershave that clings to his rugby hoodie, or the gold ring on his pinky finger. Of the low exhale that leaves his lips when he stretches his arms over his head, or the way the tattoos look when he brings them back down.

It’s superficial attraction, but it’s infuriating all the same.

My phone buzzes on the desk, and I grab it before Alex can see.

_____________________________

From: Alan Sine

Subject: Don’t leave me.

Date: Thursday 10th October 15:32 BST

To: Ophelia Winters

You wouldn’t leave me to rot in this castle alone, would you?

_____________________________

The warm ball of hope in my chest punctures. My stalker is still alive, meaning my stalker is more than likely a killer.

Attached to the email is a photo of a page from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. One line is circled.

When you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.

I can’t drag my eyes away from the subject line.

There’s only one person in Sorrowsong who knows I was intending to leave.

I’ve had a gut feeling about Carmichael since the first time I met him.

Somewhere in the last few hours, my dread has bubbled into fury. Once I have the culprit in my hands, perhaps the rumors about me won’t be false after all.

I knock on the open door of Professor Bancroft’s office just as he takes a bite of a sandwich, sending a splotch of mayonnaise onto his chartreuse shirt.

He makes a garbled noise through the bread in his mouth and sits up, gesturing to the spare chair beside him. I awkwardly sink into it, watching him swallow the comically large mouthful by unhinging his jaw like a snake. “Ophelia. I missed you at the lectures this week.”

“Sorry, I…it’s been a hard week.”

He smiles over at me sympathetically, a breadcrumb clinging onto his bottom lip for dear life. “I was very sorry to hear about your roommate. If it’s any consolation, I don’t believe you’d kill her in a million years.”

“Thank you,” I reply, my voice hoarse with emotion. “I…haven’t really slept since it happened. I’m completely trapped here. Some days I don’t feel like I can do it.”

“I lost my parents at a similar age to you,” he says, his weathered hand picking up his cup of tea. “It took an awfully long time for me not to feel lonely again, even when I was out with my friends.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I mumble. A question about Carmichael is on the tip of my tongue. Do you think the chancellor would stalk a student? It would be so easy to ask, but something stops me. If they’re close friends and Carmichael replaces out I’m suspicious of him, God knows what he might do.

I decide to wait for better proof.

Professor Bancroft’s brown shoes shuffle over to a printer where he removes a couple of sheets of paper. “Here. These will catch you up on all you missed.” He smiles warmly. “I’ve cut out my endless waffling.”

I breathe out a grateful laugh, staring down at the notes on change and transitions in childhood. I open up my backpack and stuff them inside. “Thank you, sir.”

“The Great Gatsby,” he says, nodding at the book in my bag. “Your mother loved that book.”

“She did.”

A fond expression crosses his face. “She was reading in the libraries often. I’m not sure how much she liked it here.”

I offer him a tight smile as I sling my bag over my shoulder, unsure what to say in return.

“And Ophelia,” he says, stopping me as I reach the door. “You are never alone. Your parents are in your heart.”

I stare down at my feet until the burning behind my eyes fades. I hate it when people say that. “I just wish they were outside of it too.”