Nightshade: An Enemies to Lovers, Dark Academic Romance (Sorrowsong University Book 1)
Nightshade: Chapter 16

Stupid, ginger pigeon.

It’s the worst way a man has ever described me, and yet I’ve never felt so seen.

I bury my head under yet another blanket as a flash of lightning illuminates the room. No matter how many layers I hide under, I can always see it.

My phone tells me it’s five in the morning, and I’m still waiting for sleep to drag me under.

I’m scared.

Forty minutes until the Monday morning staff helicopter comes in. My shitty headphones don’t drown it out. My fingers can’t block it out. My pillow somehow makes it louder.

Each time, the panic attack seems worse.

I can’t lie here and wait anymore. It’s torture. Instead, I roll out of bed, tug on some warmer clothes, and make my way outside.

I want the folder from Carmichael’s office.

I don’t know yet what I’ll do with my case against Cain Green, but I want it to be as strong as it can be.

My parents never got a proper funeral. Never got any justice. The official records haven’t even been updated from missing. They were simply erased from this planet without a trace.

My feelings for Alex and his mother may be increasingly murky, but my feelings for his father are very simple.

I pull my hood over the wavy mess that is my hair as I jog along the deserted path to the castle. Sorrowsong is cloaked in quiet darkness, the last remnants of the storm fading away.

The sound of Alex’s mother crying out his name echoes through my mind.

What burden must that have on a child?

Perhaps Alex is not his father at all.

The hallways of the castle’s central structure are dark enough to make me walk faster, as if something is lurking in the black abyss behind me. I don’t pass anyone as I walk past the Cortinar halls and down into Achlys’s Hall.

She’s illuminated in the moonlight, looking over me with that blood-curdling smile. “Piss off,” I mutter, looking up at her.

I swear her smile grows.

An early riser as always, I hear the click clack of Eva’s heels on the inside of the door. I rap on the painting, waiting for the door to swing open.

Eva is in a suit so intensely purple that it burns my corneas. My eyes flick to the photo of the car pinned to the wall behind her desk. “Ms. Winters. The chancellor has not arrived for the day yet.”

“I’m here to see you, actually. I was just on a run and…is the red Mazda yours?”

“Yes.” She pales. “Is she okay?”

“The alarm was going off is all. Not sure if the storm rocked it, or….”

“Oh no.” She pulls on her raincoat. “I better check.”

She leaves in such a hurry, she forgets to lock the door.

Shame.

I take the steps to Carmichael’s mezzanine office two at a time, rolling the sliding ladder to the right. I’m on limited time. I cringe at the mud my shoes leave on the ladder as I throw myself up it, pulling the third red box forward.

I flick through the months of the year my parents died. August, September, October.

November is missing.

No. I flick through every folder again.

And again.

I rip the lids off the other two boxes going over every file twice.

November that year is gone without a trace.

When I opened that box a few weeks ago, the cardboard cracked open, stiffened with age. My fingers left paths in the dust. No one had touched it for years.

And now it’s gone.

My fingers tremble as I haphazardly stuff the maintenance records back into the boxes. Who’d have taken it?

No one saw me in here except…

My phone chimes with an email.

_____________________________

From: Alan Sine

Subject: Trespassing

Date: Monday 20th October 05:24 BST

To: Ophelia Winters

Anne Brontë said it best.

I love the silent hour of the night.

_____________________________

I don’t care if I’m poking the bear. Carmichael can wither to dust. I reply with a favorite quote of mine.

_____________________________

From: Ophelia Winters

Subject: RE: Trespassing

Date: Monday 20th October 05:25 BST

To: Alan Sine

Galileo said it better.

I’ve loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

_____________________________

I replace the lids on each box, clambering down the ladder so fast I almost fall. I freeze at the sound of voices below.

Eva isn’t back, but Carmichael is. Why is everyone up so early?

I lunge for the door in Carmichael’s office, the one that leads onto the mezzanine of the chapel, but it’s locked.

Fuck.

The bottom stairs creak with slow footsteps, and I’m standing in the middle of his office at five in the morning like a thief caught red-handed.

His emails may be harmless, but murdering my roommate was not. My breaths come quick and ragged as I look for somewhere, anywhere, to hide.

I come up short.

As the first gray hairs of Carmichael’s head appear over the top stair, I frantically throw myself onto the Persian rug at my feet and wedge myself under the sofa. There’s only just enough room for me to inhale, but I’m holding my breath as he steps into the office.

Two Bottega horsebit loafers shuffle to a stop at the edge of the sofa, inches from my head. I don’t smell that nutmeg-licorice scent that lingered at the tarn and on Sofia’s body, but I know it’s been him this whole time.

I clasp my hand over my nose and mouth in a bid to remain undiscovered. Each of my breaths sounds like it’s through a megaphone. I watch the maroon leather shoes move a few paces away, over to the ladder.

My eyes widen like I’ve just taken a kick to the stomach. My sharp inhale slips through the gaps in my fingers.

I left the ladder out of place.

You idiot, Ophelia. Carmichael rolls it back into the corner of the room where it belongs, the scrape of the wood too loud, too jarring, against the fragile skin of my ear on the floor. He paces a slow circle around the room. I squeeze my eyes shut, my head swimming with a desperate urge to breathe properly.

“Don’t just wait there. Come and sit.”

Oh fuck. I let out the exhale I’ve been holding, trying to come up with any excuse for why I’m lying under the sofa. Nothing comes. Just as I start to roll out, a second voice joins us.

“Morning, Harris.”

I freeze again as two familiar black boots come into view. What is Alex doing in Carmichael’s office at this hour? The boots pace toward me, and I brace myself.

Please don’t choose the sofa. Please don’t choose the sofa. Please don’t choose the sofa.

He flops down on the sofa lazily, the red leather pressing down onto my already constricted stomach. My face is pressed between the sofa and the floorboard, lungs desperate for air.

Alex sets his notebook, phone, and keys on the floor beside his feet, so close I could touch them. I feel the base of the sofa shift as he leans forward toward Carmichael’s desk. “Brontë fan?”

Oh my god. My gasp is so loud that I’m sure I’ve been caught.

It’s him. It’s Carmichael.

“Not particularly.”

“Did you read my proposition?”

“I read it.”

“And?”

“And I think you’re twenty-three years old.”

Even through my muffled version of the conversation, I can sense Alex’s anger. “So you’re out?”

“Alex, abusing my position as the chairman of the board of your father’s company is unwise.”

Carmichael is on the board of Green Aviation? My whole body pulls taut.

Does he know what I’m doing here? Is that why he’s trying to break me? So the truth never comes out?

Somewhere in my head, a puzzle piece clicks into position.

Alex’s voice rises. “Did you read section four?”

“I did.”

A fist lands on the sofa, and I swear it bursts my eardrum. “Then do your fucking job, Carmichael!”

I don’t have time to ponder Alex’s uncharacteristic outburst, because the whir of the helicopter flying in over the valley rumbles the wood beneath my head. I clench my sweaty fists tighter. Unable to breathe and unable to move, I feel like I’m about to be hardened into steel like the suit of armor in the corner of the office.

I can’t guide myself through the panic.

I don’t have my crossword book, or my headphones.

There’s no shower for me to crawl into.

Only the sticky leather that feels like bugs crawling across my clammy skin.

I can’t breathe.

I’m going to die under this sofa, a mouse trapped in the lion’s den.

Not in a ball of fire like my mother and father, but in silent stillness. My lungs will turn to stone.

I’ll die alone. Broken and bitter like the painting outside.

I am Achlys.

I don’t care if Alex feels me move beneath him. I use all my power to push the sofa up enough to press the heels of my hands over my ears. I keep focus on all the things that I can see. The delicately crafted foot of the sofa. The black leather of Alex’s boots. The piece of lint by my face.

I count the keys on the clip beside his phone. A gold one for his room. The small, black fob for the Nightshade mansion, a smaller one that might be for a window, and the cleaner’s master key with the green tag.

I almost hear my mind screech to a halt. The cleaner’s what? I reread the tiny, fading writing on the green plastic.

What the hell does he have a stolen master key for?

The helicopter touches down, the whir of the rotor blades getting slower and slower until it stops altogether.

As it always does, my heartbeat mirrors the rhythm of the blades.

The gold rings glint on Alex’s hand as he picks up his phone. I try, really try, to listen to their conversation for useful information, but when Alex mentions the words fiscal year, my brain powers down.

I see my screen light up beside my head, and dread lances into my chest like a knife. I don’t switch it onto silent fast enough, and the chime of an email pings loud and clear in the quiet office.

Alex clears his throat. “Sorry. That was my Green work phone.”

_____________________________

From: Alex Corbeau-Green

Subject: Claustrophobic (adjective) having an extreme or irrational fear of confined places

Date: Monday 20th October 05:43 BST

To: Ophelia Winters

I’m just dying to know the reason you are lying beneath me right now.

_____________________________

I read the email in utter disbelief. How does he know? Does that mean Carmichael knows? I’m just going to throw myself in the tarn and never get out.

I type a shaky reply with one finger and switch the phone to silent.

_____________________________

From: Ophelia Winters

Subject: Asphyxia (noun) a condition in which the body is deprived of oxygen

Date: Monday 20th October 05:44 BST

To: Alex Corbeau-Green

Can you shift to the right a bit? You’re right on my fucking lungs.

_____________________________

I hear Alex breathe out a laugh as Carmichael drones on about whatever it is he likes to drone on about.

_____________________________

From: Alex Corbeau-Green

Subject: Oneirology (noun) the scientific study of dreams

Date: Monday 20th October 05:44 BST

To: Ophelia Winters

In the nineteen times it’s happened in my head, my first time on top of you didn’t look like this.

_____________________________

He thinks about me.

My breath catches in my throat. My thighs press together. Somewhere between yesterday morning and now, there’s another element to our conversations.

One that makes me feel unfamiliar things. One that feels so wrong and yet so sinfully right. I think of the Alex who put his little sister to bed. The one who crossed a continent when his mother called his name.

Here in this moment, I let myself believe Alex is not his father.

I picture him sitting opposite Carmichael, and maybe the residual adrenaline of a fading panic attack makes me braver, because my reply sends a thrill through me.

_____________________________

From: Ophelia Winters

Subject: 1 Across

Date: Monday 20th October 05:46 BST

To: Alex Corbeau-Green

Nine letters. First letter U.

I’m not wearing any.

_____________________________

Each beat of silence takes another bite out of my confidence, until Carmichael clears his throat with a tone laced with annoyance. “Have you got something more interesting going on?”

I feel Alex shift in his seat, and when his voice comes, it’s hoarse with desire. “Honestly, sir, you have no idea.”

_____________________________

From: Alex Corbeau-Green

Subject: 2 Down

Date: Monday 20th October 05:47 BST

To: Ophelia Winters

Two words. Five and six. First letters H and A.

I’m about to have one.

_____________________________

I smother my laugh in my elbow. I like the idea that I could give him a heart attack.

_____________________________

From: Ophelia Winters

Subject: Fiscal Year (who the fuck knows?) who the fuck cares?

Date: Monday 20th October 05:47 BST

To: Alex Corbeau-Green

Please wrap this meeting up. I’m ten minutes away from the stomach rumbles.

Bonus points if you can bring the old fart with you when you leave.

_____________________________

His laugh makes me feel ten feet tall. I hear the click of his phone shutting off and watch it clatter back down to the floor. “Sorry, Harris. You know how funny Vincenzo can be. Can we talk outside? I’m always more focused in nature.”

“Very well,” the chancellor grumbles. If I had a millimeter of space to tip my head back with sheer relief, I would. Two pairs of shoes creak across the floorboards. I hear Carmichael rap his knuckles on the banister twice to get his secretary’s attention. “Eva, please email Ms. Winters and tell her she is welcome in my office any time. There’s no need to sneak in.”

Fuck.

“She’s a strange one, that one,” mutters Alex as they descend the stairs. Carmichael mumbles his agreement.

I shut my eyes and let my stomach sink with a slow exhale.

I don’t know what I’m doing. I couldn’t even pull off secret missions in Club Penguin, I don’t know what inflated my ego enough to make me think I can take down a Fortune 500 CEO.

With about as much grace as a fish out of water, I start to shuffle out from beneath the sofa and sink myself into the wingback armchair opposite the desk and let my eyelids drift shut. All my hopes in secrecy lie in ruins, so I pick the cobwebs from my hair, get comfortable and wait for Carmichael’s return.

Carmichael took longer than I thought. By the time he comes back up the stairs, I’ve eaten half of the humbugs in the bowl on his desk and obliterated BieberLover6969 in an online game of Scrabble.

I sit up straighter. “Morning, sir.”

“Ophelia. Do help yourself to the mints.”

Whoops. “I haven’t had breakfast yet. I can replace them.”

“Did you replace what you were looking for in my office?”

“Were you, at any point, intending to tell me that my parents didn’t die in an accident?”

It’s infinitesimal, but I notice the way his body freezes on the way down into his chair. The leather creaks as he leans back and looks up at me through those strange, pale eyes. “I considered it.”

My next exhale comes out shaky. “So this is not a surprise to you.”

“It is not.”

I’m out of my chair before my next breath, clenched fists leaning on the wooden surface in front of him. “And you didn’t think it was the sort of information I deserved to know?”

“I fail to see what use that information is to you now. There are few things more painful in life than the things we cannot change.”

I’m three seconds away from throttling him. “It matters because my life has been on pause for four years.”

He has the audacity to look bored. “You paused your life. You could’ve done any number of things after that helicopter went down, but you chose stagnation.”

My knuckles crack against the cherrywood. Wrath bubbles up to my throat, sour and bitter. There it is; the disappointment, the expectation that trauma has to turn into an inspirational story. That a life changing injury should end in a Paralympic gold and an awful childhood should fuel your meteoric rise to success.

Just surviving is achievement enough.

“You owe me the truth. You owe me the reason that a helicopter full of ordinary people was sabotaged.” My voice rises to a shout, because I’m worried if I don’t shout then I’ll cry. “You owe me the reason it was allowed to happen under your nose, your roof, your authority.”

His palms slam down on the desk twice as hard as mine, his slender frame rising to his feet. I watch him snap in front of me. The pensive, antiquated gentleman melts away to leave nothing but acrid vitriol behind.

It’s a new side to Carmichael, and as he looks at me with nothing but fury in his eyes, I’d say it’s the first time he’s looked truly alive. His shout comes even louder than mine, crackling through the air like an electric current. “Your mother was not the angel you remember her to be.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I know what you’re doing here, and you would do well to cease your investigations. Your scholarship was a kind offer of a second chance at life, not a chance to dig around in matters you ought to stay out of.”

“Scared of what I’ll replace out? Scared I’ll damage your fortune in Green Aviation stock?”

If I don’t kill him, he looks like he may kill me first. He snaps his fingers twice. “Eva, escort Ms. Winters out, please.”

Eva’s heels click against the stairs to the mezzanine. “Does the name Alan Sine mean anything to you?”

“Eva, escort her out.”

“Is there a reason you’re trapping me here?” I shout, as I’m all but dragged out by Carmichael’s bright purple guard dog, eyes fixed on the dull gray sheen to his as the door slams in my face.

Fuck him.

Fuck him, and fuck this university. I repeat it like a mantra as I storm through the castle and back toward the Nightshade mansion.

A twig snaps, fracturing the wintry air around me.

Alex stands at the end of the forested path to the mansion, green eyes piercing through the haze of smoke from the cigarette dangling from his lips. Beneath the dull light of the struggling sun, he looks huge.

I stop walking.

He takes a slow, lazy drag, nostrils flaring slightly with frustration. “I don’t like it when people encroach on private conversations.”

“I don’t like it when people encroach on private burglaries.”

Everything about him makes my heart run faster. Pacing toward me, he rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, like he’s burning up even in the autumn chill. “What did you want in his office?”

I’d never tell you. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Matters to me.”

“Shame.”

He takes a step forward. “Don’t make me chase you.”

I take a step back. “I have stamina.”

“I’d rather replace that out a different way.”

My next step falters, heel catching in the mud behind me. I fall, but I don’t hit the ground. One tattooed arm wraps around my waist, strong and warm.

Alex gazes down at me, the cherry of the cigarette glowing as he takes another drag.

“Smoking raises your blood pressure,” I whisper, my voice more hoarse than it should be. It’s a stupid comment, a feeble attempt at dissolving the tension between us, at getting back into the familiar hatred and out of whatever this is.

His grip on my waist doesn’t loosen, the heat of his large hand scorching through my hoodie. “You raise my blood pressure.”

“How?”

His eyes drop to my lips for the smallest of moments. “That backless dress from last night, for a start.”

The chatter and pounding feet of a small group of runners travel up the path, and Alex drags us into the bushes.

My back hits the trunk of a small ash tree, chest rising and falling faster.

The cigarette hisses as he puts it out against the bark just a hair’s breadth away from my ear. The light is lower, casting soft shadows over the contours of his face. His palms land either side of my head, and then his thick forearms.

“Don’t.” Don’t touch me. Don’t kiss me. Just don’t.

“Bold of you to assume I want to.”

But he does want to. I see it in his body language because I see it in my own.

I never wanted to meet Alex. Never wanted to see him, touch him, want him. None of this is right.

I’m adrift at sea; so far off course, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

The cold metal of the ring on his index finger grazes my skin as he lifts my chin. “Do you want to know how I knew you were under the sofa?”

I look away, focusing on a knot on the next tree along. “No.”

He grasps my face in his left hand, firm but gentle, forcing me to look at him. It’s too hot, too humid, too dense beneath the trees. “Because everything smells like you.” He leans in closer. Close enough for me to see the cut and bruise on his face from his rugby match. Close enough for me to see the usual storm in his eyes has been replaced by something else entirely. “The passenger seat of my car, the couch in Carmichael’s office, my fucking bedsheets. You’re everywhere.”

He’s so close I can almost taste him. Taste my own weakness, my confusion.

I feel like I can hear the drumming of his heart, feel it against my chest in time with my own.

But I must be wrong, because I’ve never believed he has one.

The atmosphere is so heavy, so thick with desire that it feels like sticky syrup around us, dripping down the neck of my hoodie. His eyes are on my mouth when he finally speaks. “Whatever secret reason you’re here for, tell me Shawn Miller is all part of it.”

My hand wraps around his forearm, and I don’t know if it’s to touch him or to stop him getting any closer. “It wouldn’t matter if he wasn’t.”

“You’re too good a woman for a man like him.”

“And you’d be better?”

A dark chuckle vibrates in his throat. “Ophelia, love, I’d be significantly worse. But I can’t watch you with him.”

Somehow, we’ve ended up closer, my hands against his chest to keep a precious gap between us. “Then look away.”

He looks at me like I’ve asked him to pluck the moon from the sky and bottle it for me. “Can’t.”

“You don’t know me at all.” You don’t know what I came here to do. What I still might do.

You don’t know what I might do to your family.

To your mother.

I’m a monster. Just like Cain Green. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. A family for a family. He burnt away my kindness, my compassion. The ash he left behind is bitter and calamitous.

I look up at him, desperately trying to convey the words I can’t bring myself to say. Stay away from me. You don’t know what I’ll do to you.

His lips hover over mine, forehead to forehead. And beneath the panic, the horror, the knowledge that this is wrong, a tiny part of me is just grateful to be close to someone, grateful to be wanted. “Did he kiss you?”

“You have no right to know that.”

His voice is strained, like he knows that but asked it anyway. For a second, I think he’s going to do it. The quiet voice at the back of my head is on its knees, pleading for more. My lower abdomen clenches. “Put me out of my goddamn misery, Ophelia.”

“Yes,” I whisper. It’s a lie, but the gap between us cools as he pulls away a fraction.

The frosty curtain closes over his eyes again. “So you really like him, huh?”

“Yes.”

I don’t know if he believes me, but he does respect it. He pulls away to let me step back onto the path. I suck in a deep breath, the air cool and crisp once more.

My environment may be clearer, but my mind is just as foggy as it was in the trees. “Our relationship doesn’t extend beyond studying, Alex.”

He straightens his collar, running a hand through his hair. “Of course.”

We walk back to the Nightshade mansion in tense silence, but for some reason I’m biting my lip to hold in a laugh.

This is all ridiculous.

Alex pierces the quiet first. “I bet Shawn jumps up and down in the club.”

The laugh escapes like water from a burst pipe. It’s cathartic, hysterical, and quite possibly manic, but I don’t care. I’m stuck here in this place I hate so much it’s almost funny. “With his finger in the air, too?”

Now Alex is laughing. “And talks about the perks of cryptocurrency between songs.”

“Hey, the Federal Reserve has literally just cut the interest rate. The market capitalization of cryptocurrency has had a great boost. Risk appetite is high right now.”

Alex smothers his laugh in both hands. It’s beautiful. “He did not.”

“The whole fucking date.”

“Oh my god.”

“He’s sweet.”

Alex scans his card at the impressive double door of the mansion. “He probably still sends out his Snapchat streaks in the morning.”

I blurt out the question burning at the back of my mind. “Why do you have a stolen master key?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “It lets me into the Grand Library past opening hours.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He opens the door to let me in, looking down at me in a way that makes my traitorous cheeks blush. “It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe me. Just like it doesn’t matter that I think you can’t stand Shawn any more than I can.”

Can’t argue with that.

We ascend the first two floors in silence, but we’re almost at the top when he breaks it. “Why all the crosswords?”

I shrug as his footsteps echo behind mine. “Just to occupy my mind.”

“So you’re like me.”

“In what way?”

“Worried about where your mind will go if left unoccupied.”

Ten words. Ten words that I’ve been trying to articulate for years. Ten words that make me think I’ve had it all wrong about Alex Corbeau-Green.

Ten words that make me feel less alone.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “They’re a cage for my thoughts.”

We stop on the top step, staring at each other like two astronauts that have bumped into each other on a faraway planet. “I understand,” he says, his voice buttery soft.

I’m too close to doing something I’ll regret. Something I cannot do. “I need to go to the gym. I need to train my shoulders,” I blurt out.

“Okay, are you asking my permission, or…?”

“I have to go.” I scan my student card at the door to our hallway about fifty thousand times and barge through it, bolting into my bedroom like my life depends on it.

I sink to the floor on the other side of the door like I’ve just run a half marathon, head in my hands.

None of this is happening.

I’m not really here.

I’m not really trapped.

I’m not really growing fonder of him.