Nightshade: An Enemies to Lovers, Dark Academic Romance (Sorrowsong University Book 1)
Nightshade: Chapter 7

Atext from Divya pings through while my Childhood and Youth Psychology lecturer wraps up our session.

I’m not completely sure, but I think it might have just woken me up. My nights have been increasingly sleepless, punctuated by strange noises that have me convinced I’m going insane. Still, the idea of Chancellor Carmichael catching me asleep in a lecture is mortifying. Must do better. I sit up straighter and unlock my phone immediately.

I need to replace these red boxes.

“The lecture is finished, Ms. Winters.”

I look up to see the last few students trailing out of the doorway and Professor Bancroft staring up at me from the lectern below, putting his brick of a laptop into a weathered briefcase. He is a kind-looking man in his early sixties who looks like he might have been worn down by the rough tides of life. His knitted sweater doesn’t fit right, there’s a coffee stain on his tie, and he has a weird, old-man musk about him.

He shoves his glasses farther up his nose, and I jump to my feet, gathering my books under my arm. “I’m so sorry. I was listening, I swear.”

His smile is warm, thin wrinkles crinkling the aging skin around his eyes. “I believe you. Struggling to make friends?”

Ouch. I didn’t think it was that obvious. I tuck a stray wave of hair behind my ear, the crimson-carpeted steps groaning as I descend toward him. “Maybe a little.”

“They’ll warm up to you. Don’t despair.”

I can’t help my laugh. Unless I can pull a trust fund and the will to give a shit about the FTSE 100 Index out of my ass, I doubt it. “I’m not so sure. It’s nice to have a friendly face around here, anyway.”

His smile fades slightly as I get closer, lost in some past memory. The words that slip past his lips are scarcely a whisper, but I hear them well enough. “You look just like your mother.”

His words punch me in the gut, and the wave of grief that follows almost knocks me to my knees. I am the spitting image of my mother. It took months for me to be able to bear my own reflection after I lost her, and even now, I turn the mirror in the bathroom around.

I have my mother’s face, painted in my father’s style. “You knew her?”

A flush creeps onto his wrinkled face. He has the grace to look a little mortified, at least. “I’m so sorry. That was a terrible thing to say. I’ve never had much tact, I’m afraid. Please forget I brought her up, I’m sure that isn’t pleasant for you.”

“No…it’s…it’s nice to hear someone talk about her.” Especially after a certain airline executive swept her entire existence under the rug. “Was she well known?”

“Oh, she was very popular here. Such a bright, cheery face in this dark castle, lighting up the dreary days. I see you’ve got her hair.”

His words are both the knife that carves a larger hole in my heart and the salve that dulls the sting of the wound. “I miss them,” I whisper, more to myself than Dr. Bancroft. I’ve had such a lonely few years that I’m not sure if I’ve ever said that out loud before.

He flicks the gold light switch as we leave, plunging the gothic lecture hall into darkness. “I can imagine it’s been a very difficult few years. If you ever need to talk to someone, I’m always here or in my office in the eastern spire.”

Someone is being kind to me, willingly. Things are looking up for the attendance rate at my funeral. I picture Divya, Dr. Bancroft, and May, my parents’ ancient neighbor, awkwardly eating tuna sandwiches and commenting on the mediocrity of my life. She was good at crosswords, wasn’t she? I liked that green T-shirt she had. She had decent handwriting.

Nice.

My social psychology class is in the oldest part of the castle: a slightly slanted tower that oozes gothic grandeur. Glass windows sit beneath pointed arches and crumbling flying buttresses, the lichen-covered walls almost black in the rain.

I follow the map on my phone, winding down forgotten hallways and through overgrown courtyards where a few students sit and study in silence. In a hallway that’s almost pitch black, I reach a large set of warped wooden doors, the handles shaped like twisted vines. The rusting hinges grumble as I push them open and step into a huge teaching room that looks like it’s been untouched since the day the castle was built.

Shadows cling to the arches on the high, vaulted ceilings, intricate carvings run down to the weathered wood paneling on the walls. The front and back walls are covered in floor-to-ceiling bookcases, the air thick with the smell of aging parchment and dust. I like it here.

Between a few glares and whispers in my direction, a whistle shoots toward me. “You look good, Hemlock girl!”

Shawn jogs over and grins at me, his teeth the brightest thing in this room. They might even be veneers, which would be a real turn-off. He’s immaculately dressed in a pale blue shirt, loafers, and sand-colored chinos, like a poster boy for the American Dream. Still, it’s kind of nice to have a familiar face here. “Shawn? I thought you were studying business.”

“Business with psychology. We do one psychology module a year. It’s the most popular combination here. Always good to be able to read people in business.” His eyes sweep down over my checkered miniskirt and knitted jumper, and they’re full of approval when they come back up to mine. I’m not sure if I feel flattered or uncomfortable.

He seems harmless enough.

“Makes sense,” I mumble, following him between rows of timeworn desks and brown leather seats. He drapes himself over a bench on the second row and unlocks his laptop. He’s looking at the Stocks app on his iPhone; the one that sits comfortably beside Garage Band in my I’ve-got-no-fucking-idea-what-they-do folder. I’m careful to sit a few chairs along. I don’t want to give anyone ideas.

“Ophelia!”

I’m strangely popular today. I look up to see Vincenzo coming in the doorway, waving manically like he genuinely is excited to see me. I can’t help but laugh. His inked, muscular frame is hugged by black cargo trousers and a black turtleneck that stretches over his chest as he slaps Alex’s arm and says, “Look, it’s Ophelia.”

Alex looks as serious as ever. He doesn’t respond or glance in my direction, which is perfectly fine with me.

Everyone in this room is either rich, famous, or both, but there’s a certain aura around Alex that has other people staring at him too. He moves like a shadow, dressed monochromatically and carrying nothing but a black notebook and pen.

There’s no expression on his face as they head toward me, but his eyes tell another story. I wish I could pinpoint the look that he always has in his eye; like beneath the stony exterior, a fire is burning so hot, so intense, that it consumes him.

I wonder what fuels it.

He doesn’t protest when Vincenzo bounds over to the row of seats behind me, reaching over to squeeze my shoulder. “We’re classmates!”

“I can see that, Vincenzo,” I mutter, facing the front.

“Where’d you learn to swim like that? Why don’t you like Alex? He’s a good guy, really, you know? Has your roommate stabbed you yet? Have you stabbed your roommate yet? Did you have the salad or the pie at dinner last night? We honestly thought you’d drowned at the swimming trials. Alex was delighted. Did you nearly drown? Want some gum? Shit, I forgot my gum. Have you got any gum?”

He peppers me with questions, which bounce off my back onto the carpeted floor beneath our feet, ignored and unanswered. He’s annoying, but I’m grinning at my laptop screen as I type. I don’t know what’s in the air around here, but it must be strong if I’m considering befriending a cold-blooded mafia killer.

As I type up a sentence about social influence, a perfectly folded piece of paper lands on my fading keyboard. I unfold it and look up at Shawn, who winks at me and returns to his writing. It’s his phone number, scrawled in neat writing. It’s so cliché, but I smile and add it to my contacts. I dropped out of school just as boys were turning from gross, mysterious creatures to intriguing, marginally less gross crushes. This is all new to me.

Another note bounces off my laptop screen, this one screwed into a ball so tightly that it looks like a piece of chewing gum. I sigh and open it out. It takes me a minute to read the almost childlike handwriting, pressed so hard into the paper that there are tiny holes in it.

Shawn Miller probably still breastfeeds from his mama when he goes home for Christmas.

“Vincenzo!” I hiss, spinning around to face him. He just grins, the little script tattoo on his temple crumpling. Beside him, Alex’s notebook is unopened on the table, a crease between his eyebrows as he types something on his phone. He puts it on the table but immediately, it lights up again with an incoming text. He yanks it from the surface again and a muscle in his jaw tics.

Vincenzo peers over Alex’s shoulder. “All good, brother?”

I turn back to the front, straining to listen to anything that’ll help me nail his father’s coffin. “Fleur’s boyfriend has cheated on her.”

The pencil in Vincenzo’s hand snaps. “The skinny guy?”

Alex hums in response. “I’ve dealt with it.”

I shudder, wondering what that means in their world. I wonder if Vincenzo knows anything about the helicopter crash. Probably, but I doubt he’d ever tell me. He’s too loyal to be of use to me.

Professor Andersson introduces our coursework task, a joint essay on conformity, obedience, and strategies of persuasion. She’s an attractive woman in her early forties with thick, blonde hair and an even thicker Swedish accent. She matches everyone into twelve pairs. Shawn is with the preppy clone of himself to his left, Alex is with Vincenzo.

I’m the odd one out.

“Ah. Ophelia. You can join another pair, or⁠—”

“I can do it on my own.” My nonexistent social life will help with that.

“Not to be advised, but…fine, I suppose,” she says, turning a page in her notebook. She starts to speak again, interrupted by the huge doors creaking open. Sofia strides in, ignoring the lecturer as she stomps her way to a seat.

Professor Andersson peers over her red glasses at her. “Ms. Ivanov. You can do the essay with Ophelia.”

Marvelous.

Sofia casts her eyes up to the ceiling. “I’m not doing it with her.”

“You two can iron out your differences, I’m sure.”

“It’ll be your fault when I kill her,” snaps Sofia, staying firmly in her seat.

“I’ll go with Ophelia. Pick me!” shouts Vincenzo, through a mouthful of raisins. I can’t help but laugh. He’s ridiculous, but he’s in my corner.

Andersson huffs. “You’re all adults, for heaven’s sake. Sofia, you can go with Vincenzo.”

The whole room lets out a whoosh of air through their teeth. “Rival families. Bad idea,” warns a girl at the front. Andersson mutters something about not being paid enough for any of this and pairs Shawn with Vincenzo, Shawn 2.0 with Sofia, and….

No.

“Ophelia and Alex.”

I open my mouth to protest, because I’d genuinely rather work with Sofia, but the glare Andersson gives me makes me close it again. The heavy sigh from behind me tells me Alex isn’t keen either. This is not good.

I’m momentarily distracted by an incoming text.

Genuine gratitude expands my chest.

Oh my god. I look down at my brown skirt and sweater. Maybe it has a tiny hole, but it adds to my rustic charm. Doesn’t it? I spin around to Vincenzo. “Would you say my style is girl-next-door?”

Dark eyelashes flutter, a wonky smile appearing on his face. “Whatever you say it is, angel, I agree,” he says, at the same time that Alex mutters, “Dickensian-orphan-next-door, more like.”

I glare at him for a beat until he drops his phone to the desk and stares right back at me with that striking pair of eyes. Christ, he’s a work of art. A twisted, heinous, evil work of art. “Problem, Winters?”

You’re my problem, Alex. You’re all of my problems. I grit my teeth, narrowing my eyes at him slightly before turning back to face the front, distracting myself with the lecture.

Two hours fly by, and I replace myself genuinely interested in the content. Learning about how people can be influenced into doing bad things by powerful people feels relevant to my mission.

The same can’t be said for Vin, who is watching some viral dating show with his earbuds in. He pulls out an earbud and slaps Alex on the shoulder with far more force than is necessary. “No fucking way. Andrea chose Michael. Even after Michael went in the hot tub with Ekuwa.”

Alex lets out a wearied sigh, eyes fixed on his notes as he writes. “They’re all fucking stupid, Vincenzo.”

As Andersson wraps up, Alex rips a page from his book and slaps it on the table in front of Vin. It’s an extremely simplified summary of the lecture in big block capital letters. Vincenzo pauses his phone on a shot of two bikini-clad women trying to pop balloons with their crotches. Each to their own. “Thanks, man. Dunno where I’d be without you.”

Alex doesn’t reply, closing his leather notebook and gliding down the steps toward Andersson as everyone else leaves. I linger around awkwardly, shuffling from foot to foot by the doorway as I wait for Alex. He’s engrossed in hushed conversation with Andersson, hand rubbing the five o’clock shadow over his jaw as she shakes her head. Reaching into the pocket of his black slacks, he produces a wad of banknotes, tossing them onto the lectern between them both.

Andersson shakes her head again. He sighs and rests his elbow on the wood, a fabricated smile tipping the corners of his mouth up. He rakes a hand through his unruly hair, letting it flop over his forehead in that way. Whatever it is he’s asking for, Andersson looks like she’s about to give him it as she flips her platinum hair over her shoulder and flushes.

For fuck’s sake. She’s twice our age, flirting with a student who has even less personality than me, and that’s saying something. I’m dryer than Dr. Bancroft’s scalp.

Both of their eyes turn to me, and something flits through Andersson’s expression that makes me turn away in disgust at myself.

Pity.

I push through the double doors and into the cool air in the hall, letting the embarrassment drain from my face. Whatever. I’ll talk to Alex later—or maybe I won’t; I doubt he’ll be much help with the project, anyway. I breeze past faded portraits that sneer down at me, beneath thick cobwebs, over the stone floor that has been smoothed by centuries of footsteps before me.

I run my finger along the wall as I walk, watching the dust gather on my pale skin, and wonder if my mother walked this same hallway. Did she count down the hours until the end of each day like I do? Did she really like it here?

Behind me, the stillness in the hallway is fractured by a dull scrape, like the shuffle of two feet on stone. Unease prickles my nape, silence hanging in the deserted hallway. “Alex?”

I creep toward the direction of the sound, hovering outside a closed door. Tentatively, I turn the handle, and I’m met with a dark, empty teaching room. It’s deserted, but I can’t fight the feeling that someone is in here. “Alex?”

“Doing a tremendous job of convincing me you’re not obsessed with me, Twist. Do you shout my name in your dreams, too?”

I step back from the doorway, spotting Alex lazily strolling down the hallway, too far away to have been the noise I heard. Someone must’ve been here, watching me again.

His voice is as soft as silk, melting over the goose bumps on my arm as he flashes me that famous smile. It doesn’t fool me, but I give him one right back; just as cheerful, just as false. “Only when it’s a nightmare.”

He palms his jaw, thumb tracing the sculpted curve of his lower lip. It takes a few seconds to drag my gaze away. “So I’m on your mind.”

“What did you want with Andersson?”

“Tried paying her to make you go away.”

I hate him. “Yeah? And how did that work out for you?”

“Turns out, someone on this planet thinks you have potential.”

“Or maybe she knows you’d fail the essay without me.”

“How old are you, Ophelia?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Twenty-one.”

One eyebrow raises like he’s surprised by this snippet of information. “Quite old.”

“All right, DiCaprio, calm down. What do you need next, the name of my first childhood pet?”

“Please. The street you grew up on, and the three digits on the back of your credit card too.” The bitter smile on his face evaporates, his body leaning closer. Close enough for me to notice every shade of green in his irises. “What I want to know is why a girl like you would come to this university three years late with nothing but a shitty bag of cheap clothes and some made-up stories about your parents. No one with your surname works for the government here.”

How he has found that information out, I do not know, but my heartbeat rises to a sickly rhythm in my throat. Hearing a Corbeau-Green talk about my parents is nauseating on so many levels. I need to get this conversation on safer ground. “What my parents do is none of your business. We need to choose a day to start the essay.”

He stifles a yawn like he’s bored of the conversation. Bored of me. Bored of it all. “I’ll do the essay. No time in each other’s vicinity required. I’ll forward it to you when it’s done.”

Tempting, but no. Carmichael does not need any excuses to get rid of me. “Tonight at six?”

“Got rugby training. Four o’clock in the library?”

“I’ll be swimming. Eight? After dinner?”

His tone is sarcastic as he turns to leave. “Great. I’ll wear a tux.”

“I’ll wear my pajamas,” I reply, watching his powerful form slip through the doorway.

The hallway is silent once more, colder and darker than the rest of the castle. The same sensation creeps up my neck, a prickling feeling that I’m not alone. I hurry out of the castle, wondering how I’m going to survive an hour alone in Alex’s company tonight.

“Great job today, Winters.” Belladonna tosses me a sports drink in the swimming locker room with an approving nod.

It turns out, Sorrowsong has an indoor pool after all. In fact, it’s probably the most modern amenity I’ve seen in my time here. Belladonna just decided to have the trials in the near-freezing river because she’s…Belladonna.

Colette hums her agreement, swiping a rosy gloss over her lips in the mirror. “You’re like…really fast.”

“Thanks,” I mutter, stuffing my towel into my bag. My mind is elsewhere, lost in a cloud of black smoke infecting a rain-washed forest. A phone number for a helicopter engineer is burning a hole in the pocket of my jogging bottoms.

Nicholas Papadopoulos is the first shard of hope that Divya has discovered while trawling through maintenance databases and old emails. He was a Green Aviation contractor conducting safety checks at Sorrowsong for ten years until the month of my parents’ death.

Odd timing.

Damp strands of my hair lash against my face as I step into the storm outside, hunched over to see the screen as I punch the number into my phone and press it to my ear. A long, monotonous beep bleeds out of the speaker.

No signal.

Of course.

“Dinner?”

Colette jogs out into the storm toward me. Her pink umbrella is inside out, and the Barbie pink skirt of her dress is a similar shape, but I respect her commitment to fashion. “Sure.”

Wet gravel crunches underfoot as we hurry to the imposing main structure of the castle and out of the rain. My phone buzzes with a text in my pocket, but I’m distracted by the smell of food wafting from the dining hall. My stomach grumbles. I’m a firm believer that there are not many wounds that a giant bowl of carbohydrates can’t fix.

“Want one?” Colette picks up a salad pot, hand hovering over another.

“Salad makes me sad,” I reply, plucking an immaculately presented carbonara from the counter. I grab a bowl of fruit for good measure and join Colette and her friendship group.

As they ease into conversation about a celebrity divorce, I tug my phone from my pocket and stare at the notification in disbelief.

I puff out a frustrated exhale and ask Colette if she gave Alex my number. She wouldn’t have meant any harm, but the idea of him having it is sickening. It’s another betrayal of my father’s final request to me.

“No, but he’s texting you?” replies Colette excitedly. “Oh my god.”

I rub my sweaty palms over my thighs and tap out a reply.

I reread his first message and frown.

If I wasn’t so annoyed, the irony of Alex Corbeau-Green using a frowny face would force a chuckle out of me. I click on the icon at the top of the screen and block his number.

The delicious smell of the pasta turns rancid in my nose, the dish congealing into a scrambled mass in front of me. My skin prickles with an uncomfortable dread, unwilling to spend an hour in his company.

I down the last of my wine and mumble an excuse to the table, gluing my eyes to the top right corner of my phone the whole walk back to my halls, hoping for one little bar of signal to appear. I’m so transfixed on the screen that I slam into someone, staggering backward in the busy foyer.

Amid flashing lights and music, my eyes adjust fast enough to see Sofia’s palm swing toward my face. I duck it just in time, drawing “oohs” and “ahhs” from the crowd of already drunk partygoers around us.

“What the hell?”

In the purple lighting, she looks crazed. “You stole my iPad.”

“Incorrect.”

Her bony fingers jab toward my face. “You’re so desperate for attention, you’ve agreed to spy for the Morellos.”

“Twenty pounds says it’s in your wardrobe where it usually is.” Sofia’s wardrobe is like an allegory of the inside of my mind; open it just an inch, and a lifetime’s worth of dusty old shit falls out.

She grabs me by the neck and the room whoops with excitement, but I force my breath to be steady as her bony fingers dig into my throat. “I’ll kill you in your sleep, Winters.”

Calmly, I prize her hand off me. “You can try.”

The first thing I did when I got back to my room was open Sofia’s unlocked wardrobe and replace her iPad beneath a pile of fishnet tights and mud-caked boots. Now, freshly showered and dressed in a brown pleated skirt, thick tights, and one of my dad’s knitted jumpers, I redial the most recent number in my call log. With each ring, my hope dwindles, until a hoarse voice crackles down the line. “Papadopoulos.”

I’m so shocked to hear his voice, my delicately planned script doesn’t come out. Now the moment is here, I’m grappling to replace the words I want to say.

A ragged sigh muffles the microphone. “Gamo. Fucking spam callers.”

Desperation knocks me out of my speechlessness. “No, wait. Wait. Don’t hang up. It’s Nicholas, right?”

I hear a slow exhale, imagining a puff of cigarette smoke leaving his lips. There’s a pause before his thick Greek accent returns. “That’s what I just said, and I’m not interested in your insurance. Not for my dog, not for my car, not for my life.”

“I’m calling from Sorrowsong. I wanted to know⁠—”

Another puff of air. “Don’t work there no more.”

I cut to the chase. “I know. I’m calling about the helicopter accident a few years ago.”

The silence stretches on long enough for me to pull my phone from my ear and check the call is still active. “Mr. Papadopoulos?”

“What the fuck do you want from me?” he barks, his tone switching instantly from bored disinterest to visceral rage. “You people tell me to shut up and I do. You tell me to forget it, but you’re making it very hard.”

I open my mouth, but I’m cut off by the flat sound of the line going dead. I hurl the phone at the bed and press the heels of my hands into my eyes, the beginning of a migraine setting in.

I don’t know what I’m doing here, suspended in some sort of half-surviving state, fueled by a mission I’m not even sure will be worth it. I just can’t let it go, because the second I do is the second I have nothing left to wake up for in the morning.

I’m not ashamed to admit my parents are—were—my closest friends. I’d skip house parties to stay at home and play Scrabble with them, and I’d wake up without regrets. Successes, failures, heartbreaks, dreams, they were all poured down the phone line during my quiet evenings at home while my mother tended to Sorrowsong’s gardens.

I wasn’t always close to them—geographically, that is, thanks to their jobs at Sorrowsong—but they were always on the other end of a string. If I tugged it hard enough, they’d be there. If I tied a paper cup to each end, they’d be listening on the other side. When it felt like the world was crumbling, they’d stick it back together again with homemade apple pies and weekend camping trips.

Everyone has their string people—the people they are tied to, whether it be through blood or trauma or friendship. It’s a luxury I didn’t realize I had. A comfort blanket that was so constantly there, I never even noticed how warm it kept me at night.

I never considered I might lose it. Now my summers are quiet, my Christmases are silent, and when I tug on my piece of string, the other end slithers along the ground at my feet.

That is what the Greens have done to me. That is why I cannot take Nicholas’s no for an answer, why I can’t befriend Alex—or even Vincenzo, why I have to last here, even if it’ll cost me my sanity.

I won’t replace the people on the other end of my string, but I can ruin the people who cut it in half.