VICKEY –
Vickey Harris dragged her combat boots across the sun-warmed flagstones of the quad, each scuff mark a tiny act of vandalism against Thornfield's postcard perfection. She'd been dreading this circus since the letter arrived—thick, cream stock that smelled of old money and empty promises. Her mother had cried real tears, hugging that acceptance like it might erase the trailer park from her memory.
That morning, Vickey had spent three hours streaking purple through black hair—war paint she refused to shed. Thick kohl ringed her violet-blue eyes like armor.
The registration table squatted in the middle of the quad, a folding fortress draped in Thornfield-blue cloth. Behind it perched a woman who looked dipped in starch and pearls, her smile the kind rich people reserved for the help.
"Name?" The woman's voice sliced the air, cold enough to crack glass.
"Vickey Harris." She let it drip out slow, deliberate. "With an e-y, not an i-e."
The administrator's perfectly manicured fingers hovered over her tablet, a microsecond of hesitation. "And you're here on... scholarship?"
The pause was surgical, meant to cut. Vickey felt her pulse crawl higher, fists curling until chipped polish bit half-moons into her palms. "Yeah. Full ride. Art focus." Her voice dropped an octave. "That gonna be a problem?"
"Of course not." But the woman's smile thinned into something brittle. "Though I do hope you understand Thornfield holds certain... standards when it comes to appearance and conduct."
Vickey's laugh rang out, brittle and bright as shattered glass on marble. "Don't worry, lady. I clean up real nice when I feel like it."
She ripped the schedule and campus map from manicured hands, letting her gaze drift to catalog the local fauna: pastel sweaters draped over sculpted shoulders, loafers soft as butter, smiles sharp enough to wound. They moved in choreographed clusters, speaking in that hush reserved for funerals and family scandals.
And then, like a dropped stitch in an otherwise perfect tapestry, she saw him.
He leaned against a marble pillar at the quad's edge, one knee bent, sketchbook balanced between long fingers, dark hair falling across his forehead in studied chaos. His uniform skirted the edge of rebellion—shirt untucked just enough to piss off a dean, tie loosened like a shrug at the rules.
But it wasn't the tousled hair or rebel tie that snagged her breath. It was his hands. Long, deliberate fingers gliding over paper like they owned it, sketching something she couldn't quite see. Artist's hands. She'd know them anywhere.
Cameron Hayes. She'd studied his face under the glow of a cracked phone screen at three a.m.—that official portrait all neat angles and public-school polish. But the living, breathing version had shadows that didn't make it onto glossy brochures.
As if he could feel her stare, his head lifted. Gray eyes cold as January storms locked onto hers. For a heartbeat, the crowded hall fell away—just predator and prey, though she wasn't sure which she was meant to be.
Then he pushed off the pillar and started toward her, every step oozing quiet confidence born of bloodlines and secrets.
"Art focus, right?" His voice slid over her skin like velvet hiding a razor's edge.
She blinked, pulse skipping. "How did you—"
"Your hands." His gaze flicked to her paint-stained fingers, a slow grin ghosting across his mouth. "And you've been mentally gutting this place since the second you walked in the gates. Trust me, I know the look."
Heat prickled up her neck because damn it—he wasn't wrong. She'd been silently tearing the place down to its foundations, imagining murals bleeding across sterile walls and sculpture twisting into polished marble like vines cracking stone.
"Studio Four," he murmured, fingers ghosting toward her campus map. His skin brushed hers—just enough friction to light a spark that raced up her arm. "Northwest corner. Best natural light on campus." His mouth curved, secrets hidden in the shadows of his smile. "And more importantly… no one goes there to watch."
Before she could answer, he flipped open his sketchbook, spine creaking like a confession. What stared back at her made the air catch in her lungs.
It was her—not just the angles of her jaw or the streaks in her hair, but the ferocity behind her stare, the way she wore defiance like armor and dared the world to strike first. It wasn't pretty. It was raw. True.
"When did you—" Her voice cracked.
"Just now." He tore the page free with the kind of precise violence only an artist could love and slid it into her folder. His fingers brushed hers again—purposeful this time. "Welcome to Thornfield, Vickey-with-an-e-y."
He leaned in, his breath warm against her ear. "Something tells me you and I are going to make some beautiful trouble together."
The word trouble curled around her spine, sweet as a promise. Sharp as a threat.
Across the quad, past neat rows of manicured hedges, she caught sight of a man in coaching gear watching them like a hawk sighting its next meal. Older. Ex-military, judging by the posture so rigid it looked carved from granite. Derek Hayes. She'd memorized his faculty photo in her late-night research spirals.
Their eyes locked, a fleeting second that stretched long enough for a chill to slither down her spine. He was already unlocking his phone, thumbs moving with surgical precision.
"Friend of yours?" she asked, chin jerking toward him.
Cameron's mask cracked, just enough to reveal the sharp edge underneath. The careless poise faltered, replaced by something colder, darker. "That's my father."
Flat. Lifeless. The way he said it told her more than a thousand family portraits ever could.
"Well," she said, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder, "this should be interesting."
Cameron's half-smile returned—feral this time, sharp as broken glass. "Vickey Harris," he drawled, like her name was something dangerous he'd decided to keep in his pocket, "I think you're going to fit in here just fine."
She turned away, the drawing pressed to her chest like armor stitched from graphite and intent. Could practically feel their gazes burning across her back—one curious, almost hungry; the other calculating.
She'd arrived at Thornfield expecting to be the wolf among sheep.
Now she saw the truth shimmering under the polite veneer: she hadn't walked into a pasture. She'd stepped straight into a den of wolves, each one more dangerous than the last.
And for the first time since she'd stepped onto these perfect grounds, the realization didn't make her stomach clench in fear.
It made her smile.