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“Hey, Dahlia?” She smirks at me. “Do me a favor and take the wins when they’re served up to you on a silver platter, yeah?”
I roll my eyes and grin back. “Facts.”
A second later, I’m firing off a reply email to my advisor, graciously accepting the internship with a company I’ve never heard of.
Because Eilish is right. Sometimes, you’ve just gotta take the wins. And who knows? Maybe this is a sign that despite the shit going down with mom and Gerard, and all the craziness happening with Callie and Castle, and the looming presence of the devil himself lurking behind every corner I pass on the street…
Maybe things are going to be just fine after all.
6
DEIMOS
Six years ago:
“They’ll bethrough here any second.” Diego sucks on his imported Spanish cigarillo—his one and only brand because it literally bears his grandfather’s name on the carton—before exhaling smoke out of the corner of his lips. “We still doing this?”
“Fuckyeahwe’re still doing it,” Ivan growls next to me.
The three of us—Ivan, Diego, and I—are lying in wait behind one of the many hedgerows that meander across the Knightsblood campus.
Knightsblood—what a fucking pretentious name for a school. From what I remember, vaguely, from freshman orientation, or perhaps it was in the literature I got in the mail before I arrived here, the place was founded in the early 1800’s by scholars from some of England’s finest universities.
The original idea was to foster a “true English university in America” for the sons of lords, dukes, and other powerful “royally adjacent” families who were immigrating here. A school to match the likes of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in academic merit, while also maintaining arigidand strict adherence to royal lineage.
“To the blood of king and crown, cross and knighthood”. Hence, Knightsblood.
Over the years, it…evolved. Though some might use the worddevolved. Some might say the very fact that you’ve heard quite a lot about Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, butnothingof Knightsblood, means that the original idea of theirs shit the bed, hard.
And maybe it did. But then another, bigger and grander, truly unique, and maybe even more important idea took root and flourished.
This place is no longer about “royal blood” in the sense that its students are the heirs of kings and queens, or children of dukes and barons. Now, it’s a place that the offspring of a…well, shall we say anewsort of monarchy come to grow, learn, andplay.
Diego’s family, for example, is Barcelona Mafia. Ivan’s uncle is a topavtoritetfor the Kalishnik Bratva.
Mobsters, mafiosos, Bratva, Cartel…no matter where they’re based, if they’re part of the criminal underworld and they have college-aged kids, those kids are here, at Knightsblood.
I might prowl this place like a demon stalking the halls of hell itself. I might look on the surface like a monster pacing the bars of its cage aching to break free. But the truth is, I fucking love it here.
I mean, I’d love anywhere that isn’t New York. Because fuck that place. And I know when I leave here, there’s a whole other, wider world that I’ll need to conquer in my own way. But for now, in this little mini universe—this microcosm of the larger underworld outside these walls—I’ve risen to becomeking.
As have others, I suppose. But I established a place in my kingdom, as head of The Reckless, when I was just a sophomore.
That’s a first, by the way. Historically, the presidents of the four main student groups have always been seniors. But apparently, with a reputation, bloodline, and social non-conformity like mine…well, you tend to scare people. And if their fear scares them into giving you the seat of power? Well, who am I to be so ungracious as to refuse?
Technically speaking, there’s not supposed to be any fighting or hostility on campus. Yes, some of the students here, even if they are friends while attending, will go on to become mortal enemies outside these walls. But while we’re here, there’s not supposed to be any violence.
But then again, I’m pretty sure there’s not supposed to be any illegal narcotics, either. And yet Diego turns a tidy profit each year bringing in as much cocaine as this place can snort, ensuring that every student who wants to be is thoroughly yakked up to the gills, should they be so inclined.
Other students bring in liquor, or porn, or any other contraband you could think of. Allegedly, there was even a guy a few years ago who was managing to bring in “working girls”—and boys, because equal opportunity—for anyone who might need a bit morecomfortwhile studying for midterms.
Personally, my line is somewhere north of literal prostitution, but I’m not going to judge. Plus, should I need “comfort”, there’s usually a lengthy list of members of the female student body quite ready and willing to drop to their knees and open wide.
Or, they think they’re ready.
But they’re not. Not for me. Not for my demons. Not for my…tastes.
“D.”
