I shook my head. “You don’t look familiar to me.” That was a lie. As he stood before me and I could see his face properly, I swore I had seen him before, but I couldn’t picture where, particularly under these circumstances where I’d been put on the spot.
He chewed the inside of his mouth, glanced to the back of the carriage with casual confidence like he owned the world and everyone in it. When he focused his attention back on me, this time his eyes landed on my class schedule on the seat next to mine.
A realization came over him when he read something on the page and grunted, “Ah. I knew it.”
In response, I turned my schedule face down so he couldn’t pry and shot that square unshaven jaw a sharp scowl. “Haven’t you got a brunette to cater to?”
His eyebrows cocked. “Brunette?” Then it dawned on him. “Oh, her, yeah, she’s somewhere.” But his attention stayed on me, almost accusingly, as his finger pointed at my schedule. “I thought I recognized your face.”
“I have one of those faces,” I was trying to shaft him, but it wasn’t working. He must be confusing me for someone else. Or was this a pick-up line? No, surely not.
“Ah, no, you don’t. That’s why I recognized you. Boylen,” he mouthed my surname venomously as the skin on my forearms prickled. “You’re his daughter, ain’t you? Maxwell Boleyn’s daughter? Adaline or something?”
My cheeks burned, not because I was embarrassed but because he was speaking as if there was a history laden with dark secrets between my family and his. A history I wasn’t privy to. I was aware my father had enemies, but I didn’t think I’d meet one of them on a train heading to college.
“Who are you?” I pressed in an unfriendly tone, refusing to bow down to the power he obviously bestowed.
He grinned, revealing a dimple that would drive women wild, not me, of course. “Did your father send you here? Or was Castlehill your choice?”
I bit my lip, refusing to answer. “You haven’t answered my question. Who are you? Are you going to give me a name or not?”
He grunted, amused. “It was your father’s choosing or maybe your stepmother, right? You had no choice.”
“How do you know about my stepmother? No. Forget it,” I waved my hand dismissively. “I don’t like playing this game.”
That grin stretched across his dial. I bet life fell into his lap with little effort. He leaned forward so his lips were only a couple of inches away from my cheek. “Too bad, Boleyn. Because Iloveplaying games, particularly with people who destroyed my family.”
My mouth parted in shock, struggling to find a suitable retort. I was about to snarl at the lout to eff off, but he did me a favor and stepped away finally, so I could breathe again. But unfortunately, he stalled and glanced back, smirking, “See you in class, Boleyn.”
“No, thank you,” I screwed my face up in disgust, before flipping my class schedule back over to assess how much he might’ve seen. My name in bold letters at the top of the page,Adina Boleyn,yet he likely called me Adeline deliberately, so I took offence. As if I cared what he thought of me.
But he recognized me from somewhere, and it will plague me until I find out. His confidence and relaxed nature told me that he held authority in some way and filled me with dread. The last thing I needed at a new school was to be bullied by a popular jock with a hidden agenda.
Feeling self-conscious, I opened my phone to look at my face in the camera. Long jet-black curly hair, freckles across my nose, green eyes - nothing special to see here. But to make myself invisible, I took my hair tie out of my backpack pocket and tiedmy hair into a ponytail. I then found a plain black baseball cap and slid it on my head. A pair of large sunglasses would complete the disguise, and if I kept my head down, hopefully he wouldn’t notice me again.
Scrolling through my contacts, I found my father’s number and wrote a message:Why have you sent me across enemy lines? There are people who hate the Boleyn family here. Are you trying to kill me?
Frustrated, I threw my phone down on the spare seat after pressing send, and the message stuck in purgatory because there was no phone reception up high on a mountain. Besides, I couldn’t guarantee that the evil stepmother wouldn’t read it and regretted my decision to message him.
My fingers tapped impatiently on my knee, feeling the walls close in on me, and the enchanting view seemed to drain of color, becoming frightening as my perceptions changed.
On edge, I kept looking out of that large figure in the white t-shirt, but I didn’t see him again for the rest of the journey. When the train made its final stretch along the tracks, I could see a large castle-like building rise from the ashes and hoped like hell that it wasn’t the university.
Sadly, my hopes were quashed when the train pulled up outside high iron gates that led directly into the mouth of the stone beast.
My heart felt heavy in my chest as I gathered my bags and rushed into the aisle with everyone else to disembark from the carriage. When I passed the man I found in a chokehold in the bathroom, he was still staring out the window, clearly waiting for everyone else to leave.
I hoped he’d turn my way, so I could smile, even though he made it clear he didn’t want my attention. But I couldn’t help but feel bad for him. Yet, I knew nothing of the situation. What did he do to annoy the brute in the white T, if anything?
Once I reached the end of the aisle, I turned back one last time to look at the man, and he was still staring out the window as his chest rose and fell as if he was beating off demons in his mind.
2
It didn’t seem like it on the outside, but the university was massively spread out with buildings hidden behind trees and in gullies, and I sighed in relief knowing that there would be places to hide from White T-shirt. Following blindly behind everyone else, I entered through the gates into the stone castle…Oh, I get it now, Castlehill University, duh, was actually on a mountain, not a mere hill, and the university was an enormous stone castle.
I read about the history of this place, which was originally owned by an eccentric, wealthy recluse who donated his castle to a collective that eventually became an elite university. Over the years, they added new buildings, somehow transporting suppliesup the mountain, and I still haven't found an alternative escape route on the campus map. What do students do on weekends without a nearby town with bars and clubs to visit?
There was a cool, dampness to the climate surrounded by mountains and pine trees, and I hoped they had good heating during the winter months when it snows. A shiver ran down the back of my bare neck, and naturally, my hand went to that spot to check that an insect wasn’t crawling along my skin. I glanced behind me, and all I could see were crowds of excitable students in groups chatting, some tossing footballs about, others holding music instrument cases.
