Page 1 of Forbidden Lessons

Chapter 1

Bastian

Anyone can be cruel.

It’s an innate ability we’re born with, like a muscle in our body. Some let it wither into atrophy. Others spend time and energy building it up.

Students are cruel to faculty members, and vice versa. Family members, friends, enemies. Kids seem particularly keen to be cruel to each other.

But the person we’re most often cruel toward is ourselves.

Maybe because it doesn’t trigger our conscience.

Maybe because no one will judge us for our internal bullying.

Or maybe because we’re all a little sadistic…and twice as masochistic.

My Lessons in Cruelty course attracts plenty of students each year. Undergraduates looking to score some easy credits. Scholarship students who want to get the biggest bang for their financial aid buck. Special grant chumps who don’t have a fucking choice, and usually wish they did.

Then there are the…others.

Sadists, hunting for inspiration.

Sociopaths, upping their game.

I love figuring out who’s who in the zoo. Professor Rooke’s intimate, rigorously controlled, mind-fuck of a zoo.

I’m seldom dealt a wild card.

This year, I got a pair.

Chapter 2

Haven

They say you can never go home again.

My home was a green eyed boy I met in the woods behind my trailer park, when I was escaping a life no five year old girl should have to suffer through.

Our dark, twisted little games took us away from our awful realities.

We made each other laugh.

Made each other cry.

Made each other bleed.

And the older we got, the harder it was to keep pretending that it was only a game. Until we both had to accept it wasn’t.

It’s been three years since I’ve been home. I’m not sure what’s waiting for me on the other side of the door.

Whatever it is, it’s definitely not a welcome party.

Unless he’s forgotten about me and, dear God, I hope he has.

So then why am I praying he hasn’t?

I tug at the fraying sleeve of my beige cardigan as I trot up the front steps of Agony Hollow College.

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