Page 101 of Filthy Elites

“Listen, kid,” I start, stepping up to him and swinging my arm around his shoulders. “This world is full of people who are going to try and take advantage of you. This is true for everyone—regardless of gender or race or status or wealth. It’s part of human nature. It’s not something you can control.” That just bites him in the ass. If ever there were someone more of a control freak than Nicholas Carter, it’s his son, but I don’t say that.

“You’re a sun, Dean, and you’ve got all these planets revolving around you—me, Abel, Brax, your dad. A sun doesn’t get distracted by meteors flying by. A sun just keeps doing what they’re doing—providing light.”

He scoffs. “Me?” he snaps, looking at me sideways like I’m crazy. “Provide light?”

“Okay,” I admit. “Maybe that wasn’t the best metaphor for you. What I’m trying to say is, yeah, people will want you because of what you have. Money. Infamy. The Carter name.” I poke him in the chest. Hard. “But one day, you’ll find someone who comes along who doesn’t give a shit about any of that. All she’ll care about iswhoyou are, who you prove yourself to be.”

His brows draw down low over his eyes and he frowns. “When the hell is that gonna happen?”

I laugh, pulling my arm away. “Hell, kid, I don’t fucking know. I was a psychology major, not a damn psychic. There ain’t no way I could predict the when or where or even how you’ll meet her.”

“Then how do you even know I will?” he demands.

“Because it happens for everyone,” I say. For Nicholas, it’d been a friend—a fellow Eastpoint heir. For me … the image of a fiery brunette with a ready scowl and paint splattered fingers comes to mind. “You’ll find them, someday,” I promise. “And when you do, you better hold on tight. Don’t let them get away.”

“What about you?” Dean asks. “Have you met a girl like that?”

This time, when I laugh, it’s louder than before and fuller too. “Yeah,” I say honestly. “I have.” I turn towards the front door and as I reach for the handle, I pause and look back. “The best girls—the ones that drive you crazy and you know are going to end up being the death of you—are usually the ones that hate you at first too.”

Just like mine does.

SIX

Haley

Everyone lies.It’s just a fact of life. The trick of it, though, is to figure out howmuchsomeone is lying. I think I’ve finally figured Viks out.

Viks is a dichotomy, one I’m itching to put down on paper. I want to draw him out. Trace over the shape of his brow, down the long slope of his aristocratic nose, and brush paint over canvas to stretch the reality of his purely masculine mouth into an image no one else will ever have.

With every word he speaks, he tells both a truth and a lie.

There’s no need to be frightened, Haley. I don’t bite.

Lie.

Translation:there’s every reason to be frightened and Idobite, but I don’t want you to be frightened of me, and I intend to make you enjoy the bite.

The way he says my name should be a crime. One worth being locked up for all eternity so I can finally escape this stranglehold he has over me and be free enough to run away. My fingers clench around the chalky charcoal pencil in my grasp. Black stains the underside of my nails. I blow out a breath and give up on working on the damn bird I’m supposed to be drawing and finally leave my mind to its own devices, letting it wander.

Long, thick lines appear on the page—etching a face turned away. A flop of longer than is currently popular hair hangs over the man’s forehead. His eyes take on an almond shape, lashes stretching down and throwing shadows over perfectly sculpted cheekbones. Bits of charcoal fly off the page as I work faster and faster. Now that I’ve finally released myself to focus on the subject I actually want to see on the page, I can’t get it down fast enough.

Once I start, though, I can’t seem to stop. Even when my hand starts cramping and my wrist bones scrape against each other, begging for a reprieve—I can’t. My mind and body won’t let me. I need to see it. To see the truth that only I can find.

Viks’ face takes more than shape before me. It takes on life. His shadowed eyes stare up at me despite the downward turn of his face. He glares at me through his lashes, beneath his brow—daring me to continue. And I do. I don’t stop until my body aches and I’ve got something akin to the devil watching me from pure black and white charcoal markings.

“Holy shit.” I jump at the sound of Alyssa’s voice as she leans over me at my desk. “Is that who I think it is?”

“No.” Lie. I quickly slam my notebook shut and jump up from my desk. “I have to go wash my hands,” I say, abandoning her as I hurry out into the hall and down the corridor towards the shared bathroom.

Once inside, I stop in front of the sinks and look up at the cracked, stained mirrors for a moment—noting the swipes of black charcoal on my cheeks where I’d insistently shoved back my hair time and time again while working. It’s almost funny. I look like a halfway decent Viking woman—with black on my skin and wild unkempt hair fluttering around my face.

Turning the faucet, I shove my hands under the lukewarm water and bow over the porcelain sink as the charcoal turns smeary. I scrub and scrub, grabbing globs of the foamy soap from the dorm dispenser as I try to clean away the evidence of my obsession.

This is wrong,I think. I can’t be obsessed with Mitchell Vikson.

He’s a walking ad for what not to like. Dangerous. Attached to the elite that run Eastpoint. A fucking monster lurks behind his eyes. I know because that was what I’d drawn. The glare of his intentions—dark and haunting. What scares me more than anything else, though, is … that monster is what I’m attracted to.

I finish washing away the charcoal until there’s virtually nothing left but a few specs and a little line of black under my nails that I couldn’t get to. My hands aren’t beautiful anyway—they’re scarred and dried out from all of the art I create. I walk back to my room, slower than I left and when I step inside, Alyssa is spread out on her own bed with a familiar notebook open as she peruses it.

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