I looked down at the money on the ground. Five hundred-dollar bills and one fifty. Five hundred and fifty dollars, just lying there in the morning sun.
My pride wanted me to leave it. To walk away and let the wind take it, let some entitled trust fund kid pick it up and add it to their collection.
But pride didn't pay for ruined library books. Pride didn't fix broken laptops. Pride was a luxury I couldn't afford.
I bent down, my coffee-soaked jeans squelching, and picked up the money. Every bill felt heavy with shame, but I took them anyway. Folded them carefully and put them in my pocket. Gathered my destroyed books. Checked my laptop one more time.
The screen flickered. Died. Came back on with a disturbing buzzing sound.
Perfect. Just perfect.
I walked away with as much dignity as I could manage while looking like I'd lost a fight with a coffee pot, very aware of the phones still pointed at me, the whispers following me like ghosts.
First day of classes. First real interaction with another student.
I'd managed to spectacularly fail at staying invisible in under ten minutes.
---
The bathroom in the nearest academic building became my refuge for the next twenty minutes.
I stood at the sink, using rough paper towels to scrub at coffee stains that had already set into the fabric of my favorite shirt. Brown streaks spread across white cotton like bruises. My reflection looked back at me—hair matted with coffee, eyes too bright, hands still shaking.
The paper towels disintegrated in my hands, leaving little white pills of pulp stuck to my wet shirt.
"Damn it." My voice echoed in the empty bathroom. "Damn it, damn it, damn it."
I wasn't crying. I refused to cry. Crying was what they expected—the poor scholarship girl breaking down when confronted with the reality of her place in the social hierarchy. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.
But my hands wouldn't stop shaking.
I pulled out my phone. 8:47 AM. My first class—Introduction to Political Theory—started in thirteen minutes. There was no way I could show up like this. Coffee-stained, disheveled, smelling like a Starbucks had exploded on me.
The guilt of missing class hit immediately. Scholarship students couldn't afford to skip. Every absence was a risk, every missed lecture a potential point deduction. I'd promised myself I'd be perfect here. Flawless attendance, impeccable grades, no mistakes.
One week in and I was already breaking that promise.
I looked at myself in the mirror one more time. Really looked. My shirt was ruined. My jeans were soaked. My hair was a disaster. And somewhere in my backpack, my laptop was probably dying a slow, expensive death.
The money in my pocket felt like it was burning a hole through the fabric.
I couldn't do this. I couldn't walk into class like this and pretend everything was fine. I needed to change, needed to clean up, needed to figure out if my laptop could be saved.
I needed Maya.
---
"Holy shit."
Maya's eyes went wide as I walked through our dorm room door, looking like I'd been in a fight with a coffee shop and lost badly.
"Don't," I said, already stripping off my soaked shirt. "Just... don't."
But Maya was already on her feet, taking in the damage. "What happened? Did someone throw coffee at you? Should I call security? Did—"
"I ran into someone." I kicked off my jeans, leaving them in a sad, coffee-stained pile on the floor. "Well, he ran into me. We ran into each other. It was a collision, and now my books are ruined and my laptop is broken and I'm going to miss my first class and—"
"Stella. Breathe."
I breathed. It didn't help.
"Okay," Maya said, in the calm voice she used when her art projects went catastrophically wrong. "Start from the beginning. Who did you run into?"
I described him while digging through my dresser for clean clothes. "Tall, dark hair, blue eyes, scar through his eyebrow, leather jacket, general asshole demeanor. Oh, and he threw money at me like I was some kind of... I don't know, street performer?"
Maya's face had gone pale. Actually pale. "Wait. Describe him again."
"I just did."
"No, like... specific details. The scar. What did it look like?"
"Through his left eyebrow. Kind of diagonal. Why are you looking at me like that?"
Maya sat down on her bed. Heavily. Like her legs had just stopped working. "Oh no. Oh no no no."
"What? What is it?"
"That was Ashton Wolfe."
I paused in the middle of pulling a clean shirt over my head. "...Who?"
"Ashton Wolfe. As in, one half of the Wolfe twins. As in, the Wolfe twins who basically own this university. As in—Stella, did you yell at Ashton Wolfe?"
The name triggered a memory. The assembly. The two guys who looked identical but couldn't have been more different. The polished one on stage and the dangerous one who'd crashed the event and walked out like he owned the place.
Which, apparently, he kind of did.
"Oh," I said weakly. "That Wolfe."
"Yes, THAT Wolfe!" Maya's voice had gone up an octave. "Stella, everyone fears Ash Wolfe. Like, everyone. He sent someone to the hospital last year. Broke a guy's jaw and three ribs. You know what happened to him? Nothing. His family paid off the victim, made it go away. He's been expelled twice and reinstated twice because his father basically bought the university a new library."
I sat down on my bed, processing this. "He was still an asshole."
"Being an asshole is kind of his brand! He runs the underground fights, the betting rings, probably half the illegal stuff that happens on campus. People don't cross him. Ever."
"Well, I didn't know that when I crashed into him."
"But you know it now." Maya looked at me seriously. "And you need to stay away from him. From both of them, actually."
"Both?"
"The twins. Alexander and Ashton. Alexander is the 'good' one—student council president, perfect grades, charming, polite. But don't be fooled. He's just as dangerous, just better at hiding it." She leaned forward. "The Wolfe family is... they're not normal rich, Stella. They're powerful in ways that matter. Ways that can make your life very difficult if you get on their bad side."
I pulled the money from my ruined jeans pocket. Counted it out on my bed. Five hundred and fifty dollars.
Maya's eyes widened. "He just... gave you that?"
"Threw it at me, actually. On the ground. Like I was a beggar."
"That's—" She stopped. Recalibrated. "Okay, that's insulting as hell. But also, that's more money than I make in a month at my work-study job."
"I know."
"You're keeping it, right?"
"I have to. The library books alone are probably two hundred dollars, and my laptop..." I pulled it out, tried to turn it on. The screen flickered to life, buzzed ominously, and died again. "My laptop is definitely going to need repairs. Maybe replacement."
Maya nodded slowly. "Then keep it. Use it. Pay for what you need." She paused. "But Stella? Be careful. Money like that... it comes with strings, even if you can't see them yet."
"I didn't ask for it."
"Doesn't matter. He gave it to you. In his mind, that probably means something."
I thought about the way he'd looked at me. That moment when he'd actually stopped and paid attention, when something in his expression had shifted from boredom to interest.
"He called me 'scholarship girl,'" I said quietly.
"He knew?"
"Somehow, yeah. Took one look at me and knew."
Maya made a face. "That's... actually pretty observant for someone who doesn't seem to notice when he destroys people's stuff."
"Observant and cruel."
"That's the Wolfe family motto, probably."
We sat in silence for a moment. I looked at the money spread across my bed. Five hundred and fifty dollars. More than I'd ever held at once in my life. Blood money. Guilt money. Shut-up-and-go-away money.
I hated it. I needed it. I hated that I needed it.
"I have a class at eleven," I said finally. "Advanced Lit with Dr. Cross."
"Then you'd better get cleaned up." Maya stood. "And Stella? When you see him again—"
"I'm not going to see him again. It's a huge campus."
She gave me a look that said she knew better. "When you see him again, just... walk the other way. Don't engage. These aren't people you want noticing you."
Too late for that, I thought, but I didn't say it out loud.
---
Advanced Literature with Dr. Cross was in one of the older buildings, a classroom that smelled like books and wood polish and a hundred years of academic debate. Seminar style, with chairs arranged in a circle so everyone could see everyone else. Nowhere to hide.
I arrived early, chose a seat in the middle—not front, not back, trying to be engaged but not conspicuous—and pulled out my notebook. The reading assignment had been "Medea," which I'd finished in one sitting and annotated extensively. Euripides knew how to write rage.
Other students filtered in. I recognized a few from orientation, gave a few tentative smiles that were mostly returned. Normal people. Regular students who probably hadn't been demolished by temperamental billionaires this morning.
Dr. Cross entered at exactly 11:00. She was younger than I'd expected—maybe mid-forties—with graying brown hair pulled into an elegant bun and kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. She moved with the quiet confidence of someone who knew her subject and loved it.
"Welcome," she said, her voice warm but commanding. "This is Advanced Literature, which means I expect advanced thinking. We're not here to regurgitate SparkNotes. We're here to engage with texts that have survived centuries because they say something true about the human condition."
I felt myself relax slightly. This was my element. Books and ideas and analysis. This, I could do.
Dr. Cross had just started discussing the syllabus when the door opened.
Fifteen minutes late. No knock. No apology.
Alexander Wolfe walked in like he owned the room.
My stomach dropped.