. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ PROLOGUE
🪽 NICOLE NASH

                        I feel it before I know it. The water is freezing cold, and my headache is impossible. I'm struggling to open my eyes, but as soon as I do, he's the first person I see. For some fucking reason Landon King is at the end of the bed, wearing his most devilish smirk, no shirt and has his arms crossed over his chest. Despite my serious hangover, the anger I feel on my bones is enough to make me want to jump on him and bang his head on the floor repeatedly.

"You fucking—" I began. I don't get to finish my rage toned sentence, or to even attack him, because there's a arm that grabs be by my own. It's a death grip, and besides the asshole in front of me, there's only one other person who dares to do such a thing.

I turn my head too met eyes with Eli, who holds me with one hand, the other holds an empty glass cup. This fucking imbecile. How dare he throw water in me to wake me up. Different from his asshole cousin, Eli doesn't look the least amused, no he looks bored, but his eyes tell me everything that I need to know. Eli King is pissed. He's fucking angry, and given the harsh hold on my arm, it means that his anger is towards me. It means that I am royaly fucked.

And the worst part of it all, is that I have no idea why he would be mad at me. Sure, our friendship isn't a bunch of rainbows, but very few are the moments where he looks like this at me.

I have no fucking idea of what could make him this anger. Fuck. I'm hangover and I don't remember anything that I could of had done wrong. I must of blacked out yesterday. I remember going to the Heathens party, that Killian invited me to, despite Eli's advice to not go. I remember being anger at Gareth, and dancing way to fucking closely to his younger brother. Eli wouldn't be this mad at me for going to the party, even if he told me to do otherwise. He's not that overprotective with me. I'm not my sister, Ava. Which means I must of have done something.

"Let go of me." I say with the most calm voice I can muster. I'm feeling way too much right now. Landon's presence is annoying me. So is my lack of memory. Eli's eyes make me wanna panic, though I refuse to show such thing. And my head is killing me. Not to mention how fucking cold I am.

I look down myself. I'm in a t-shirt, probably Remi's given that I appear to be in his room. The cologne lingering in the air gives it away. I'm also wearing a pair of pajamas shorts, that I know are mine but haven't seen them in a long time, meaning that I must of left them around here when I moved into the dorms three months ago.

My clothes are wet, because of the asshole who still hasn't let go of my arm. All thank to his stupid idea of waking me up with water. Fucking dick! Despite the way he's looking now, he'll regret it once I mention it anywhere near his mother. Aunt Elsa will be disappointed in him, which means Uncle Aiden will be a pain towards him. Eli may as well win right now, but in the long name, I'll just play the right cards and win the war.

"I told you to not go." Eli says, his grip on my arm tightening. I roll my eyes at him.

Sure, this side of Eli isn't one I like to see, not when it's directed at me. And it brings something inside of me, that makes me wanna run away and hide forever, but I'm nothing like that. I refuse to lose. I refuse to show weakness, especially with Landon in the room. Despite everything, I know that once whatever this is about ends, Eli and I will go back to the normal program. Friends, or best friends as I like to insist while Landon will use whatever happens right now to torment me even more than usually.

"Can you not do that now?" I ask him, giving a side look towards Landon, who seems to be loving every part of this conversation.

"Ignore his presence, like you ignored my words yesterday." Eli mocks me. That annoys me. He knows how Landon is towards me, sure it's mutual, but Landon torments me much more that I could possibly torment him back, yet Eli doesn't care that he is giving Landon all ammunition to make everything even worse. Or better he knows. I fucking know he does. And for some reason he's using that punish me.

I been avoiding Landon for months, Eli knows that. I also been avoiding the mansion but for some fucking reason, here I am, in Remington's bed. Eli is throwing Landon in my face to punish me and I don't know why. The panic I was feeling before is turning into rage. Eli King, my greatest ally, or so I thought, stabbing me, not in the back. He's stabbing right in front of me. He wants me to know it. The fucking bastard.

I pull my arm away from him harshly. It hurts me more than it does to him, and I know tomorrow my arm will be bruised. Which is great, fucking great, since where are going home tonight, or at least we were supposed to. Maybe I should go with the Remi, tomorrow instead. If there's someone who won't manhandle me, is Remington.

"God, you can be such a bastard Eli." I tell him. He doesn't even blink at that. "You know what, screw you! You don't get tell me what to do or not, and you sure as hell don't get to keep tabs on me. Wrong Nash girl." I tell him and that seems to get a reaction of him, because he glares at him.

Want to throw Landon in my face, asshole? Fucking great, I will throw my sister in yours.

Landon chuckled at my words. And I refuse to acknowledged his presence. He loves being the main attention, so maybe if he isn't he'll leave. Who am I kidding, with me and Eli at odds, Landon is living the fucking dream. Of course he will stay to watch my misery. And he will fucking enjoy it too. If he can even feel that...

"Maybe if you don't act like a fucking slut, I wouldn't have to be cleaning your messes. Then and there I wouldn't need to keep tabs on you." Eli says. His tone is null, but I know he's angry that I mentioned Ava.

I should be mad at him, not the other way. Yet as he calls me such a name, all I can feel is a greater sadness. Not anger, just fucking sadness. Rivalries aside, not even Landon has called me such thing. Queen of Mean. Bitch. Between so many others, but not such thing.

I want this to be a dream so bad, but I know it isn't. Not even my sick subconscious could come up with such a thing.

"What did you—" I try to sound calm and collected but he just ignored my words and interrupts me.

"We told you to stay away from the Heathens, Nicole, but no you had to go fucking there. You just couldn't keep still, could you. If there's a guy with screwed up morals, you have to be all over him." Eli says. He's mad. He's fucking pissed. But I say nothing. I'm still too taken back by him calling me a slut. "Lan warned you to not go anywhere near Gareth, but you couldn't just say away. No you had to get what you wanted. Because if your selfish brat ass wants something, we all just have to bend our backs for you to get it. I thought when the prick broke up with you, you would stop acting so stupidly but no you had to go the fucking party."

He's talking and talking and my head hurts even more than when he woke me up. I'm bitting the inside of cheek, to avoid crying. I feel like a kid being scolded by their parents. I thought what I felt when Gareth broke up with me was humiliating but this, this fucking beats it. I've never felt so small. Not even in my endless fights with Landon, who loves to make me to feel smaller, but he has never reached such goal. Not like Eli's doing so easily.

"And you go there, and get involved with Killian Carson? Because one Carson wasn't enough, was it. You just had to look like a fucking fool."

Eli's words woke up something in me. My memories from last night aren't blank as before. Like flashbacks going in my brain, I remember being annoyed that Gareth didn't even blinked when he saw me dancing with Killian. I got mad, which lead me to drink more. I'm pretty sure I even smoked with that psycho cousin of his, Nikolai. I made out with Killian, yet kept taking glances to Gareth, who was always accompanied by some girl that I didn't knew. Eli is right, I did acted like a fool.

I feel so fucking stupid, still it doesn't give him any fucking reason to call me a slut.

Mad that Gareth didn't looked twice at me, I called Creighton and had him pick me up, so that I could join him in whatever party  he had been dragged too, by Remington. That's probably how I eventually end up here, at the mansion. My mind is still fuzzy, and I can't remember all the details, but Creighton and Remi would of course bring me here with them, if I was way to off my head.

Eli doesn't get to break me anymore, because Remi appears at the door. "Oh, how fun, secret meeting in my bedroom and I wasn't invited. Should I feel offended?" He says. Ivory appears next to him and different from Remi who's trying to end our conversation by annoying either of the King cousins, his cousin is looking at the three of us, with a questioning look.

I force a smile for Remi's sake, he's giving me a way out of this, and I would be stupid to not take it. "No. It's nothing. Boring club stuff. It's over anyway." I say. I don't need neither of them to know that Eli gave Landon all the ammunition to make the following days, going into break, like hell.

I'm not sure if they bought what I say. But as somewhat part of the Heathens, because of her Bratva affiliations, Ivory does not question anything related to the Elites, despite being close with Landon, herself. Remi, who can't be bothered by the whole club conversations and arguments doesn't question it either.

The tension in the room is palpable, and for once I'm actually thankful Landon is here, or otherwise this excuse wouldn't make any sense. Everyone knows that I'm not really part of the Elites, and that I just do them a few favours because of Eli.

I don't expect, nor do I wait for anyone to say anything else. I get of the bed, avoiding Eli, like he's the plague. I pick up my heels and dress from the floor and walk to the door. "Can you drive me to the dorms, please?" I ask Remi. He nods.

"Great timing Nica, he was about to take me back too." Ivory says giving me somewhat of a pity smile, which means she probably can guess what the conversation inside the room was. I nod at her and the three of us leave.

Remi walks in front of us, making his way to the living room, to inform Creighton that he's leaving, as if Creighton cared. I'm sure he doesn't.

"Don't call her a slut ever again." Are the last words I heard from the bedroom. I'm sure that Ivory heard them too. But I pretend that I didn't, maybe that way she won't try to talk to me about it.

Who would imagine that Landon King, would actually be somewhat defending me, to Eli, of all people. When it has always been the other way around. Maybe, just maybe this break won't be a nightmare.

Notes.

Eli was a little bitch here. And Landon will be one most of the book, but that's life. Nicole can handle them just fine.

✴︎ This is before god of malice, obviously. And moving onto the first chapter it will already be in the log timeline, and storyline. I will obviously mess a little things within the original plot/storyline to be able to fit my characters, so it won't all fully be like LOG, like I mentioned previously about Cecily and Jeremy, but for the most part, this book will follow the canon plot.

✴︎ RemiNicole is my favourite friendship. And he's the best guy in her life. No arguments needed. Remi just is. I'll try and give more and more of them, but as I still am planning things as I go, I can't make any promises. (But he's her real best friend. Eli can only wish.)

✴︎ Ivory 'Ivy' , is one my original characters. She's Knox Van Doren and Anastasia Sokolov daughter. She's a little in the middle of it all, as she has ties to both Elites and Heathens. There won't be any love triangle or anything of sorts. Her and Landon, work very much like Nicole and Eli do. It's all platonic, and more about causing chaos that anything else. She and Nicole have such a interesting relationship and I am very excited to write about them. (I will be adding Ivy to the introduction chapter soon, as I will be doing a few changes there, but nothing much.)

✴︎ Also, happy holidays to everyone! ❤️🫂

✴︎ Forgive any and every spelling mistake and anything of sorts. I try to revise as much as I can but I can miss certain things. English isn't my first language, so sometimes a few mistakes happen, so bare with me.