Funny how once upon a time I used to believe that life worked like this — only the good-hearted would eventually be rewarded. I had this solid belief that if you worked hard enough, kept your head in the game, and stayed away from trouble, the universe was bound to, at the very least, leave you alone. But then again, when has life ever played fair with me? My name is Steven, a twenty-two-year-old final-year university student in the city of Avalon. I juggled about 3 jobs at a time. The Late-night shift at Miller's diner, the delivery job for BoltCab Express and then finally the shift at the bakery. With all the many things I always had to do, I barely had enough time for myself let alone pretend I gave double fucks about class. But what choice did I have? I had to keep going for the sake of my grandma. She was all I had, and when you've got very little family left, you're bound to work so hard that you don't lose them.....right? To be honest, I owed her absolutely everything. S

I opened my eyes harshly, only to shut them back due to the pain the bright surroundings caused. Fuck. Where was I?Making another attempt, I slowly forced my eyes open. White. All over the place. A room....what room was this?It was too bright and way too clean. It was hard to recognize. Even the air was far from fresh. It felt so...... artificial? I had no idea, but what I did know was, it reeked of antiseptic and money. One minute, I was trying to figure out where the hell I was, and in the next minute, air got knocked out of my lungs, and I was gasping, choking on the plastic tube that was down my throat. Holy..... A mechanical hiss answered me automatically, pumping oxygen into a pair of lungs that didn't even want to obey. I moved slightly, and I felt something tug at my wrist. A needle... was that an IV line?Panic slammed into place and I trashed. "Get it out of me, "I croaked, my voice sounding like a gravel scraping steel. "Get. It. Out. Of me!" My hands fumbled as

You see, the thing about life is this: you can't kill someone twice. But what you can do is bury what's left of them. Remember Alicia? Yeah, her face used to be all over the place once upon a time. On billboards, on perfume ads, on red carpet snaps with that little smirk of hers that made it look like the world belonged to her. Not now?She was trending, oh yes. But for all the wrong reasons you could think of. #TheFallOfAlicia#ModelToSlut#ShamelessWhoreAlicia#AliciaPoleDancerEven I didn't know Alicia pole danced. All I had to do was drop something scandalous on her, and then the media took the job personally. They dug through everything about her in one night; it was quite shocking. I watched it all play out in real-time. My tablet kept lighting up with headlines that would've frightened me a few months back. Pity io felt nothing now. ANOTHER SCANDAL!: Top runway model Alicia Ferris, accused of trading Sex for Contracts BREAKING NEWS: The Crests are tied to the Favor-for-E

And that was what I hated. They never ever had guilt on their faces. It was something I noted the moment the purges began. You'd suspect that a traitor would break a sweat the moment you stared them down. Or that they'd look away the moment you locked eyes with them. Or that they'd maybe stammer or fidget.... something to point them out. But they don't. Rather, they grin at you. They served you, greeted you by name, helped you pull out your chair and even offered coffee. They just somehow managed to blend in so well. And that's it. Exactly what makes them dangerous. I'd made Quinn compile a list of names....of the people who had the tiniest bit of access to our internal archives, encrypted data and project schedule. After doing a very detailed investigation, I'd narrowed them down to 15 names. And then I bit it down to seven and finally three. One name kept ranking number one even after the personal interviews. Sasha Ng. Apparently, she's an intern who got recruited a couple o

At night, the city looked like it was burning in golden flames but the only thing I saw was the dark between the endless lights.Standing alone in my penthouse, the floor-to-ceiling window pulled the skyline into my vast living room.The whiskey in my glass felt numb. The burning sensation had disappeared.The whole place was silent, with only the low humming of the refrigerator and the ticking of the clock occupying the silence.The door clicked softly, breaking the silence and Quinn walked in casually.We seriously needed to talk about who owned the house. Because the rate at which he kept barging in was quite alarming."What is it?"I asked, not turning to look at him.Tossing a matte black envelope onto the marble island, it slid across the elegant and lethal surface."You got an anonymous invitation," he spoke and I creased my brow, silently listening. "There's a midnight auction tonight. Off-the-record."Turning around unhurriedly, my face landed on the embossed silver.Lucien's