Take the Top Spot, or You’re Next to Die
Lily · Completed · 8.1k Words
Introduction
It’s a ticket to the upper class.
Girls would pay any price to stand at the top of that pyramid.
But I didn't understand that the spotlight hid a man-eating abyss until I had to put on that blood-stained uniform.
Listen. Do you hear that scratching sound coming from inside the locker?
Chapter 1
At Holy Oak High, being the Top Flyer isn't just a crown.
It’s a ticket to the upper class.
Girls would pay any price to stand at the top of that pyramid.
But I didn't understand that the spotlight hid a man-eating abyss until I had to put on that blood-stained uniform.
Listen. Do you hear that scratching sound coming from inside the locker?
——
"I quit. The Top Flyer spot is yours! Just... stay away from me!"
Jessica gripped her pleated skirt, her knuckles turning white. She looked at me like I was a serial killer.
"Jessica, what are you talking about?" I asked, completely baffled.
Coach Miller had just praised her aerial form yesterday. Why give up the top spot now?
"Please, just let me go." Tears spilled over her lashes. "I concede. I swear I won't get in your way!"
I stood there, watching her tremble, realizing this breakdown hadn't just happened out of nowhere.
Jessica had been acting paranoid all week.
Her eyes constantly darted toward me, filled with a primal, suffocating fear.
During water breaks, if I stood on the left side of the gym, she’d immediately cross to the right.
The tipping point happened during our pyramid drills.
Jessica was in the air, pulling a heel stretch. Suddenly, she lost her focus and wobbled. As her main base, I immediately stepped up and reached out to catch her.
The second my fingers brushed her ankle, she let out a blood-curdling scream. She violently yanked her leg away, twisting mid-air.
She preferred to crash hard onto the safety mat rather than let me touch her.
The music stopped.
The entire varsity squad surrounded her, whispering and throwing me weird looks. Coach Miller frowned and sent her to the locker room.
I stood frozen on the mat, completely lost. What did I even do?
"Am I pushing her too hard during conditioning?" I asked my best friend, Sarah, while we packed our bags later.
Sarah rolled her eyes, shoving her cheer shoes into her duffel. "She's just cracking under the pressure. The starting lineup gets announced soon. Ignore the high school drama, Viv."
But I couldn't just ignore it. I hated the weird tension.
I bought a brand-new lip oil as a peace offering and cornered Jessica in a blind spot in the hallway.
"Jess, if there's some misunderstanding between us, I'm really sorry," I said, holding out the small box.
She didn't look at the gift. She looked at me.
"No, you don't need to apologize!" she shrieked. She panicked, knocking over a recycling bin as she scrambled backward.
"Take the spot! Just stay away from me!"
Her face twisted into a grotesque mask of horror. Instead of taking the makeup, she turned and bolted down the corridor.
I stood there holding the lip gloss, clueless.
A few feet away, a sophomore lowered her phone. She had been recording a TikTok the whole time.
On camera, it looked exactly like I was mercilessly bullying a terrified teammate into quitting.
Sarah appeared out of nowhere, grabbed my wrist, and dragged me into the nearest stairwell.
"If she wants to quit, let her quit!" Sarah fumed. "She's acting like we held a knife to her throat. If that video goes viral, you're done."
I rubbed my temples, a massive headache building. "I don't get it. I didn't do anything."
Sarah paused. A sudden, sharp ambition lit up her eyes. "Well, since she's actually dropping out... I'm going for the Top Flyer spot."
Sarah stayed over at my place that night. The sudden squad reshuffle had her buzzing with adrenaline.
"If I can secure the top of the pyramid, it’s a guaranteed full-ride athletic scholarship," she kept chanting from her sleeping bag on my bedroom floor.
I laid in bed, my muscles screaming from the intense drills. I was too physically and mentally drained to even reply. With Sarah still rambling excitedly in the background, my vision went dark, and I slipped into a dead sleep.
When I woke up, the morning light was harsh. The room was dead quiet.
I sat up and looked down. Only Sarah's empty sleeping bag remained on the floor.
I checked my phone. No texts. A spike of annoyance hit me—she actually went to morning practice without waking me up after crashing at my house?
I quickly washed my face, threw on my practice gear, and rushed to school.
When I reached the gym, I didn't go inside. I spotted Sarah pacing restlessly on the concrete outside the closed double doors. She was biting her nails, looking completely unhinged.
I walked up behind her. "Sarah? Why are you just standing out here?" I tapped her shoulder.
She jolted.
Stumbling backward, she crashed hard against the metal lockers.
She stared at me, trembling. And in her eyes, I saw that exact same, paralyzing terror I had seen in Jessica.
Last Chapters
You Might Like 😍
Goddess Of The Underworld
When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
The Prison Project
Can love tame the untouchable? Or will it only fuel the fire and cause chaos amongst the inmates?
Fresh out of high school and suffocating in her dead-end hometown, Margot longs for her escape. Her reckless best friend, Cara, thinks she's found the perfect way out for them both - The Prisoner Project - a controversial program offering a life-changing sum of money in exchange for time spent with maximum-security inmates.
Without hesitation, Cara rushes to sign them up.
Their reward? A one-way ticket into the depths of a prison ruled by gang leaders, mob bosses, and men the guards wouldn't even dare to cross...
At the centre of it all, meets Coban Santorelli - a man colder than ice, darker than midnight, and as deadly as the fire that fuels his inner rage. He knows that the project may very well be his only ticket to freedom - his only ticket to revenge on the one who managed to lock him up and so he must prove that he can learn to love…
Will Margot be the lucky one chosen to help reform him?
Will Coban be capable of bringing something to the table other than just sex?
What starts off as denial may very well grow in to obsession which could then fester in to becoming true love…
A temperamental romance novel.
The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates
"Let me go," I whimper, my body trembling with need. "I don't want you touching me."
I fall forward onto the bed then turn around to stare at him. The dark tattoos of Domonic's chiseled shoulders, quiver and and expand with the heave of his chest. His deep dimpled smile is full of arrogance as he reaches behind himself to lock the door.
Biting his lip, he stalks toward me, his hand going to the seam of his pants and the thickening bulge there.
"Are you sure you don't want me to touch you?" He whispers, untying the knot and slipping a hand inside. "Because I swear to God, that is all I have been wanting to do. Every single day from the moment you stepped in our bar and I smelled your perfect flavor from across the room."
New to the world of shifters, Draven is human on the run. A beautiful girl who no one could protect. Domonic is the cold Alpha of the Red Wolf Pack. A brotherhood of twelve wolves that live by twelve rules. Rules which they vowed could NEVER be broken.
Especially - Rule Number One - No Mates
When Draven meets Domonic, he knows that she is his mate, but Draven has no idea what a mate is, only that she has fallen in love with a shifter. An Alpha that will break her heart to make her leave. Promising herself, she will never forgive him, she disappears.
But she doesn’t know about the child she’s carrying or that the moment she left, Domonic decided rules were made to be broken - and now will he ever find her again? Will she forgive him?
Invisible To Her Bully
I Slapped My Fiancé—Then Married His Billionaire Nemesis
Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now—billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn’t mind. I’d crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one?
Wrong.
One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That’s when it hit me—he didn’t love me. He didn’t even see me. I was just a warm-bodied placeholder for the woman he actually wanted. And apparently, I wasn’t even worth as much as a glorified coffee cup.
So I slapped him right back, dumped his ass, and prepared for disaster—my parents losing their minds, Rhys throwing a billionaire tantrum, his terrifying family plotting my untimely demise.
Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol.
Enter him.
Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. I’d met him only once before, and that night, he just happened to be at the same bar as my drunk, self-pitying self. So I did the only logical thing: I dragged him into a hotel room and ripped off his clothes.
It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised.
But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life.
And, as it turned out, the best decision I’d ever made.
Because my one-night stand isn’t just some random guy. He’s richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with.
And now, he’s not letting me go.
The Forbidden Throb
Mine changed in the time it took to open a door.
Behind it: my fiancé Nicholas with another woman.
Three months until our wedding. Three seconds to watch it all burn.
I should have run. Should have screamed. Should have done anything except stand there like a fool.
Instead, I heard the devil himself whisper in my ear:
"If you're willing, I could marry you."
Daniel. The brother I was warned about. The one who made Nicholas look like a choir boy.
He leaned against the wall, watching my world implode.
My pulse thundered. "What?"
"You heard me." His eyes burned into mine. "Marry me, Emma."
But as I stared into those magnetic eyes, I realized something terrifying:
I wanted to say yes to him.
Game on.
The Biker Alpha Who Became My Second Chance Mate
"You're like a sister to me."
Those were the actual words that broke the camel's back.
Not after what just happened. Not after the hot, breathless, soul-shaking night we spent tangled in each other's arms.
I knew from the beginning that Tristan Hayes was a line I shouldn't cross.
He wasn't just anyone, he was my brother's best friend. The man I spent years secretly wanting.
But that night... we were broken. We had just buried our parents. And the grief was too heavy, too real...so I begged him to touch me.
To make me forget. To fill the silence that death left behind.
And he did. He held me like I was something fragile.
Kissed me like I was the only thing he needed to breathe.
Then left me bleeding with six words that burned deeper than rejection ever could.
So, I ran. Away from everything that cost me pain.
Now, five years later, I'm back.
Fresh from rejecting the mate who abused me. Still carrying the scars of a pup I never got to hold.
And the man waiting for me at the airport isn't my brother.
It's Tristan.
And he's not the guy I left behind.
He's a biker.
An Alpha.
And when he looked at me, I knew there was no where else to run to.
The mafia princess return
Accidentally Crossing the Tycoon
Four years ago, the Bailey family faced a devastating financial crisis.
Just when bankruptcy seemed inevitable, a mysterious benefactor emerged, offering salvation with one condition: a contract marriage.
Rumors swirled about this enigmatic man—whispers claimed he was hideously ugly and too ashamed to show his face, possibly harboring dark, twisted obsessions.
Without hesitation, the Baileys sacrificed me to protect their precious biological daughter, forcing me to take her place as a pawn in this cold, calculated arrangement.
Luckily, in those four years, the mysterious husband never asked to meet in person.
Now, in the final year of our arrangement, the husband I've never met is demanding we meet face to face.
But disaster struck the night before my return—drunk and disoriented, I stumbled into the wrong hotel room and ended up sleeping with the legendary financial mogul, Caspar Thornton.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
The Biker's Fate
I squeezed my eyes shut.
"Dani," he pressed. "Do you get me?"
"No, Austin, I don't," I admitted as I pulled my robe closed again and sat up. "You confuse me."
He dragged his hands down his face. "Tell me what's on your mind."
I sighed. "You're everything my parents warned me against. You're secretive, but you're also honest. I feel wholly protected by you, but then you scare me more than anyone I've ever known. You're a bad boy, but when I dated a so-called good one, he turned out to be the devil, so, yeah, I don't get you because you're not what I expected. You drive me crazier than anyone I've ever met, but then you make me feel complete. I'm feeling things I don't quite know how to process and that makes me want to run. I don't want to give up something that might be really, really good, but I also don't want to be stupid and fall for a boy just because he's super pretty and makes me come."
Danielle Harris is the daughter of an overprotective police chief and has led a sheltered life. As a kindergarten teacher, she's as far removed from the world of Harleys and bikers as you could get, but when she's rescued by the sexy and dangerous Austin Carver, her life is changed forever.
Although Austin 'Booker' Carver is enamored by the innocent Dani, he tries to keep the police chief's daughter at arm's length. But when a threat is made from an unexpected source, he finds himself falling hard and fast for the only woman who can tame his wild heart.
Will Booker be able to find the source of the threat before it's too late?
Will Dani finally give her heart to a man who's everything she's been warned about?
The Betrayed Warrior Luna's Second Chance
But fate has other plans. When Eliza severs her bond with the man who broke her, a magnetic Lycan prince steps forward—her fated mate. Bound by destiny yet scarred by betrayal, can Eliza embrace a future of strength, love, and vengeance?
Chosen By The Cursed Alpha King
"But I will survive."
I whispered it to the moon, to the chains, to myself—until I believed it.
They say Alpha King Maximus is a monster — too big, too brutal, too cursed. His bed is a death sentence, and no woman has ever left it alive. So why did he choose me?
The fat, unwanted omega. The one my own pack offered up like trash. One night with the merciless King was supposed to end me. Instead, it ruined me. Now I crave the man who takes without mercy. His touch burns. His voice commands. His body destroys. And I keep going back for more. But Maximus doesn't do love. He doesn't do mates. He takes. He owns. And he never stays.
"Before my beast consumes me completely—I need a son to take the throne."
Too bad for him…I'm not the weak, pathetic girl they threw away. I'm something far more dangerous —the one woman who can break his curse… or break his kingdom.
