Chapter One – The Bad Habit

The sky was the color of rust, heavy with clouds that threatened rain but refused to let go. The air clung to the skin, thick, restless. Navya Sharma shifted her backpack higher on her shoulder, moving faster down the narrow alley that sliced behind her college. She didn’t usually take this route, but she was late for her evening bus, and shortcuts sometimes made sense.

Her sneakers slapped against broken pavement, her chest tight with the worry of missing her ride and her mother’s inevitable phone call if she came home late. She hated making her parents worry; she was the kind of girl who followed rules, got straight A’s, kept her hair neatly tied, and never gave anyone an excuse to question her character.

But rules didn’t mean the world played fair.

The alley smelled of damp cigarettes and spilled beer. A faint hum of music leaked from the old, rundown bar tucked into the corner—a place her classmates whispered about but never dared to enter.

That’s when she saw him.

Leaning against the bar’s cracked brick wall was Aarav Rathore, a name spoken like both a curse and a dare across the college campus. Everyone knew him. Everyone feared him. And, in some strange way, everyone wanted him.

He was the boy mothers warned daughters about, the boy teachers never bothered disciplining because it never worked. The boy with a grin sharp enough to cut, eyes dark enough to drown.

And right now, he was looking straight at her.

Navya froze mid-step, her breath catching. His presence seemed to stretch across the alley, filling every shadow. He flicked the end of his cigarette, sparks raining briefly before the smoke curled upward.

“You’re lost, princess.” His voice was deep, lazy, the kind that carried danger wrapped in velvet.

Her instinct was to ignore him, to keep walking, to vanish before he decided she was worth more of his attention. But her body betrayed her, her feet pausing as if his words had hooked into her.

“I’m not lost,” she managed, her voice steady even though her heart raced. “Just in a hurry.”

He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing, studying her the way someone might study a puzzle they weren’t sure they wanted to solve. “This isn’t your kind of place.”

“And how would you know my kind?”

That made him laugh—low, rough, amused. “Because I’ve seen you. Always in the front row. Always with your books. Always too clean for dirt like this.” He gestured around him with the hand that still held his cigarette, smoke curling between his fingers. “You don’t belong here.”

Her throat tightened. Maybe he was right. She didn’t belong here. But something in his voice, in the way his eyes lingered on her like he could see past the layers she wrapped herself in, made her feel like he wasn’t just talking about alleys and bars.

“You don’t know me,” she said softly.

He stepped forward, and she fought not to flinch. He was taller up close, the sharp lines of his jaw more striking in the dim light, his leather jacket smelling faintly of smoke and rain.

“No,” he admitted. “But I want to.”

Her pulse jumped.

This was Aarav Rathore—bad boy, fighter, rumored dealer, heartbreaker. She should have walked away, should have run if she had to. But his words lodged deep inside her chest, rooting her to the cracked pavement.

“I really need to go,” she whispered, breaking eye contact, desperate for escape.

He leaned down, his mouth near her ear, his voice a dangerous murmur. “You’ll come back. Girls like you always do. You want a taste of what ruins you slowly.”

The words struck like lightning, searing through her. She stumbled back, nearly tripping over a loose stone, and then hurried out of the alley, not daring to look back.

But long after she boarded the bus, long after she made it home, long after she assured her mother she’d eaten dinner, those words repeated in her mind, over and over.

You’ll come back. You want a taste of what ruins you slowly.

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