Stories That Bite

She's made a mistake. And he knows. And now, she has to pay the price.

Toni Amahle, twenty-three and nursing the mother of all hangovers, stepped out of the black cab. Her platform heels clicked on the cobbles. Her head spun slightly. She put a hand out to steady herself against the taxi door.

It was the kind of March day that lulled you into think spring was coming until a sudden shower dispelled that notion. This was Scotland-winter was not so much gone as temporarily absent. Around her, early evening traffic was fierce. Snarls of buses and cars fumed at a standstill, waiting with ill-temper for in the grudging shift from red to green.

Toni turned to close the taxi door and caught the driver's stare. He had swiveled round in his seat to watch her get out, his lips parted, eyes wide. The man was in his fifties, his paunch enfolding the steering wheel.

He’d picked her up outside her flat on Gorgie Road and plied her with relentless banter until they turned into Princes Street. Toni's had pretended to scroll through her social media on her upraised phone, but that had proved no shield. The taxi driver had found it difficult to keep his eyes on the road, his gaze in the rear-view mirror flitting over her legs and her breasts. Toni had had to tug her skirt down and slide to the far corner of the passenger compartment to escape his relentless attention.

She supposed she couldn’t blame him, given the circumstances. She'd dressed more provocatively than she should have. The hem of the leather skirt stopped midway between her hips and knees, an inch short of scandalous. The crop top left her shoulders bare. Toni should have taken greater care, but there had been no time to dress more appropriately for a meeting with the Professor.

She'd planned to take the bus from her shared tenement flat in Gorgie to the city center, to arrive in good time, but she had overslept. She might still have been able to salvage the situation if she’d spent the night in her own bed, but her relationship with her boyfriend Magnus had crashed and burned the evening before, which meant Toni decamped to Lesley’s flat on Leith Walk, on the other side of the city. Lesley’s post hoc analysis of Toni’s latest failed relationship had called for several Vodka Red Bulls.

"Oh, have another," Lesley had said, tipping more into their high-ball glasses from her seat on the floorboards of her living room floor. Lesley was no stranger to the end of Toni's relationships. "It's not every day you break up with an arsehole. You're better off without him. He's not worth it."

Four drinks in and Toni had given in. She passed out on Lesley’s sofa just before dawn.
She woke to sunlight and the smell of bacon. Her stomach rebelled. She staggered to the bathroom and emptied it into the toilet. When she came out, Lesley stood in the kitchen doorway, pink dressing-gown glowing like a beacon. She waved a skillet.

“Bacon rolls. Five minutes.”

Toni slumped against the door frame, head pounding.

“Morning, sweetheart. Or should I say afternoon?” Lesley chuckled and ducked back into the kitchen, calling out as she disappeared. "There's some water on the coffee table."

Lesley hadn’t even slept in her bed. Toni's last memory of her best friend had been of Lesley falling asleep mid-sentence, her nose among the highball glasses on the coffee table.

The water helped. Toni leaned against the windowsill, sipping slowly, letting the cold metal bite into her palm. She cranked the window open, chasing the stale taste of last night with a lungful of Edinburgh air — diesel and frying samosas from the shops below.

Outside, pedestrians wove through the rutted pavement of Leith Walk, their figures flickering like shadows beneath the tenement overhangs. The flat, with its olive-and-brown spiral wallpaper and Artex ceiling, had the dated heaviness of a place that had outlived its tenants. Dusty chintz curtains twitched in the breeze, as if the flat itself was peering out, curious about the world it no longer understood.

Lesley didn’t mind the dated decor — she wasn’t paying rent. Her dad had bought the place years ago, back when Leith Walk was more boarded-up than BoHo. Now, it was smack in the middle of what the Edinburgh Echo called “a hipster revival of forgotten Edinburgh.” The street buzzed with organic grocers, spice-scented delis, and bars with neon signs and questionable sound systems. It was messy, alive, chaotic — just the kind of place Lesley thrived in.

Toni, on the other hand, felt like she didn’t belong anywhere right now. The smell of the street below reminded her she hadn’t eaten — or worse, reminded her stomach, which gave a queasy lurch in protest.

Toni slammed the window shut. Lesley appeared with a plate, pink robe glowing like a beacon in the dim room.

“Breakfast!” she chirped. "You want ketchup?"

Toni clapped a hand to her mouth and bolted for the bathroom again.

When she returned, Lesley was halfway through the first roll.

“Oh my God,” Toni groaned.

“Welcome to the living,” Lesley said.

“Tell me it’s not three in the afternoon.”

“It’s not.”

Toni’s face went white.

“It’s nearly four.”

Toni slumped against the doorway.

“Got a date or something? You just broke up with that clown.”

Toni didn’t answer. She was already running for the door. The slam announced Toni's departure. Lesley gave the front door a skeptical glance, shrugged once more, and then dug into the remaining breakfast. Lesley was no stranger to Toni’s ways.

By the time Toni had found a taxi and got to her flat, it was 4.30pm. Rachel, Toni's flatmate, was out. That was a blessing because Toni and Rachel didn't get along.

Rachel was a post-graduate student at the University and spent all her weekends in the University Library. Rachel was quiet and mousy. Rachel had only two facial expressions for Toni: frank disbelief or ill-concealed disapproval. At Toni's wardrobe. At Toni's unwashed dishes. At Toni's late rent. Recently, Rachel had taken to banging on the wall that separated their bedrooms when Magnus and Toni were getting it on.

"She needs a good fuck," Magnus had decided. This was just after Toni and Magnus had just had one. He'd lit two cigarettes and passed one over to her. "Or even a bad fuck. I bet she’s still a virgin." He took a drag. "Not that I'm up for it. She's probably hairy down there. Like a boar."

They hadn't bothered to stifle their laughter as another blow sounded through the wall.

Toni stripped as she ran down the hall. The shower was scalding, fast, and furious.
By the time she tore through the mess of her closet, it was five. The only clean clothes left were the ones she wore clubbing—leather skirt, crop top, no bra. The cold air pressed her nipples into the fabric like secrets.

The taxi driver noticed.Which is why he screeched to a halt before her hand was fully up. In the chilly evening air, Toni’s nipples tented the fabric like bullets.

In fifteen minutes, the taxi had turned off Lothian Road into Princess Street. Above the bagpipers on the pavement, the reedy strains of “Highland Cathedral” floated through the air, muffled by the bustling crowds of tourists. Had she had glanced out of the window, Toni might have taken some solace from the imposing bulk of Edinburgh Castle perched on Castle Rock high above. As it was, she was too busy scrolling through her texts to find that one fateful message she had received two days ago. The name on the sender was marked as ‘UNKNOWN’, but the content was what she had expected. Which is how she knew who it was from.

Now Toni stared at her phone screen, thumb hovering. It's arrival had been like a death sentence — expected, inevitable, but still terrifying.

She hated herself a little more every time she thought about it. Not because she regretted what she'd done — she’d had no choice — but because she’d been careless. Sloppy. And now, someone had noticed.

The professor’s message was short. No greeting. No pleasantries.

"Expect to see you on Saturday evening in city centre. Exact time and venue to follow."

That was it. But it was enough.

It wasn’t a request.

It was a summons.

And she was late.

She typed fast, fingers trembling slightly:

"Sorry! I'm running a bit late! Traffic's awful! I'll be there soon! Sorry again! -T"

She hit send before she could second-guess it.

No reply came.

Of course not.

One didn’t play text ping-pong with Professor Charles.

Toni stared at the message until the screen dimmed. Then she opened her browser and typed his name like a guilty prayer.

Professor David Charles
University of Edinburgh
Department of Comparative Literature

His faculty profile was sparse — a title, a list of research areas (postcolonial theory, narrative ethics, plagiarism and authorship), and one of those headshots academics always had.

It was a disaster of a photo.

He looked like he'd been caught mid-blink. Balding, pasty, with jowls that sagged like wet paper, a tie that had seen better decades. He wore a white shirt with a collar so stiff it looked like it might slice his neck open. He looked exactly like someone who’d call you out for using the wrong semicolon in front of the entire class.

Toni scrolled down. The “Publications” section was long, dense. He had edited a controversial monograph on originality in student writing. One of his essays, titled "Theft in the Academy: When Borrowing Becomes Betrayal," had gone semi-viral in academic circles last year.

She swallowed hard.

She typed into the search bar:
Professor David Charles Edinburgh University

The first result was a thread from Reddit: r/EdinburghUniGradStudents, an anonymous forum where no one used their real names.

u/JustHereForTheCoffee: David Charles is legit terrifying. He once failed a student for paraphrasing a source without citation. Said it was “deliberate moral cowardice.”

u/NotMyAdvisor: He doesn’t fail. He ruins.

u/AnonForNow: He doesn’t even need to prove it. If he suspects you of cheating, your grade drops like a stone.

u/DesperateDissertation: I heard he made someone redo their entire thesis after one line was too close to a source.

u/ScaredShiteless: If you're meeting him in person, watch your back.

Toni closed the tab fast, heart thudding.

She didn’t need to ask what he’d do if he found out what she’d done.

She already knew.

The taxi lurched forward again, inching down Princes Street like a reluctant ghost. Outside, Edinburgh rolled by in familiar, stubborn beauty — the stubbornness of a city that refused to give up on winter, or on her.

Toni watched the lamplight flicker across the stone buildings, and for a second, she remembered what it felt like to walk this street and feel like she belonged here. Like she was becoming someone.

She’d been happier last autumn — before all this. Before the deadlines, before the pressure, before Magnus became just another weight on her chest.

She remembered walking down this same street after submitting her dissertation, the crisp air sharp in her lungs, her boots clicking like she was heading somewhere important. She’d bought herself a caramel latte from that cart near the station and drank it too fast, burning her tongue, laughing at herself. She remembered the feeling: I did that. I actually did that.

Now, she was just trying not to undo it all in one night.

Soon, but not soon enough, she found herself on the pavement at the east end of Princess Street in the shadow of her destination. Behind her, buses rumbled past across the tarmac. Pedestrians filled the sidewalks, walking and running, with their heads down and phones out. The noise and bustle was what she loved most about Edinburgh, but today, at this moment, she wished she were somewhere else.

The thought of stepping into the Balmoral Royal Hotel should have thrilled her. It embodied prestige - students were not its customary clientele. The neo-Gothic facade exuded tradition and luxury, four storeys of stone, glass, and carved finials. It glistened in the dying rays of a retreating sun as if light were its due. Waverley Station huddled in the shadow like a beggar tugging at the trouser cuffs of a king.

She craned her head; her gaze flitted up to the roof, from which sprung the famous Clock Tower. The clock hands were intentionally set three minutes too fast to ensure that passengers got to their trains on time.

Three minutes past six, the clock said silently.

Which meant it was 6 pm.

Which meant she was a whole sixty minutes late.

A sudden gust born in the Pentland Hills scythed down the street, setting the twinned flags above the hotel entrance fluttering. The Union Jack and the Saltire cracked against each other, as if in dispute. The wind nipped at Toni’s ear. She shivered. She shrugged on the cardigan she'd 'borrowed' from Rachel's wardrobe before she rushed out of her flat. It was not as if Rachel would notice, she told herself. Rachel had hundreds of cardigans, all sensible, all sensibly arranged by colour palette. This one was the least unflattering, a plain black, cashmere, long-sleeved affair. As she tugged the sleeves down her arms, Toni realised it wasn't just the cold or the hangover that had unsettled her. There was something else, a warm unsettling feeling, as if a fiery serpent was writhing in her stomach.

Anticipation?

Fear?

She shrugged it off. What did she have to be fearful about? It's not as if anyone could have found out. She'd been careful. Very careful. Toni knew to be careful where it counted. Life had taught her that most people glided through their lives, tugging at the skeins of their poorly knit lives. They rarely saw the frays in their own fabrics. They were oblivious to the world around them.

Blindness made for vulnerabilities.

By need as much as by design, Toni had, over the years, developed an intuition for weak spots. That sixth sense had never failed her. That was how she, the mixed-race child of a single mother, had made her way up a ladder tilted the wrong way, defying gravity at every step. Now, she was near the top, poised to leap into a future that looked brighter than any she had ever imagined.

She'd come too far to let it fall to pieces now.

She gathered her courage and stepped forth.

I write dark fiction for readers who like their characters morally gray, their stakes brutal, and their endings earned. Stories about obsession. About the shadows people pretend aren't there. About desire that destroys and redeems.

Over 500,000 readers have found me on Wattpad—where my serials have ranked in the Top 10 for dark fiction. Having left that platform, the stories that started there are available as serials, dropping on Inkitt.com.

If you've read my books, you know what to expect. If you haven't—start with a free story and see why readers keep coming back.