CHAPTER 1
SOREN
THREE DAYS WITHOUT SABLE
Her hand is wrappedaround the knob, ready to leave, eyes mirroring my own disgust. All the reasons she shouldn’t are on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t force them out. My head aches like it’s splitting in two. Flashes of what just happened with Arabella burst through my mind, but I don’t understand the images.
Why would I ever let her touch me again?
I’ve been lying in my bed for three days straight, and the mattress has officially molded to my body. My limbs refuse to move the way I want them to, and rather than fight the sensation, I let it all happen to me again. That damn scene replays in my head. This torture might be self-imposed, but it isn’t always. Even when I sleep, there’s no escaping what happened.
A scream echoes inside my hollow chest from the moment I’m up to the second I drift off.Where is Sable?How did this happen to us?The events leading up to me winding up in that dorm room are like a dream that slips away when you open your eyes. Would answers help us to find her? The day leading up toit all is gone. I just don’t know, and it makes me hate myself that much more that despite my best efforts, there’s nothing helpful in me.
How the hell did we wind up here after everything we went through?
A string of texts continues to barrage me, but I don’t even bother to read them anymore. I just check that none readSable.Everyone hates me, except for Arabella, apparently. She thinks I’m her boyfriend despite the fact that she raped me, and I’m pretty sure that’s not all she did.
After Sable left, I puked my guts up. The bitter taste was nearly poisonous, one of the worst things I’ve ever tasted. Washing my mouth out repeatedly but still tasting it didn’t mean much to me then. Everything falling apart while high off my ass is one fuck of a distraction. But with my head clearing, it’s now evidence, and I need to knowhow the fuck she drugged me.
I need to piss, and I feel like a fucking child as I hold it to the point of physical pain. My thoughts are still sluggish. I’m weaker, dizzy, and confused, but there’s no denying the truth. No matter whose fault it was, I have to live with what happened. The walls of my room close around me, but I don’t have anywhere to escape to.
Not while the problemisme. My brother announces his arrival with a loud series of bangs. My heart hammers pathetically, but I stay in the same place, waiting for him to approach me if he wants to. My brother hasn’t spoken to me since just after Sable left, rightfully furious with me for letting her go. They all are, myself included. None of them knows the dirty truth, though.
Footsteps right outside my door pull me up an inch. Is he actually going to talk to me this time? Did he somehow find out what really happened? The desperate hope is stupid, and I know it before he opens the door. He narrows my own eyes atme as if I’m the enemy, and it hurts so deep that I despise our connection. I’m just here, reliving my own fucking mistakes.
“I’m leaving. You’re not coming.” It isn’t a question. It’s a command, and that’s fine. I didn’t want to go anywhere. My mother and father won’t be too happy when he arrives home alone for the holidays, but it’s better this way. Explaining what happened would require a fight, and I just don’t have it in me.
Orion continues to stare hatefully, but I can’t meet his eyes. I nod, hoping that’s good enough for him. He sighs, letting me know how disgusted he is by me, but thankfully, that’s it. A long, hateful stare later, he finally leaves. Bangs and booms come from our shared space as he grabs his shit and does his best to remind me he despises me. There’s absolutely no need. We’re in this together, like everything else in our lives. The outer door finally closes, and everything is quiet. Without him there, time passes more easily.
The buzzing in my head grows more faint by the hour. My limbs start to get more responsive and less like I’m drunk. Later that night, I feel almost normal despite not having moved an inch.Where is Sable?
My stomach turns painfully, and though I’m not hungry, I know if I don’t eat something, I’ll get very sick. I stand, refusing to look at myself in the mirror before heading out the door. My gaze stays pointed down, and despite seeing it, I don’t fix my rumpled shirt. Most of the students are still here. The only ones who are gone are those like Orion who finished their finals early. Most of his finals were extended projects to be submitted rather than tests.
I’ve stayed in my room as much as possible, but I know people are buzzing. Liliana was revealed as a fraud, she and that fucking bitch publicly fought, and now Sable is gone. The last of those can be chalked up to the holidays, and so far, it’s for the best that none of us address it. Hell, she could be in the Offeringroom right now for all they know. Whispers of my name flit behind me, but I ignore them. There’s only one person I give a shit about seeing now, and she’s not here.
My phone sits gripped in my fist, both as an excuse to ignore them and as a talisman. It’s beyond stupid to think she would reach out to me after everything, but maybe she might send me a text telling me how much she hates me. That would at least mean she was okay, right? So far, nothing.
Rounding the corner before the cafeteria, I come face-to-face with Arabella. My heart races, and everything inside me screams to fucking run, but too many people are around, so it would cause a scene I couldn’t explain away easily.
“Soren, baby,” she says, taking a step toward me and trying to touch me. I jump back as she says, “Why haven’t you been answering the phone?”
My ability to speak leaves me entirely, and I rush away from her as quickly as possible. Shocked gasps and whispers come from behind us, but I don’t care what she told her friends. She can be embarrassed. Every inch of my body revolts in disgust. I want to turn back, but that would put me back in her orbit.
I head into the cafeteria alone, grabbing some food and going to sit at a small table. Here, the whispers don’t follow me. They surround me until they combine into a full-blown conversation. A few minutes pass as I try and fail to eat. People don’t even care that they’re talking about me or the girl I love as I sit and listen. Has it always been this way for her, and I’m only now just realizing? Another type of guilt makes me sick, as this all proves too much for me. We put her through too much.
My phone buzzes in my hand. Just like whispers swelling into full-blown conversations, one notification turns into a chorus of dings and vibrations. Not once has Bellthorn had a collective message that wasn’t someone’s nightmare coming to life. This is how this place works, after all.
My hand trembles as I open the message and find a video. It’s playing before I press anything. My stomach bottoms. No other words accompany it, but I recognize the tattoos on my neck and Arabella’s naked body. She moves on top of me, repulsive moans swelling as more and more people press play. I can’t stand to witness this, yet I keep watching, transfixed by a moment of my life I can’t remember anymore.
Underneath each moan of hers are the soft sounds of my grunts. It sounds as if I liked it. Without knowing better, I would believe I wanted it. My stomach turns, the thought of food completely forgotten. I don’t even sound fully awake, but my self-hatred deepens.How could I moan for her? Is that what Sable heard?
The conversation turns to full-on cheers, jeers, and shouting.
“Go, Rook!” the guys whoop as they watch Arabella rape me.
Would they still cheer if they knew? Would this be so entertaining if I let them know right now that this was a rape? The bitter answer is that yes, they would love it even more.
“He’s even better looking than I thought,” the girls comment to one another.
