Then her careful footsteps as she moves away from me. No longer running, but searching. I risk a peek from behind my tree, spotting her easily. She kept near the perimeter of the woods, I’m guessing so she wouldn’t twist an ankle in the dark. There’s just enough light filtering through the trees from the campus’s flood lights to make her out.
She scowls as she whips her head around to search the trees.
Frustrated, angry, desperate.
God, she’s beautiful, even now.Especiallynow.
Broken and vulnerable and hurt.
The alcohol and weed in my system amplify everything—my desire, my self-loathing, my fury at myself for wanting her even more after what happened.
What kind of monster gets hard watching his childhood friend, his firstloveget assaulted?
What kind of monster follows her into the dark afterward?
Me. I’m that monster.
“Is someone there?” she screams into the darkness.
I hold perfectly still, trying to quiet my ragged breathing.
“I can hear you, asshole,” she mutters, as she swipes hair away from her face and tugs on the poncho’s hood.
“That you, Kai?” she calls, her voice raising with a hint of hope. “Always loved stalking me, didn’t you?”
Her words jab like a knife between my ribs.
I didn’tstalkher. Not back then. I was looking out for her.
Her voice hardens. “Or is it you, Professor? Coming back for seconds?”
My stomach heaves, bile rising in my throat. The image of Rooke hovering over her unconscious body flashes behind my eyes. Her pale thighs stained with blood. His hand spearing between her legs. All as I watched from the closet—rock hard, disgusted, frozen.
I should have stopped him.
I should havekilledhim.
Instead, I filmed it. And when it was over, when he’d left and she’d rolled onto her side to cried herself to sleep, I slipped out without a sound.
“If you’re there, just...come out,” she says, her voice dropping to something raw and broken.
She stumbles into a small clearing between the trees, dropping to her knees in the wet leaves. The blue poncho pools around her, doing a shit job of keeping her dry.
“I know you’re out there,” she mutters, looking around with unfocused eyes. “I can feel you.”
She takes another swig from the bottle, grimacing. “Come out and play with me, Kai!”
I dig my fingernails into my palms, fighting the pull of her voice.
Not this time, my broken, beautiful girl.
Not this time.
She staggers to her feet, spinning in an unsteady circle before slamming the empty bottle against a tree trunk. It shatters, glassfragments catching what little light filters through the leaves. She stares at the jagged neck of the bottle she’s still clutching like she has no idea how it survived the impact.
“So fucking sick of this!” she shouts. “Sick of being everyone’s fucking toy!”
She paces in a small circle, gesturing wildly with the broken bottle as she rants to the darkness.
