…this is what you want, someone to tell you what to do…
Rooke’s voice is in my head. Low. Amused. Always so fucking amused at the idiocy of others. At their weakness, their humiliation, theirfear.
…someone to own you…
Jesus.
I brace my hands against the tile, water sluicing down my back, and try not to scream.
It was him.
And the worst part—the absolute worst fucking part—is the tiny, shameful flicker of relief that curls through me.
Because at least it was Rooke.
If I have to be that weak, that fucked up…at least it’s with someone I already hate.
Chapter 16
Bastian
I haven’t slept.
Not because of the bourbon, or the dark, or the silence that presses against the windows of my study like something trying to get in.
I haven’t slept because every time I close my eyes, I see Kai’s face in that alley.
Not the defiant version.
Theotherone.
The one that looked at me like I was the thing he’d been afraid of his entire life—and he was right.
Sutter’s midterm is a disaster, but at least it’s a problem I know how to solve.
I’ve been working on the source file for two hours. The red track changes on my screen look less like edits and more like an autopsy. Question twelve is ambiguous trash—answer C isn’t correct, it’s just statistically less wrong than A, B, or D.
I highlight the entire paragraph and hit delete.
Overhauling thirty percent of an exam forty-eight hours before the sit-down is a logistical nightmare. But I’ve beenrunning Sutter’s Introduction to Psychology class for two weeks already, babysitting over a hundred undergraduates who couldn’t spell ‘cognitive dissonance’ if their trust funds depended on it. I refuse to let them pass on a technicality because their professor is an imbecile.
Early this morning, Yolanda informed me there were complications with Sutter’s gallbladder surgery, and insisted I run his remedial circus for another week until he’s back.
Normally, I’d fight tooth and nail. But I left things in a delicate state on Friday, and the last thing I want is to piss off the dean right now.
One more week.
I can endure one more week.
I type out a new, sharper prompt for question twelve, close my laptop, and rub my hands over my face. It’s a pathetic attempt to coax myself to focus. It doesn’t work.
Barnes called a few hours after the dean, claiming he’d been in court when I demanded to know why he’d taken so long to report back.
That call should have allowed me to move on to more pressing matters, like what I’ll do in the unlikely event that Melissa recovers her memory. Like my own class’s midterm essay, tomorrow.
Like the half-empty bottle of bourbon within arm’s reach on my desk.
Instead, Barnes’s words circle my mind like vultures over roadkill.
