Stalked by my Professor Novel

Chapter 20 Everyone around me is jamming to a sick beat, the heavy bass echoing through my head. It's raining, but I don't feel wet or cold. I'm warm. Heavy. Sluggish. It's time for another dose of molly, but I need to get off the dance floor first. Bodies glowing with neon UV paint block me as I turn to look for a way out of the crowd. I spot the back of Haven's head, and make a beeline for her. At first I'm all polite, looking for gaps between couples and friends that I can wedge into. But Haven's slipping away, and I'm not catching up, so I start pushing, then shoving.

People are yelling at me, grabbing me, trying to hold me back. Why the fuck is everyone so aggro? I shake them off, plunge forward. There's another guy in front of me, and I can't get around him. Every time I try, he moves in the same direction. It's intentional, but his back is turned, so how the hell can see me? When I shove him out of the way, I hear a familiar laugh, but all I want is to find Haven. Where the fuck did she go? And how do I keep getting turned around? All I see in front of me is a sea of dancers, their bodies so closely meshed I can't pick out a route between them.

How big is this fucking dance floor? And why the hell is the DJ playing the same track? ring ring That sample's getting real old, real fast. Hands grab my arm, spin me around. My vision blurs, goes dark. ring ring Hands around my throat. Can't breathe. The press of bodies around me tighter. Tighter. Suffocating. Trapping me. ring ring I grab at the hands around my throat, already knowing who they belong to. Rooke. The fuck is he doing-oh, yeah. I invited him. I fucking let him in. Is that why Haven went to him for help? Am I the reason he was even here in the first place?

ring ring Warm bodies pressing against me. Skin on skin. Those hands on my throat, crushing my windpipe. I'm going to die on this dance floor. And it's all my fau⁠- Lightning crashes. It illuminates the person strangling me in crisp high-def. Not Rooke. It's my brother, Ezra. How the fuck I recognize him is anyone's guess. His nose is flattened, raw hamburger meat where his left eye should be. His jaw hangs at a wrong angle, split skin revealing white bone beneath the dark, sticky blood that covers everything. There's a dent in his forehead like someone took a hammer to it...or their fist.

My fist. Blood-coated teeth shine as he grins. "You gonna beg him to hurt you too, little brother?" He takes a hand off my throat and grabs my dick, squeezing even harder than my neck. The jumpscare is so real, so terrifying, I gasp myself awake. I blink rapidly, desperate to clear the afterimage of Ezra's destroyed face out of my mind. But I know I'm going to see it at night, in the dark, when I'm trying to sleep. I'll be staring into the corners of my room, waiting for the gleam of wet bone and pulverized flesh. Haven's voice draws my attention.

I can't hear what she's saying, but I'm guessing that dance track in my dream was the professor's phone. Surprised I even heard it over the drumming rain hitting the roof. It's dismal outside. Gray and somber, like my mood. "Fuck," I mutter, pressing my eyes closed so I'm not tempted to look to the other side. I can hear Rooke breathing. Can feel his presence. My hand slides over my eyes, fingertips digging into my temple as if, by rubbing hard enough, I can somehow wipe out every memory. Fuck even knows what time we fell asleep. A blurred silhouette appears in the courtyard.

I slip out of bed, grimacing when I look down at my naked body. There's blood on me. ...Haven! You're bleeding! Did I hurt you?... Fucking amazing how history repeats itself. I grab the sweatpants Rooke gave me last night, hopping into them as I go after Haven. But unlike in my dream, I don't have to chase her. She's just standing there in the rain, shoulder's stooped, head hanging a little to one side. Like the life got beat out of her. "Heavenly." I bite back the word too late, but she doesn't hear me over the pounding rain.

The smell of wet earth and pine needles hangs thick in the air, but I can still catch a hint of her scent. Blood and Rooke's body wash, and fuck it if I wish more than anything that I didn't know that. I probably smell like him too. He's marked us both. Don't know what's fucking me up more. That I let him touch me, or that I have more than just the memory as evidence. I can still feel his hands on me. Between every blink when my eyes are closed, I can still see him watching me from the foot of the bed. Directing me. Showing me how to hurt, use, please Haven.

The worst part is...I fucking loved it. Giving up control to him was so fucking easy, I know if I stay I'll let it happen again. So will Haven. That's why we have to get the fuck out of here. Rooke saw something in me-in us-that we've both been hiding for years. So I focus on Haven until everything else fades away. The rain, the smell. The awful, awful shame. She's in the too-big but nearly not big enough hoodie I assume is also Rooke's. I grab her collar's chain, just in case she tries to run. She doesn't even seem to notice. It's hard to tell with the rain, but I think she's crying.

Unless her lips are trembling from the cold, her eyelids shivering from the touch of the rain. The hand holding the chain slides around her throat. She doesn't resist. I grab her head, yank back her head. A sharp tug meant to cause pain, to get a reaction. Her eyes close as if she's resigned herself to her fate. Where's the Miss H I remember? The one who'd fight me off in those woods until exhaustion claimed her? I guess that's it. She's got nothing left to give. We took it all from her last night. Her resistance. Her vibrancy. Her light. She's just a fragile, empty thing now.

Easily shattered. I rub my thumb over her puffy lower lip. Discover more novels at fιɴdnοvel.net Fuck, how badly I want to kiss her. But what if she pushes me away? This is how I felt all those times I had her in the frame of my phone camera. Wanting to make my presence known so I could join her in her car, at the diner, on her way to one of her classes. But always too scared she'd reject me to take action. Kind of sums up the entire downfall of our relationship all those years back. "Let's go while he's still asleep," I say, speaking right into her ear. She flinches, tries to shake her head.

"You want to leave?" I twist her head to the side, forcing her to look at me. It's like staring into the eyes of a dead thing. "You want to stay here? With him?" I rasp, swallowing, hoping that will clear the fucking lump in my throat. "I...I want to understand what happened last night," she mumbles, a tiny frown between her eyebrows. "What happened?" I scoff. "Jesus, Haven. It's not rocket science. We were both fucked out of our minds on molly, and he..." I drag my fingers through my damp hair.

"He took advantage." "I don't think he did." She stares at me for a beat, her eyelashes fluttering every time a drop of rain strikes near her eyelids. "I think...I think I liked it." I frown at her. "That's because of the molly." Her gaze cuts back to Rooke's house, and she shivers. From the rain, or from a memory? "I need to speak to him. I need to understand..." The last is barely audible over the rain slamming onto the cobblestones. There's a flicker in her eyes that, despite the complete lack of emotion on her face, makes me think she's telling me the truth. Who'd have thought?

All it took to get her to stop lying was some rough fucking. ...it's supposed to hurt the first time... "Someone could have been torturing you, and you'd have enjoyed it. Now come on, let's get the fuck out of here before he wakes up." The corner of her mouth crooks as if she wants to smile, but then flattens a second later as if she doesn't have the energy. "You think I'd go anywhere with you?" There's a taunting edge to her voice that's so fucking familiar, my arm hairs stand on end. "You really think I'd trust you?" "Think I trust you?" I snap back.

I barely, so fucking barely, hold back a 'slut'. Many moments from last night still burn bright in my mind. Rooke so smugly explaining that Haven was a virgin is one of them. He could be lying. Don't know what the fuck it would gain him, but if anyone has a hidden agenda, it's Rooke. "I don't have the energy to entertain your fucking delusions right now," Haven says dryly. I give her a scathing once-over that makes her lips tighten into a hard line. "Fine, Heavenly. Stay." I swipe a hand toward the black Lego-block of a house behind her. "Go and fuck Rooke some more.

I'm not gonna be here when he wakes up." My face feels hot and tight. Wouldn't be surprised if the rain was steaming off my skin. All I want to do is grab her and drag her away from this sick fuck's lair. I don't black out on molly like I do with booze. I remember everything. I know Rooke took advantage of Haven, because I fucking did. That shit I still have to unpack, but I'm so low on fucking serotonin right now, it's like asking me to climb Everest. I can't leave Haven here. Rooke's already gotten his claws into her somehow, and after last night, they've only sunk in deeper.

Haven insisted I fucked her first last night, and that has to count for something. She belonged to me first. I claimed her first. She was mine first before he turned us both into his fucking puppets. Her blood is still on my skin, proof that I took a part of her that he'll never be able to. If I walk away now, who will be there to stop him? The thought of his hands on her, touching what's mine, causes a savage heat to fire up inside me. The same feeling I had seconds before I beat Ezra's face in. "Please, Haven. Let's⁠-" "Seriously?" she cuts in, a tic in her jaw.

"You were seconds away from sucking his dick last night," she spits out. "Now you can't stand to be around him?" I shiver as I turn away. Not from cold, but from suppressed rage. And about a hundred other things I can't stand to fucking think about. I meant what I said. If I never see Rooke again, it'll be too soon. I hear her call my name, low and urgent, but I just keep walking, ready to go around the house, find the road, and keep at it till I can hitch a ride back to town. Might take a while, seeing as I'm only in a pair of drenched sweatpants. I'll survive. I've been through worse.

"Kai!" Haven catches my arm as I turn the corner. It's slightly more overgrown here, the forest nudging closer to the house. I didn't realize there was an extra room on this side of the building. Then again, unlike Haven, this is the first time I've been here. I shake her off, but she just latches on again. So I grab her arm and pull, yanking her through a row of tall grass until her back is against a tinted window. The boughs of a tree overhead shield us from the worst of the rain, but now I can't get the scent of Rooke's body wash out of my nose. "I'm leaving.

Come, stay, I don't give a fuck." "I don't want to leave yet. And I don't want you to leave, either. Please, Kai. Just stay for⁠-" "You're fucked in the head if you think anything's going to happen now that we're all sober." "I don't want-" She cuts off, whipping her head to the side, blinking furiously. "We should talk. Like...decompress or something. Figure out what happens now." I laugh, drawing her gaze back to me. "What happens now, is everyone pretends nothing fucking happened." She opens her mouth to argue and then closes it again. I see her processing shit.

Confusion, then annoyance, then sullen resignation. The fucking planets aligned last night and resulted in the most fucked up evening of my life. Maybe Haven and Rooke's too. But just like an eclipse comes, wows, then leaves...it's over, and thanks for the memories. "Took you a while," I mutter. "But I'm glad you finally figured it out, Heavenly." My thumb brushes over her damaged bottom lip. There are marks on her neck where the collar grazed her skin. More on her wrists where she fought the restraints I used to tie her to the headboard.

She's covered in bruises and scratches, like she was in a fucking car wreck. Nope, just me and Rooke. "Kai." Her voice is low, heavy. My gaze drops to her mouth, watching as she licks her lips. I can't fight the urge anymore. Dropping my head, I go in for a kiss. She turns away. "We can take my car," she mumbles sulkily. Like I won, but she thinks I played dirty. Guess I did. I draw back, smirking down coldly at her. "Sure you don't want to stay here with your sugar daddy?" She gives me a withering glare as she shoves past me hard enough to send me reeling to the side.

"Sticks and stones, Kai," she calls over her shoulder, still scowling. "Sticks and fucking stones." There she fucking is. Heavenly, the golden-haired angel in the woods is still here. Grown-up Haven just had her buried deep. Can't call her that anymore, not after last night. Her white robe has been sullied. Her halo bent. We did that. Me and Rooke. There's a part of me that wants to rescue her. Another part of me wants to drag her back inside Rooke's house so we can rip away every last bit of innocence. I clench my fists, digging my nails into my palms until the thought bleeds away.

That part of me needs to stay locked up tight. For my sake, and hers.