Stalked by my Professor Novel

Chapter 36 Something wet patters against my cheek, forcing my eyelids open. My neck screams in protest as I lift my head from its awkward angle against the windowsill. It's dark outside. Jesus, how long have I been out? Minutes? Hours? The joint jammed between my fingers burned itself out, leaving a trail of ash across my jeans. Empty beer bottles form a semi-circle on the floor by the window, like some half-assed séance where the ghost refused to show. "Fuck," I mumble, squinting out the window as another breeze blows drizzle against my face. When did it start raining?

Judging from my damp hoodie, quite a while ago. My mouth tastes like an ashtray from all the weed I've smoked. My head filled with pencil shavings instead of brains. The bottle of Jäger I'd been nursing sloshes in my lap as I shift position, and I groan when I realize I'm going to be hungover as fuck tomorrow morning. Where the fuck is my phone? Actually, fuck that. I hope it fell into a black hole. I blink, trying to bring the world into focus. The sorority houses across the road are all lit up, but my eyes flicker instinctively to Gamma Alpha Zeta.

I've been staring at it all day, one window in particular. Waiting. Watching. Like a fucking stalker. A pathetic, obsessed⁠- The sound of a car door slamming cuts through my thoughts. I fumble for the binoculars on the other side of the windowsill, nearly dropping them out the window. Dahmer lent them to me earlier today, not even bothering to ask what I needed them for. All the better to stalk Haven with, my dear. The world swims as I press them to my eyes, struggling to adjust the focus with trembling hands. Speak of the fucking angel.

Haven materializes in my viewfinder like the very ghost I'd apparently been trying to summon with my beer bottles, wrapped in a ridiculous pastel blue poncho that makes her look like a lost child. She's just gotten out of the Land Rover. Where the fuck did she come from? Where did she go? Motherfucking Cotton Eyed Joe. Jesus, I think I'm still drunk. I keep the binoculars focused on Haven's blue poncho as she moves over the road. Not heading inside, where it's warm, and dry⁠- and men are waiting to creep into her room -but across the road.

My heart thumps at the thought that she might be heading this way. Because she knows I was there this morning. She's on her way over to confront me. But the angle's wrong. She's crossing straight over, seconds away from disappearing out of sight behind a frat house four doors down. Just before she vanishes, she raises an arm, taking a swig from the bottle in her hands. Her movements are jerky, uncoordinated. She's drunk. Just like me. "Look what he did to you," I grate out. Even from this distance, I can see the change in her. The way her shoulders hunch forward.

The careful way she walks, like something inside her is broken. My beautiful Haven, defiled by a beast, while I watched from a fucking closet not five feet away. Haven vanishes from sight, leaving me staring at the empty, rain-soaked street. I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes until I see stars, trying to erase the images burned into my retinas. Haven's limp body. Bastian's hands spreading her thighs. The blood on his mouth. My own pathetic erection straining against my jeans as I filmed him eating her out. Spitting inside her. Fucking her. Kissing her.

A wave of nausea swells so violently I slide off the windowsill into a clatter of beer bottles. There's a thump against my hip as gravity claims the phone in my pocket. The rightful source is FindN()vel.net I've pulled it out at least twenty times today, thumb hovering over the delete button before I chickened out. It's insurance, I told myself. Leverage against Bastian. That's the only reason I'm keeping it. Not because I've watched it countless times. Not because I hate myself more with each viewing.

Not because some sick part of me gets hard every time I hear the sound she makes when he pushes into her limp body. I fight back the urge to puke with a hard swallow. Don't need another written warning for puking inside the house. I'm on two strikes already. The world tilts dangerously as I stumble for my bedroom door, but muscle memory takes over-grabbing jacket, shoving feet into boots. My body knows what to do, regardless how fucked up my mind is. I've followed Haven since we met in the woods. At first it was just walking her home to make sure she got back to her trailer okay.

She would never let me inside, and always told me to hide so her dad wouldn't see me, but I'd do it anyway. When I realized she went to the same school as me, I began following her in the mornings, too. Our elementary school was only a few blocks down the road, but the shortest route went past some abandoned factories, and those were dodgy as shit. I just wanted to make sure she was safe. No one else was gonna. She finished school before I did, but I'd cut class when the thought of her walking home alone left me unable to concentrate anyway.

That's when I realized that she often went straight to the woods after school. That she'd been waiting for me to get home, sometimes two to three hours. Alone. In the woods. I know she's not a fucking pussy. She can handle herself. If she's conscious. Not fucked up on molly. Or drugged with sleeping pills-or whatever the fuck she was on today. The rain is a fine mist that coats to my skin and hair as I track her across campus. She doesn't care about being seen-stumbling across open spaces, taking the most direct route rather than sticking to shadows.

I hang back, clinging to the shadows, using the cars in the lot for cover. All while glimpses of that fucking video keep peek-a-booing my subconscious mind, forcing me to swallow down the nausea that threatens to bring up all the booze I've consumed. Just before she reaches the woods beside the library gardens, Haven stops dead in her tracks. I freeze behind a low hedge, popping down in case she looks my way. Haven spins around, scouring the walkway. My pulse skips when she looks straight at me, but her eyes move on a second later. She's too drunk, or I'm too well hidden, for her to spot me.

But she knows. She can feel me. Even when she was a kid, she had a sixth sense about these things. About me. At first I thought I was scaring her, the way she'd constantly check behind her, hands tightening on her scuffed yellow backpack, shoulders hunching. But weeks after I started following her, she began wearing a faint smile, chin lifted, almost strutting to and from school. I like to think my invisible presence gave her that confidence. Or maybe our games did. Would she feel the same if she knew I'd been follower her on-and-off since she came back to Agony Hollow? Taking photos. Videos.

Stalking her? "You want a piece of me?" Haven yells, waving the bottle at no one. "Then come get me, motherfucker!" Her manic laugh sends a shudder through me, and I have to force myself not to sprint after her when she plunges into the darkness between the trees. Instead, I give her a thirty-second head start, counting under my breath to ground myself. I make it to twenty-three. The scent of wet soil and pine needles hits me as I slip quietly between the trees. These aren't our woods. They're just a small copse of trees separating the campus grounds from the farmland beyond.

Nothing like the vast forest that stretched behind our trailer park. But in the dark, rain misting around me as I follow her deeper inside, it's familiar enough to conjure fucking ghosts. Suddenly I'm fifteen again, leading Haven through the trees for another round of 'Hide and Hunt.' Hide and seek was for babies. 'Hide and Hunt' was our game, where I'd give her a head start, then track her through the woods like prey. She'd try every trick-doubling back on her tracks, crossing the creek, climbing trees-but I always found her. The hunt always ended in a sprint.

Always ended with me tackling her to the forest floor. Usually one-or both-of us with a skinned knee. "Hunters always catch their prey," I'd tell her, triumphant and breathless, as I pinned her beneath me. In the beginning, catching her just meant tickling her until she screamed for mercy. As we became older, the game changed. Tickling became pinching. Then slapping. The older I got, the more my hands would linger, especially on those forbidden places. The older she got, the less she struggled. I shake away the memories, focusing on Haven's uneven footsteps ahead of me.

She's making no effort to be quiet, snapping twigs and splashing through puddles, letting out little hiccuping laughs that sound almost like sobs. She staggers forward, bouncing between the trees like a pinball, her blue poncho snapping around her legs. I move the way I taught myself to move when sneaking out of the single-wide past Dad when he was asleep on the recliner. Each step careful, deliberate, and most importantly, silent. Piss easy in the middle of the day. Near impossible at night. A twig snaps under my boot. Haven stops.

I freeze, pressing my back against the damp bark of a nearby tree, holding my breath. Silence, but for the plip-plop of rain. 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.

Especially now. 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 first love get 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't stalk her. 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 have killed him.

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, glass fragments 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. "That's all I am, right? Just a hole for your dick. You don't see me. The real me. Never have!" Her voice cracks, raw with emotion. I know she's not just talking to me, but the message hits home as hard as if she was pressing that bottle to my jugular. She stumbles, catching herself against a tree trunk before sliding down to sit at its base. Her head drops forward, hair hiding her face. "Kai?" she calls again, voice softer now.

"You're there, aren't you?" Her head lolls forward before her neck stiffens and she pushes back against the tree. "You've always been there for me." The sudden fondness in her voice makes my stomach twist. Even now, even after everything, some part of her still trusts me. "Where were you, Kai? Where-" An ugly sob rips out of her. "Where-where⁠-" Hidden in the shadows, I slide down the tree I'm pressed against, hand clapped over my mouth as I watch her break down a few feet from me. Doing nothing. Like I did nothing when Rooke was using her like a toy. I can never let her know what I've done.

What I've let happen. But I can make it right. Fuck knows how, but I will. I take out my phone with a shaking hand, unlocking it without thinking. I could start by posting that video in one of my group chats. Even better, I could create a throwaway account on VibeFeed and create an anonymous public post. It'll get taken down pretty damn quickly, but not before clocking a few hundred views. They'll rip Bastian motherfucking Rooke a new asshole, and she'll never have to know it was me, that I was the fucking coward hiding in the⁠- A new message comes through.

My phone pings so loudly, instinct nearly has me tossing it into the brush. Haven's sobs cut off. Her face is a twisted mess as she fights back her tears, her shoulders tightening, head snapping up to scan the darkness with glittering eyes. "Bastian?" she whispers, fear threading through her voice. "Is that you, you sick fuck?" She scrambles to her feet, back pressed against the tree trunk, eyes darting between the shadows. "Wanna another piece of me?" she demands, voice trembling as she raises her broken bottle. "Try me, motherfucker. Not going down so easy this time, though.

No horse tranqs." The fear in her voice slowly burns away, replaced by a cold, hard anger that sends a chill down my spine. "What? Too chicken shit?" She swipes the back of her hand over her forehead, spinning to face the other way. When she faces back in my direction, there's a glare on her face. "You're gonna pay for what you did," she says, voice low. "Think I'm just some fragile little girl?" She pushes away from the tree, stumbling slightly before finding her footing. I take a chance to stand, to slip behind the tree so she doesn't accidentally spot me.

But her lunatic ravings are so loud, so fucking feral, I shouldn't have bothered. "You don't know me!" She laughs, the sound brittle and sharp. "You've got no idea who I am. You don't know what I've had to do to survive." The rain intensifies, plastering her hair to her skull, but she doesn't seem to notice. "Prey's becoming the hunter again," she murmurs, the words barely audible over the rainfall. Her hand drifts to her stomach, fingers splaying across it in an almost protective gesture. "I'll be careful this time. So fucking careful.

No one will ever know." Her words become more disjointed, her train of thought clearly derailing the drunker she gets. She spins around, losing her balance, crashing to her knees. Her broken bottle goes tumbling out of her hand, and thank fuck because it was too easy imagining it going through her hand, her arm, her neck. "You there, Kai!?" she hollers at the dark. At me. "No." She barks a laugh. "'Course not. Why'd you care about a slut like me? Prob'ly just tell me⁠-" She stops abruptly, head dipping low.

I hear her swallow, hear her gag, but she loses the fight and pukes noisily on the forest floor. Even that doesn't dampen her spirits. She pushes to all fours, dragging a hand over her mouth and picking right up where she left off. "You'd tell me I wanted it, right? I deserved it. Yeah, Kai. Your slut got what she deserved. " My heart just stopped its pounding, but it starts up again at her accusation. "Not there. Not anymore," she whimpers, dragging herself over to a tree and propping herself against the trunk. "Nobody's there. Nobody to see little Haven Lee," she sings in a cracked voice.

"No one but silly little me." Her drunken song trails off as her chin drops onto her chest. "No one to see...little...me..." A chill that has nothing to do with the rain creeps up my spine as I stare at Haven's slumped form. Jesus fucking Christ. How to even begin unpacking that shit? I knew Haven had demons-fuck, the skeletons in our closet used to have play dates together-but this? "Shit," I mutter, running a hand through my soaked hair as I step out behind the tree. I can't leave her out here in the rain. The temperature's dropping, and she's passed out cold.

She could fucking die of exposure or something. Moving on unsteady legs, I approach her still form. "Haven?" I tap her cheek, grimacing when I notice streaks of yellow bile on her ice-cold skin. "Hey, Haven. Wake up!" She doesn't stir. "Fuck," I mutter, whipping wet hair out of my face with a flick of my head. The last few minutes sobered me up a real treat. Enough to know I can't carry her back to Greek Row. It's too early-too many eyes to catch a glimpse of me with an unconscious girl in my arms. There'd be questions. Possibly another visit from Deputy Thatcher.

Campus is only a hundred yards away. Campus security patrols every half hour. If I bring her closer to the main building, someone is bound to find her. I gather her into my arms, and carry her through the trees, back toward the flood lamps. I'm almost to the edge of the woods when headlights sweep across the grass. A security cart making its rounds. Shit. I duck behind a tree, letting Haven's body slither down mine and propping her against my chest so her arms and legs don't stick out. ...what is it about you that renders me incapable of doing the right thing?...

Rooke's words echo in my mind, and I hate that I understand them now. Haven didn't turn me and him into monsters, she just took off our choke collars. I set her down gently beneath a pine tree, close enough to the path that security can't miss her. Her skin is ghostly in the moonlight, lips blue with cold. Before I can stop myself, I press my lips to her forehead. "I'm sorry, Haven," I whisper against her skin. "I'm so fucking sorry." The words are as empty as the hollow where my heart used to be. Worthless. Just like me.

I melt back into the shadows as the security cart rounds the corner, its headlights cutting through the rain. The guard spots her immediately, jumping from the cart with a shout. I watch from as close as I dare as he checks her pulse, calls for backup, wraps her in an emergency blanket from his kit. She'll be safe now. Away from Rooke. Away from me. I slip away through the darkness, the weight of the phone in my pocket a constant reminder of another failure. Of my corruption. Of the sickness inside me I can't seem to flush out, no matter how much I drink or smoke. I should delete the video.

Destroy the evidence of what I've become. But I know I won't. I might be a monster...but so is Rooke. And if I stand a chance of protecting Haven from him, I'm going to need all the ammunition I can get. Even if it's a bomb strapped to my fucking chest.