15. Bastian
Chapter 15
Bastian
I love letting my animals out of their cages. Watching them tousle and play-fight with each other. A little nip here. A little growl there. It’s how they learn and grow and bond.
Interacting with others makes them feel less alone. Being chased makes them feel wanted.
They all enjoy it at first.
Until one of them plays a little too rough. Until feelings get hurt.
A bark, a snap.
A whimper, a whine.
Then they realize it’s not a game anymore, and the cruel reality crushes them.
I’m an expert in cause and effect.
I know someone’s been playing rough with Miss Lee. It’s gone past the point where she can deny it, even to herself, and yet she so desperately tries.
Who is she protecting?
I understood the act of inflicting cruelty on someone else before I studied it academically. My interest in that concept plateaued years ago.
But for someone to readily accept that cruelty?
That still fascinates me.
Is that why I can’t get Miss Lee out of my fucking mind?
Is that why, after class ends, I call her to me? Why I suppress a smile as she hurries over?
Wide eyed, nervous, shy, curious. A flurry of emotion, openly broadcast for anyone to see. What it must be like inside her mind as she tries to navigate this new world.
Does her pulse flutter whenever she’s uneasy or unsure?
Is it doing it now?
“When is your next class?”
“Uh…I have Urban Studies at two.”
I nod and let the silence grow until she has no choice but to fill it with words. “I was going to study for a while. Work on some assignments.”
“Good. Then I’ll walk you to the library.”
A flash of surprise lifts her eyebrows before she tries to look cool and detached. “I wasn’t going to the library.”
“Then where?”
Her lips move like she’s trying to hold back the truth, but that’s the funny thing about authority. It can be…persuasive.
“Just…in my car.”
“Even better. I was just headed to mine.” I head for the door, but she doesn’t follow. When I turn back she’s watching me with a blank face, a touch of unease in her eyes. Like a deer that’s caught a hint of a predator’s scent in the air.
I walk back, scratching at my temple. “Is this the part where you tell me you can look after yourself?”
I make a point of looking at the bruise on her jaw.
It’s much fainter than I make it out to be. But I’m keenly observant, and I’ve known something’s wrong with Miss Lee for a while now. Always putting on a brave face for her peers, but I notice the tiny moments of desperate panic that makes her eyelashes tremble, her lips tighten, her hands tighten into fists.
How she tries to keep track of everyone in the room all at once, all the time.
How she wipes at her face again. Charming, how she thinks it’s that easy to eradicate cruelty.
Imagine a world where everyone’s bruises could just be wiped away?
She hesitates, even glances away as if she’s trying to find an alternative. But she must realize there’s safety in being at my side. That the presence of a faculty member provides some respite from the monster tracking her through the ever-darkening forest she’s gotten herself lost in.
Miss Lee dips her head and falls in line behind me as I go to collect my satchel from the desk. Ezra Jordan’s brother, Kai, watches us approach with a lopsided smile.
“Hey, kid, you get that copy of Lucifer Effect from the library yesterday?” he asks when Miss Lee and I are in earshot, sliding my laptop over the table to me.
I’m focused on putting my laptop away. At least, it must seem that way to them as he pushes the remaining envelopes over the desk.
“No,” she replies coldly, snatching the envelope and shoving it into her AHC tote bag. “Some asshole took the last copy.”
She makes it sound intentionally spiteful. If she considers every form of bad luck in her life a purposeful slight by the universe, no wonder she thinks there’s a curse on her.
“Oof,” Kai says through a laugh, twanging the end of a plastic sucker stick against his teeth. Teeth he won’t have much longer if he keeps at the candy like that. “Tough break. Guess you’ll just have to go buy one. She needs it for the class, right, Sir? Make or break kinda situation?”
I straighten, giving each of them a long look.
Miss Lee’s staring in Kai’s direction, but her eyes are unfocused like she’s in her own head. Kai is leering at her, but when he feels me switch focus to him, he looks away.
I suppose I can’t chastise him for being human. Or male.
Miss Lee’s plump, heart-shaped face exudes innocence. And while her clothing is the furthest thing from complimentary, they do a poor job of hiding her juicy curves.
“Correct, Mr. Jordan. But Miss Lee seems resourceful. I’m sure she’ll find a way.”
Kai sits forward, pulling air through his teeth as he gives Miss Lee a pitying once-over. “Sure hope so, Sir. Be a pity seeing our one and only grant student fail because she can’t keep up with the rest of us.”
Christ, these students are all born with a chip on their shoulder.
If Kai had more to say, I don’t wait around to hear it.
Miss Lee chases along behind me as I head for the door, and I swear I hear Kai chuckle to himself.
Sadists and sociopaths and society’s outcasts.
If they paid attention in my class, my students would have run out of pages in their Activity Logs by now.
No wonder I find teaching so intoxicating.
Just like Miss Lee.
It saddens me that I’ll only be able to monitor her in class. Maybe the occasional chance encounter in the hall. This whole lecture, I’ve been planning how to study her up close.
Kai doesn’t know it, but he just handed me the perfect lure.
We step into the hall, and I slow down until she’s forced to walk beside me. She throws a nervous glance up at me and tucks her hair behind her ear.
“Mr. Jordan is right. It would be a tragedy wasting an opportunity like yours, Miss Lee,” I murmur, my voice meant for her ears alone.
She stiffens up, but says nothing. From the tight set of her jaw, it’s almost like she doesn’t dare.
“I’m heading out. If you want, I could pick up a copy of Zimbardo’s book for you.”
Haven looks at me, wide eyed. “You’d buy a book for me?”
“I’d be loaning you the spare copy I have at home. In fact, had you mentioned you needed one, I’d have brought it to class for you. Pride comes before a fall.”
She quickly looks away, cheeks flushing ever so slightly. “I didn’t think you’d?—”
“Care? Because teachers are all closeted narcissistic sadists?”
“No! I mean, not all of them. Definitely not you. But Mr. Santiago back in elementary school? Ask Kai. We thought he was an undercover CIA operative.” She laughs, and then cuts off the sound.
“You and Mr. Jordan know each other from school?”
“Uh…kind of.” She shrugs, fidgets with her bag.
I can tell I’m losing her to something unpleasant. Perhaps Kai’s callous remarks back there.
“Good. Then it’s settled. If we hurry, you can make the afternoon shuttle back here in time for your class.”
“Wh…wait…” She throws me a frantic look as she realizes what I’m implying. “You want me to go with you? To your…house? Can’t you just bring me the book?”
I huff out a breath through my nose, shaking my head as we turn to head down the stairs into the foyer. “Yes, I could bring you the book, Miss Lee, but this was my only class today, and I have no intention of coming back here until Tuesday morning.”
She’s silent, but still sticking to my side like a burr.
There’s a touch of coldness in my voice when I say, “The whole point of this exercise, me taking time out of my day to do you a favor, is so you can catch up over the weekend.”
Haven darts me an uneasy look, her shorter legs struggling to keep up with mine as I walk faster. “I appreciate that, Professor, I do, but?—”
“Let me guess,” I say dryly. “You had other plans.”
We’re almost back where we started earlier today, my Tesla rearing up ahead like an ergonomic, matte black boulder. I take out my phone to unlock the car.
I turn to her so suddenly, Haven skids in the gravel with the speed she backs up so as not to run into me.
“If getting drunk with your friends, or binging your way through some Netflix show takes priority over your studies, then maybe I underestimated what a waste it would be if you failed.”
Her mouth falls open.
I open my Tesla’s trunk, laying my laptop bag inside, and shut it, silent and focused only on what’s in front of me.
I’m about to close the driver’s side door when Haven darts forward, hesitantly putting out a hand to stop it. “I don’t want you going out of your way for me,” she says.
I drape my wrist over the steering wheel, turning to give her a long-suffering stare.
“No more classes until Tuesday, Miss Lee, remember? I was going home anyway.” I narrow my eyes at her, shifting my weight on the Tesla’s crimson leather. “This has nothing to do with pride, does it? You’re scared to be alone with me. Why is that, Miss Lee?”
“What? No.” I might have believed her if her eyes hadn’t grown to the size of saucers.
“This isn’t a kidnapping,” I tell her dryly. “I wouldn’t risk my reputation at Agony Hollow just to have my way with an unwilling student.”
She releases the car door, glances over at the passenger side. Hesitates.
Come on, Haven.
Just a little closer.
“Fine. I guess one can’t be too careful these days.” I flick my hand at her. “Send your live location to a friend. I’ll wait.”
Haven grabs her tote bag, but only to clasp it tighter to her side. The flush on her cheeks has just faded away, but it comes back full force. Without a word, I take my phone out of my pants pocket and tap on one of my contacts.
Stepping one foot out of the car, I sit forward and hold the phone between me and Haven. As soon as the call is answered, I tap the screen to put it on speaker.
“Need something, Sir?” Kai’s husky voice comes through on the line crystal clear.
There’s panic in Haven’s eyes when she looks up at me.
“Yes, Mr. Jordan. I will be taking Miss Lee to fetch some school supplies. She should be back by two. If she goes missing, please alert the authorities. Isn’t that right, Miss Lee?”
Haven clears her throat. “Yes. That’s…correct.”
There’s just silence on the other end of the line.
“Can I get a confirmation for Miss Lee please?”
“Yeah, sure,” Kai grumps like I told him he’d better be home before ten or he’s grounded. “Whatever you say, Sir.” But his voice is a little brighter when he adds, “Have fun, Haven. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
I end the call, raising my eyebrows at her as I stretch out my leg, the phone going back in my pocket. “Are you satisfied, Miss Lee?”
Her eyes are glassy again. I wonder where she goes when she tucks herself away like that. The past, or the future?
“I have to be back by two, Professor,” she says woodenly.
I lift my hands. “Barring an Act of God.”
She hesitates one more time, and then hurries around the back of my car and slides into the passenger seat. I watch her from the corner of my eye as I tap on the Tesla’s touchscreen, smiling at the way she strokes her hands down the leather.
“Bastian,” I say.
Haven jerks like she’s coming out of a daydream. “Sorry?”
I point behind us at the sprawling campus, steering out of the parking space with the heel of my hand on the wheel. “In there, it’s Professor. Out here, my name’s Bastian.”
Her eyes flicker like a Northern Blue butterfly in a mason jar. She can’t see the confines of her trap, can’t understand why she isn’t as free as she was only a moment ago.
Then she looks out her window, her head bobbing as I switch the Tesla into drive and head out the lot.
As my eyes go back to the road, her lips move like she’s repeating my name quietly to herself.
Lies are cheap. Lies are easy. I grew bored with them early in life.
I much prefer toying with the truth. Twisting it, bending it, pulling it till it snaps.
Logically, I would never risk my reputation with an unwilling student.
But the urge to toy with Haven is forcing me to change the narrative.
It’s called a compulsion for a reason.