Chapter 16 Bastian
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.
The other one.
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 been running 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.
…he looked rough, Bastian. Rougher than I expected…
Good.
…I hope for the kid’s sake this case gets dropped…
And why wouldn’t it? My contact in the DA’s office assured me they’re pushing for no weak cases. Which means Kai’s charges will be delayed while they wait on the DNA.
…between you and me? That boy wouldn’t last a day in gen pop…
I’d thanked Barnes for his thoroughness. Ended the call. Poured a glass of bourbon. It sits untouched beside my laptop, the ice long since melted.
I can’t seem to bring myself to drink it.
Outside, the wind blows a few loose leaves against my study’s floor-to-ceiling windows, drawing my gaze.
Inside, the amber glow of the Edison bulb in my desk lamp falls on the paperweight, casting a warped shadow of the butterfly inside onto the surface of the desk.
Even deeper inside, someone starts humming the chorus of Hallelujah.
The sound cuts off when I realize I’m the one making it.
…wouldn’t last a day…
Bad Wolf stretches luxuriously, tongue lolling with satisfaction at the thought of Kai stripped of his designer clothes and fraternity swagger. Kai in orange scrubs, flinching at every sound. Kai learning what it really means to be alone.
The image was designed to please me.
Every aspect of Melissa’s release was calculated for maximum impact. Kai’s public accusation and subsequent humiliation, his loss of control, the dawning horror as my little pet realized someone else held his fate in their hands.
So why are my bones made of lead, and my flesh of concrete?
I push back from the desk and move sluggishly to the window. No moon tonight. No stars. The absolute darkness of the woods presses against the glass.
Good Wolf whines.
I ignore it.
The sound persists, growing louder, more insistent. A low keening that vibrates somewhere behind my sternum.
“You hurt him.”
I hurt everyone. That’s rather the point.
“Not like this. Not him.”
The distinction is meaningless. Kai is just a piece in a set I intend to add to my collection.
Good Wolf isn’t satisfied with my reasoning. “You forced her to abandon him. Left him alone and scared. You’re punishing him for what he did to you.”
My hand lands flush with the cool glass, fingers pressing hard enough to ache.
Kai didn’t do anything to me. I was the one who—
“Fucking liar,” Bad Wolf growls. “You lost control, and that pisses you off.”
My eyes squeeze shut with annoyance.
I don’t lose control.
Ever.
“Liar,” Good Wolf whines.
The humming returns, accompanied by water lapping against porcelain. The sounds grow louder and louder, an ocean now, and all I can smell is blood and lavender soap and the stagnant, powdery rot of mildew.
Friday night surfaces unbidden.
Again.
I’ve lost count of how many times it’s resurfaced.
The alley behind The Hollow Point. The warmth of Kai’s body. His lips, his hands.
The pathetic sounds he made.
…you can’t look at Haven without thinking about me, and we both know how you feel about me…
I open my eyes. My reflection stares back from the darkened glass.
Gaunt, hollow-eyed, grim.
Every bit the monster I pretend not to be.
…wouldn’t last a day…
The bourbon has warmed in my hand. I don’t remember picking it up. I drain it anyway, using the burn to cauterize the wound the memory opened in my chest.
This maudlin-style self-reflection serves no purpose.
I am not weak.
I am not sentimental.
I take what I want without recompense, and what I want is them.
Both of them.
On their knees, in my bed, bound so tightly to me they forget they ever belonged to anyone else.
Kai’s discomfort was temporary. A means to an end.
So why can’t I stop seeing his face?
Not the defiant smirk he wears like armor. Not the cruel snarl he sometimes gives Haven when he thinks no one’s looking at him. The other face. The one I glimpsed in that alley, just for a moment, before Bad Wolf lunged.
Angry.
Needy.
Scared.
My glass of bourbon shatters against the window.
I stare at my empty hand, chest heaving. When did I decide to throw it?
This is unacceptable.
I am in control. I am always in control.
So why does it feel like I’m careening toward a cliff in a car with no brakes?
Because someone’s cut my brake lines…and for once, my pets aren’t responsible.
I sit down, open my laptop.
Stare at the screen without seeing it.
…wouldn’t last a day…
“Fuuuck,” I grind out through clenched teeth as I press my eyelids closed with too much force.
In that star-studded darkness, I think of Haven in the woods.
The catch in her breath when I ordered her to touch herself. Her reluctant obedience. The shame and arousal warring behind those pretty blue eyes as she spread her legs for me against that tree.
My cock stirs, rousing despite my foul mood.
I slide my hand behind my sweats, gripping myself as I imagine Haven’s small hand wrapped around my cock instead, stroking—
But then it’s Kai’s hand.
Kai in that alley, glaring at me, green eyes blown black with fury and terror and—
…wouldn’t last a day…
My hand stills.
The arousal is still there, but it’s soured by what feels uncomfortably like—
No.
I don’t do guilt.
Guilt is for people who believe in hope, and second chances, and the comforting delusion that we can fix past mistakes.
There is no going back.
There is only forward.
And forward means getting what I want—whatever the cost.
But my cock has softened in my hand, and the leadenness behind my sternum won’t budge, and Good Wolf is howling now, loud enough to drown out everything else.
“You don’t deserve them—“
My phone buzzes.
I snatch it from the desk, both angry and grateful for the interruption.
Let it be Haven, desperate for more attention. Or Kai, thanking me for getting him off the hook I strung him up on.
I huff through my nose at the notification on my screen.
@jordan.ezra
I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately
I don’t want to, but I can’t help it
I’m still staring at the messages as another comes through.
@jordan.ezra
Nothing you do makes sense
Christ, I’m not in the fucking mood for this.
I’m about to turn off notifications when my phone buzzes in my hand.
@jordan.ezra
Why would someone’s professor hire them a lawyer
That’s a lot of effort for your new TA
You didn’t even visit me in the hospital
Of course Ezra will make this about him.
Because everything is about Ezra, isn’t it? Every move, every word, every breath anyone takes in his vicinity must somehow circle back to the Golden Boy.
In the months since I cut him loose, I’ve forgotten just how exhausting his narcissism can be. How every interaction became a hall of mirrors reflecting only his face, his needs, his bottomless need for validation.
I leave him on read.
It’s better than any comeback I’ve got right now.
My hand is behind my sweats again, gripping a cock hardened by the mere thought of Ezra’s wounded eyes as he waits for my reply.
Christ, how I loved toying with him. But unlike Kai, there was never that push-pull of hate and want with him. Submission came so easily to Ezra that I never even considered it a game.
I’d beckon, and he’d come…every single time.
I should have spotted the warning signs, but I was hardly paying attention half the time. Ezra was a warm hole for my cock, and I’d gag him more often than not to keep it that way.
It’s only when I toss him away—like the piece of trash he lets me treat him as—that I realize my mistake.
By never validating him, he’d become obsessed.
I cut all ties, and thankfully, just in time.
Or so I thought.
His string of messages says I didn’t act quickly enough.
I groan as I purposefully edge myself, fighting the urge to come as hard as I fight the urge to send an incendiary reply to Ezra.
Good Wolf knows how fragile—and volatile—Ezra is. No wonder it’s whining at me to say something soothing so Ezra doesn’t spiral further.
But Bad Wolf knows I thrive on chaos. That I’m only truly happy when I’m balanced on a razor’s edge.
“The whiny bitch wants you to use him again. So fucking use him before someone else finds him and uses him,” Bad Wolf says.
Good Wolf whimpers. “They won’t just use him. They’ll kill him.”
I chuckle as cum—warm, sticky—floods over my knuckles. I pick up my phone, hesitate, then exit without replying.
Distracting myself with Ezra would be fun, but at what cost?
He needs therapy, not exploitation.
I want Haven and Kai…but I don’t need them to hate me even more.
I lock my phone and set it face down on the desk.
But I don’t turn off the notifications.
And I don’t put it on silent.