Chapter 15
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
LINCOLN
I t takes an hour, one student after another, filing into my office, complaining to me about their grade. By the time they leave, they were pouting because I refused to give them the grade they think they deserve, and my patience is worn thin.
I spend an entire hour with one girl in particular, who clearly wanted to stay as long as she could in my presence. Since Misty is Summer’s roommate, I indulge and give her some special attention, flirting and toying with her, because one day she might come in handy.
The way I connect with my students is by using manipulation tactics to make them feel special, even though they aren’t.
She twirls her hair, her eyes glistening up at me. “Bye, Lincoln, thank you.” Her words are accompanied with a shy smile, and the heat rises on her cheeks.
“Keep digging inside yourself, Misty. You’ll grasp the concepts in no time.” My eyes linger on her short dress.
I’ve had the nerve to fuck my students in the past. Although, I wouldn’t call it nerve, more like my given right. And since I’m the only TA with a permanent office in the department, it’s quite easy to shut the door and politely ask for a blow job if students want more from me.
The girls are usually too stunned to say anything, and I’m quite nice about it. It’s amazing how willing most of them are and how quickly they drop to their knees.
I still don’t change their grade, and they don’t say anything because it could get them kicked out of the program.
I consider doing this with Misty, but change my mind. Not with Summer here, and Summer is the only one I want.
I’m not a normal TA, and the only reason I haven’t obtained my PhD yet is because Dr. Garcia thought it would be strange for me to get it so quickly, given how young everyone thinks I am. So I waited for the appropriate age by society’s standards.
Dr. Garcia has determined I am ageless. My mind knows no bounds, and its only societal constructs that hold me back. I also have the body of a twenty-five-year-old, which means my physical needs are relentless.
Once Misty finally leaves, the late afternoon sun casts a warm glow across my office. I sink into the comfort of my oversized chair, a warm sigh escapes my lips, and I turn to gaze at the grand oak door, anticipating my blonde beauty to walk through.
A twinge of disappointment hits me when the clock on my wall hits five-thirty PM. I was sure she’d visit after failing her. She was only one of a few to receive an F in the class.
I planned for her visit, prepared to talk to her, and I’m pretty sure she knows it’s me stalking, even though I’ve been avoiding her.
I lean back in my chair, and swivel to look out the window instead of staring down at the sprawling campus below. The sandstone buildings, the old architecture, and the canopy trees hint at shades of red and yellow, indicating the early signs of fall. The shrill of the early evening sun when things are the most peaceful and the sun is blinding in the sky.
Home…
This university made me what I am. I am a construct of what was created here, an outcome of the evil things people do for greed. All because of some silly parchment found in the university archives.
283 years ago, a historian decoded an ancient text. He wrote it down with a quill pen on parchment and sealed it with wax. Based on his loose and deranged interpretation of old Latin, and following the steps, he created the Order of the Shadows, proclaiming that following these steps will lead to enlightenment. He was the first of many people in town who ended up going insane, and who killed innocent people because the words in this book told them to.
The Order of the Shadows has been going strong ever since, nearly two hundred and eighty years of terror—and a new terrifying future I plan to forge into the dark past.
After a few minutes, I sigh and rise from my chair, pulling my wool coat off the hanger near my desk. A sweet voice pulls me from my thoughts.
“Um, Lincoln?”
I allow only a twinge of a smile before I place on my mask of indifference and turn around to face her. She looks just as gorgeous as she always does, her hair a brilliant natural white. The air sparkles around her as she takes a tentative step into the sunlight and shuts the door behind her.
It looks like she’s been crying, her eyes are glistening and puffy.
A small twinge of…something hits me. Pity, maybe?
I shove the emotion down so hard.
Get out of my head, especially while I’m at work.
“She’s crying.”
I can see that. I’ll handle it.
He settles back into onyx liquid, but his essence remains, and I put the walls up in my head—the same walls that used to work to keep him at bay. He never used to be this chatty.
I was formed during Mikael’s early years to help him disassociate from what he witnessed in his early childhood, but I lingered beneath the surface for years as a fragment. That changed the day he saw Summer for the first time. That’s the day the fragment that is me formed into the alter I am today.
She is smart. She must be piecing together her father’s time here. I wonder if she’s starting to suspect that her father was the most notorious serial killer of this century.
I offer a small smile and hold out my hand. “Hi, Summer, I was wondering when you’d come to see me.”
She quirks her head, then frowns, but keeps her eyes glued on me, studying me. Wanting to call me out, but still not sure.
She frowns and places her hand in mine. “How do you know my name?”
I arch my brow and sit across from her on my plush chair, pushing my glasses up my face, crossing my arms. “You’re the only one I failed who hasn’t come to see me.”
She chews on her bottom lip as I maintain eye contact. She blinks a couple of times before her cheeks flush.
Her cute curiosity turns to trite anger. “Yeah, about that. I really don’t think that was a fair grade.”
She doesn’t know what to make of me yet. After Mikael went quiet, I kept going back to see her because she was my entire existence. I didn’t sneak in to fuck her like he did, only to watch over her. Stalking Summer was the only thing I was compelled to do because it was the only way I knew how to protect her.
A singular focus.
As the years went on, my mind transformed into something more complex and nuanced than a single thread of existence. Since the biggest threat to her was living inside my head, I decided the easiest way to keep her safe was to stay away from her.
I lick my bottom lip and my lips quirk into a smile. “How so? I’d like to think I grade quite fair.”
She pulls out her laptop and leans in, her typical sweater dress pulling her cleavage together even though she’s trying adorably hard to be professional right now.
“My sources were sufficient,” she says, matter-of-factly. As if her stating it makes it true. “I used three of them from the textbook.”
She leans forward and I get a whiff of her perfume, and my eyes linger on her pink full lips. She never wears makeup like this, so she must be trying to impress me.
In an instant, her sad eyes turn feral as her pupils darken.
She loves the way I just looked at her—the reason she keeps answering my calls and will continue answering my calls. Summer loves being looked at. All she knows in her short life is being watched.
I tilt my head at her. “That’s the thing, I read your paper carefully. You didn’t complete the requirements for a passing grade. We asked for three sources to back up your work—at least one external, besides the required readings. I can’t pass you when you neglected to complete the basic requirements for the assignment.”
She snaps her lips together and crosses her legs so I can no longer stare at them, but her sweater dress is so short, it rides up her thighs, and for a split second, I see the little wound he put near her cunt. My cock grows thick at the sight of it.
I’m amazed that’s all he did to her—it could have been a lot worse.
She catches me looking and her eyes narrow. She wants to say it; she knows in her heart who I am.
Do it, baby. Ask me if I’m the one that did that to you.
A flush of heat spreads across her cheeks as her mind races. If she says something and she’s wrong, that would be quite the embarrassment in front of her father’s protégé.
I’m not done playing with her yet, so I’ll have to spend the next ten minutes convincing her I’m not who she thinks I am.
She lets out a sigh in defeat. “I did the readings, and my thesis statement was solid. You can’t dispute that.”
I swivel my chair to face her, again mirroring the face she’s giving me. “I’m sorry, but my grade stands.” I keep my voice soft and her eyes skim over my body. “Your thesis was good, but it wasn’t enough. You have to seek out and find additional sources outside of the ones listed.” I turn to my computer. “Do you have access to the journal article database?”
She leans forward to look at my screen, her face visibly calming. “I think so, yeah. I just…don’t know how to use it.”
Liar. Not with her infamous father. She knows who I am on that basis alone, so it’s adorable she’s pretending not to understand this database.
“I can show you how to do a basic search if you’d like? Sourcing articles is hard and tedious for new students, but it’s a good skill to learn early in your academic career.”
Sadness clouds her eyes. “No, it’s fine. I’ll figure it out.” She looks at me carefully, picking her perfect words. She’s silent for a few seconds before saying, “You know who I am, don’t you, Lincoln?”
My insides light on fire and I dart my eyes to the computer screen, then back to her. “Yes, I know who you are, Summer.”
Her hand moves to the soft skin of her leg, her eyes drawing down to the mark just underneath the fabric. “What was he like?” she asks, keeping her eyes drawn down.
I let out a small laugh and lean back. “Who? Dr. Landry?”
Her eyes draw up to meet mine. “Yeah.”
“He was your father. Why are you asking me like you don’t know anything about him?”
The intensity of her stare is exactly what I was waiting for.
“Sometimes it’s like I didn’t know him at all,” she admits, and I truly wonder if she ever did. But I’m certain she was aware of what he was; what I want to uncover is why she suppressed her memories.
I scratch the back of my neck. “His brilliance was truly exceptional. His mind was fascinating.”
“More brilliant than Dr. Garcia?” she asks. Her question takes me aback. Dr. Garcia was his mentor, and he surpassed her in so many ways.
“Or what about you? I’ve heard that you’re supposed to be a genius. My father spent a lot of time with you,” she says playfully, her eyes gleaming.
I shrug and choose not to dwell on my brilliance. “He was different from Dr. Garcia. His research was more chaotic, yet precise. He delved into intense psychological theories about the true driving forces behind fear. It was truly an honor to collaborate with him.”
Glancing at the neatly stacked papers on my desk in the corner, she asks, “Is that the research you’re currently working on?”
“Some parts of it. That research provided me with a new purpose in life.”
Her pen finds her mouth as she smiles, and I can finally see her dimples. “You sound like a real professor.”
I chuckle. “I will be a professor in a matter of months, but you’re not here to talk about my work. Let’s talk about why you came to see me.”
She hoods her eyes, then looks up at me with her long lashes. “I don’t stand a chance in this class, do I?”
I lean back in my chair and arch my brows. “Everything’s within reach, Summer…if you’re willing to work hard enough.”
A playful smile hints at her lips. “What do I have to do then, Lincoln?” She runs the pencil down her chest to draw my attention to where she wants it to go. “To help get my grade up.”
Flirting with the TA. If she only knew I’ve already experienced that slick cunt of hers and how much she already owns me because of it.
I pretend to think about it. “I’ll tell you what… Write a thousand words about today’s topic in class. Build on last week’s reflection and give me a thesis statement. Source out at least two additional journals to support the topic. You don’t have to dive into the actual research, but I want to make sure you understand today’s theory.”
She runs her hands through her perfect, angelic hair. “Nature vs. nurture, got it.”
I shake my head. “Nature, Summer. We are talking about the principles of psychobiology. Nurture has nothing to do with it. It’s all about what you were born with: brain anatomy, nervous system, levels of dopamine that cause your primal, most basic responses to situations.”
The opposite of her father’s field of study, which was focused more on emotion. Her inability to grasp this is not unexpected—and exactly the theory I’m trying to prove. She comes from a genetic line of killers.
She shoots me a blank stare, her emotions bubbling to the surface. “I’m sorry. This is all so confusing.”
“Do you have a study partner?” I ask softly. “Someone you can bounce ideas off of? We strongly encourage it in this class; someone you can build trust with. We realize some of these concepts can be quite complex, and it’s helpful to talk them through.”
I can’t wait to hear her response to this question.
Her eyes flash. “Sort of… I suppose I do.”
I rise and casually sit on the desk in front of her, my leg in line with hers.
“Keep talking things through with him. It will help. You have to be open and vulnerable, though. This class brings up ugly feelings in some students because it forces you to be self-aware, and people don’t often like what they see.”
She swallows hard and plays with her hair—a tick she does when she’s nervous, and that’s probably because I’ve inserted myself into her personal space.
“Are you self-aware, Lincoln?” she finally asks without moving. “Did you have to accept everything about yourself, even if they’re ugly or disturbing?”
I chuckle. “You have no idea how long I’ve spent psychoanalyzing myself.”
I’ve come to terms with what I am. Now she just has to come to terms with what she is…preferably before he kills her.
“Do you know what I do when I’m stuck?” She nods at me, her eyes filled with a pleading gaze. “When I’m struggling, I like to go back to classical theory, otherwise known as the philosopher’s point of view. Plato and Aristotle each had different theories of where our thoughts and feelings arise from. Plato believed our mind was connected to the brain, as do scientists today, and Aristotle thought they are directly connected to the heart.”
She bites on her pen, giving me a playful grin. “Well, that’s just ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Of course it is! I mean, isn’t it scientifically proven that our thoughts are connected to our brains?” She pauses and thinks about it, which is utterly adorable. “They are…right?”
“Well, think about it this way. Are our emotions not directly connected to our overall wellbeing and vitality? If you are sick, hurt, tired, does that not impact emotion? And is vitality not directly connected to our heart?”
She muses and her face lights up. “I guess I never really considered it from that perspective.”
I move closer to her and casually position myself directly in front of her. “Have you ever taken the time to think about what it truly means to have a broken heart? Why is it that the emotions we feel in our chest are connected to our brain? And if that’s the case, why do we perceive them here?” I softly place my hand on her chest, right over her heart, and her lips part slightly.
As soon as I make physical contact, Mikael withers inside me, bursting to come out. Luckily, my walls are stronger while in my office. Here, I am in charge, and he has no place fronting at work.
“Huh,” she says, her brain working through it. Her little mouth chewing on that pen.
I mirror her confused facial expression and move my hand. “It’s a powerful metaphor, but it helps put it all in perspective. Go back to the classic philosophers. I’m convinced they all had it figured out back then, and scientists have merely been wasting our time ever since.”
Her eyes linger on mine, her pale face filling with the same beautiful color as it does when she’s turned on.
“And that, Summer, is the reason your heart is beating so fast right now while you’re talking to me. It’s all connected right there.” My eyes drift to her cleavage, then back to her questioning gaze. A moment of silence passes between us.
“Have we met before, Lincoln?” she finally asks, rising, her body now positioned between my legs. Our faces are in line with each other and our eyes meet. “I feel like we have. You seem so familiar to me.”
I tilt my head, and she mirrors my movement.
“I must have one of those faces,” I tease, arching my brows.
She studies me, peering into my eyes, trying to find some evidence of him, which she won’t find. Our mouths are so close, and I wonder if she wants me to kiss her.
“Yeah,” she whispers. “I guess you kind of do.”
She pulls away, slipping her body away from mine, but the electricity between us is still simmering. “Thank you for everything,” she says and leans over to grab her computer.
“Anytime, Summer. I want you to succeed.”
She turns to leave but pauses. “What did you mean when you said…him?”
My eyes shoot to her.
“Earlier, when you asked me about my study partner. I don’t recall telling you my study partner was male.”
I let my eyes fall to her sexy bare legs. “I guess I just assumed. Apologies if that was presumptuous.”
She presses her lips into a thin line. “I have a couple of roommates I can talk to, but sometimes it’s nice talking to a stranger, you know?”
“My door is always open, if you ever want to talk.”
She pulls her backpack over her shoulder as a flush hits her face.
“Oh, and Summer.” She glances back at me, her white hair gradually darkening as the room dims with the onset of evening. “Take care out there. This school always gets a little crazy with Shadowface. Don’t let him distract you.”
Her face is unreadable as she listens to my words. A hint of a smile, a touch of emotion.
“Thanks, Lincoln. It was really nice to meet you.”
“It was nice to meet you, too, Summer.”
She melts into the darkness of the hallway and a jolt hits me like an electric current, nearly paralyzing me.
With calm and ease, I rise and close the door behind her. My jaw clenches at the laughter that echoes in my mind and the current that runs over my skin, like I had an unexpected jab into my heart.
He’s here with me, I realize, completely synchronized with my mind like a spider spinning its web. The level of control and precision astonishes me. He weaved this whole time, like a whisper in the wind, and I didn’t notice the complexity of the pattern until after it was finished.
The hairs on my neck stand on end, and it’s not from Mikael. The sudden jolt of emotion wasn’t caused by him—it didn’t carry his emotional signature. Whatever it was is far more unexpected and alarming.
I shove the emotion down before it has a chance to embed itself into me. I can’t help but wonder where it originates from, and if I have another alter I must silence.
Fragments are the easiest to mute, but I must do so fast, before it has time to grow.