Chapter 2
Bastian
Thank fuck I waited to get to the Rain Dance before snorting a line of coke. This is a delicate situation, and being high right now would have left me at a serious disadvantage.
Haven Lee feels too heavy in my arms as I rush back toward the lights beckoning from the nearby country club. As if, the moment her tremors let up, I’ll be carrying a dead body.
I know exactly how many buttons to push before someone self-destructs, and I take a sick pleasure in pressing each and every one of them.
It’s not normal.
It’s not sane.
And it’s sure as fuck nowhere near ethical or moral. But I’ve never claimed to be any of those things.
I’ve always forced young minds to explore their tentative grasp on what they were brought up to believe is right and wrong. It leads to breakthroughs in rational thought.
And, sometimes, tragedy.
I go around the side of the country club’s main building to avoid inquisitive eyes.
Haven hasn’t said another word since her last outburst, but I’m not counting that as a win until I can assess her condition.
I need to get her somewhere safe. Somewhere warm. She’s shivering and jerking in my arms. Could be from the cold. Could be her body’s response to the mental shit show happening in her mind right now.
Drugged and out of her mind, dressed in nothing but a trash bag, Haven Lee is the most beautiful disaster I’ve ever seen.
Whatever happened in the forest wrecked the walls she’d so carefully erected inside her mind. Crude, but effective.
I needed her broken, vulnerable, and completely dependent on me. It would have taken me weeks, maybe even months, before she was pathetic, malleable, and depressed enough for me to swoop in.
When I’ve discovered who did this to her, I’ll send them flowers.
My Tesla unlocks as I walk up to it, making it easier to slide Haven in the passenger seat. Her wet body leaves streaks of body paint over the red leather interior, but warming her up is more important than my upholstery right now.
Getting her out of sight, even more so.
“Seatbelt,” I tell her, but she just stares blankly out the windshield, the only movement her erratic shudders. I gently pull the seatbelt over her, clipping it in and tugging it to make sure it’s secure.
This close, with the Tesla’s interior light beaming on her, I can see every inch of her. Hair plastered over her skull, paint streaking down her face, her neck, her entire naked body.
And Christ, her lip…
She flinches when I touch it with my thumb, but lets me draw it away from her teeth without protest.
“What have you done to yourself, Haven?”
I open the glove compartment and take out a stick of gum for her. I unwrap it and slip it into her mouth, my thumb lingering. The way she accepts my touch without question makes my cock stir.
She spits the gum out, but I push it back in again.
“Rather this than your lips, girl.”
I pause halfway inside the car, quickly pressing my finger to her throat just below the collar to feel her pulse. Her blown-out pupils are from the molly, but her slack expression is definitely from shock.
Haven’s pulse is racing. Her chest hitches with fast, sharp breaths. Thankfully, she’s not hyperventilating. But that could change in an instant if she’s triggered again.
…don’t make me come looking for you again, bitch…
As I’m closing the door, footsteps crunch over the gravel drive behind me.
“Leaving so soon, Bastian?”
I turn, closing the door so the interior light switches off, doing my fucking best not to slam it. Dean Winslow halts a few feet away, a mink stole draped over her elbows, an umbrella in one hand, her clutch in the other.
Her entire outfit is black. With her upturned nose and attempt at a regal stare, she reminds me a little too much of Morticia Addams. Especially with those dark crimson lips.
“Have a heap of assignments to grade this weekend,” I say, dragging a finger over my forehead as rain trickles down my face.
She nods, her eyes dropping to my chest, then my hands. “Are they at least behaving themselves out there?”
I glance down, my eyes sliding shut.
There’s body paint all over the front of my tux, and it coats my hands. If there were a UV light around, I’d be lighting up the dark like fucking Chernobyl. No wonder the dean was cataloging my appearance. I may as well have handed her a signed confession.
“The rain will chase them home.”
“Here’s hoping,” she says primly. “This was supposed to be a private affair for the Greeks so they can blow off some steam before midterms. Now it appears half the school’s ended up in those woods.”
“Give them a finger and they take the whole damn hand,” I say with a chuckle.
Her upturned nose lifts a quarter inch as she gives me another interrogatory scan. “If you weren’t so wet and…bright, I’d offer you a nightcap.”
I wipe the rain off my forehead again. “And I’d have accepted. Unfortunately, I wasn’t joking about those assignments, Yolanda.”
“Probably for the best. Neither of us needs another scandal.” She glances up at the sky with obvious distaste. “Be careful out there. Things will be slippery for a while.”
Jesus, if she only knew.
I roll my lips together, nod. She gives me a frown and struts over to her black Mercedes S-Class a few yards away. I watch her go, giving her a wave when she turns to climb behind the wheel.
Her headlamps illuminate me and the curtain of rain falling between us. I don’t know if she can see Haven in the passenger seat, but if she can, she doesn’t stop to say anything.
“Trouble from the word go,” I mutter as I slide into the driver’s seat. “You make me wish corporal punishment were still a thing.”
I glance over at Haven as I put the Tesla in gear. Her hands twitch in her lap, fingers curling and uncurling like she’s trying to grasp something that isn’t there. She’s still staring blankly ahead, the gum I forced into her mouth slipping out again through slack lips.
“Christ,” I mutter, holding my hand under her chin. “Spit.”
Like a child, she pushes the gum out with her tongue, not even looking at me. Shaking my head, I clap my hand against my mouth, tossing the gum inside and chewing it with force.
Might prevent me grinding my teeth.
“Let’s get you somewhere safe, girl,” I murmur, pulling onto the empty road.
I crank the heat to maximum and pull out of the country club’s lot, keeping my speed measured, controlled as I head toward town. Sudden movements could trigger another spiral.
The wipers sweep across the windshield, creating a hypnotic rhythm that matches the pulse in my veins. I need to focus on driving, but I can’t stop stealing glances at her. The passing streetlights illuminate her profile in flashes—hollow cheeks, parted lips, vacant eyes.
A siren pierces the air.
Haven’s entire body convulses like she’s been electrocuted.
“No! Please!” she screams, hands flying to her ears. “I’ll be good! I’ll be good!”
An ambulance races past us, lights flashing, siren blaring. Haven folds in on herself, rocking back and forth, gasping for breath like the sound is physically painful.
“It’s just an ambulance, girl,” I say firmly, but she’s too far gone to hear me.
My eyes follow the emergency vehicle as it speeds toward the country club. Someone must have gotten hurt at the Rain Dance.
My lips tighten.
Ambulance means paramedics. Paramedics mean police reports. Police mean questions.
Questions like, ‘why was Professor Rooke carrying a half-naked, drugged student away from a faculty-sanctioned event?’
“Can you hear me, Haven?” I ask, keeping my voice low and even.
She jerks as if I slapped her, head snapping in my direction, blue eyes big as saucers. Her feet slip off the seat, the jolt of them landing on the floor seeming to wrench her out of her shock.
“Where—” Her voice cracks, and her hand shoots out, clawing at the door handle.
“It’s locked,” I say calmly. “For your safety. You’re in shock, Haven. Your judgment is compromised.”
“My safety?” She makes a sound between a whimper and a laugh. “I’m not safe. I’m never safe. Never, never…”
She hugs her legs, voice muffled when she drops her head to her knees and starts rocking. That’s when the shivering begins, like she’s been too caught up to notice until now.
It’s a dangerous precipice she’s on. I need to bring her back before she lashes out like a frightened animal.
“Haven, tell me what you feel right now. Physically, not emotionally.”
She rolls her head against her knees like she’s saying ‘no’ but then rears up her neck, blinking hard.
Fighting the past like she’s no doubt done so many times before.
“Cold.” She’s shaking hard enough that I can hear her teeth chatter. “So fucking cold.”
“That’s expected. MDMA affects your body’s temperature regulation. Combined with the rain, you’re looking at potential hypothermia unless we can get you warmed up.” I struggle out of my tuxedo jacket and pass it over to her. “Here.”
She doesn’t move. Eyes unfocused, jaw slack.
Dissociating again.
I make the executive decision and pull over, throwing the car into park. She flinches when I lean across her, and I slow my movements, telegraphing each one.
“I’m going to tuck this around you,” I say slowly. “That’s all. Nothing else.”
Her eyes find mine in the darkness. Pupils still blown wide, but there’s a flicker of cognition behind them when she looks at me. Good. The drug is metabolizing.
I drape the jacket over her legs and tuck it behind her shoulders as tight as I dare, trying not to recoil from the feel of wet plastic sticking to my skin. Her gaze slides away from me, fixing on something only she can see.
“…time to come home,” she mutters.
I’d love to know who told her that? I assume it’s an authority figure—her father, perhaps even her mother if she retains memories from her early childhood—but this is not the time or the place.
I’m exposed on the verge of one of Agony Hollow’s main roads. Should someone drive past and spot me through the rain, spot Haven in the passenger seat…well, I don’t care for explaining myself.