Chapter 36 Kai #2
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.