Chapter 37 Haven
Haven
A phone chimes beside me, blaring out a pop song about an ex-lover and a long list of names. The sudden noise jolts me like an electric shock, yanking me out of...nothingness.
Where the fuck am I?
My hands twitch, and I look down, watching disembodied as I pick at the remnants of the glittery pink nail polish left on my fingernails. There are flakes of it all over my desk, like I’ve been doing this for a while without realizing.
I lay my hands flat, blinking hard as I try to orient myself.
Wooden desk beneath my hands.
Fluorescent lights overhead.
The low murmur of voices around me.
“Shit!” Melissa hisses beside me, scrambling to silence her phone.
A familiar voice cuts through the haze. “If you’re done interrupting my class, Miss Parker?”
“Sorry, Sir,” Melissa calls out.
My head bobs on a loose neck as I turn to look at who she’s speaking to. But the figure up ahead is little more than a blur. My eyes want to close again. I think they do, because a swell of noise forces them open again.
A white glow fills my vision. I see objects, but they’re just flickering silhouettes in the bright fog.
“—which brings us to the heart of what we’ve been discussing this semester. Cruelty isn’t just an action. It’s a tool. One that every single person in this room has access to.”
The white glow shrinks to reveal a lecture hall. A blackboard. A lectern. The low whine in my ears becomes someone’s voice—deep, melodious, theatrical.
That voice.
This place.
I’ve heard it before.
Been here before.
Right?
“The question isn’t whether you possess the capacity for cruelty,” the voice continues, “but whether you’ll be the one wielding it, or the one subjected to it.”
I blink rapidly, trying to clear my vision. The edges of the room remain blurry, indistinct.
Is this a dream? I claw for memories, for a solid thought, but my mind is as insubstantial as the room, the furniture, the figure up front.
He moves with purpose and grace. Tall, slim. He turns toward the blackboard, and I catch his profile. Strong jaw. Dark hair. The sleeves of his white button-down rolled to reveal pale, toned forearms, dark blue-green veins standing proud as he gestures passionately with his strong hands.
Those hands…
“Consider for a moment cruelty in relationships,” he says, scrawling on the board. “In particular, intimate ones.”
POWER DYNAMICS
He taps his chalk beside the bold letters. “Here, the capacity to inflict pain could easily intersect with the capacity to give pleasure.”
His eyes cut to me, sending a thousand volts deep into my lower belly.
Professor Rooke.
I’m in his class.
What day is it? How the fuck did I get here? Last thing I remember is—
The flick of his wrist as he underlines the term sends another jolt through me.
A flash of memory—that same wrist flicking to unzip his jeans.
…open your eyes…
But I squeeze them closed. And that’s when the memory hits me even harder. Bastian’s taut stomach muscles. The trail of dark hair leading to his cock. The weight of him. The smell of his cologne mixed with something coppery.
…you fight like prey, but you take my cock like a slave…
My lungs seize. The room tilts sideways.
“Attachment theory gives us a useful framework,” Bastian continues, eyes moving away from me like I’m just another student.
Just another young mind for him to corrupt, another warm body for him to defile.
“Let’s focus on its darker applications.
How attachment styles may become weaponized in abusive relationships. ”
He sweeps across the front of the room, coffee cup in hand, taking a casual sip before setting it down.
As though nothing has changed. As though he didn’t—
twist me open with his fingers and spit inside my—
No. No, no, fuck no.
I’m gripping the desk so hard my fingers are stinging, but it’s that or puke.
I’m not dreaming.
This is real.
I’ve blacked out again, like the day I found myself at Bastian’s door, drenched, barefoot, with no memory of how I got there.
“Anyone remember the three primary attachment styles we discussed on Tuesday?” he asks, scanning the classroom.
Tuesday? I wasn’t in class on Tuesday, and I have no idea what he’s talking about, so that tracks. That makes today…Thursday?
Hands go up around me. He points to a girl in the front row.
“Secure, anxious, and avoidant?” she answers.
“That’s it,” Bastian nods, flashing her a smile that makes my stomach turn. “And what happens when someone with an anxious attachment style, someone who craves connection, validation, constant reassurance, encounters a partner who deliberately withholds those things?”
Silence.
How can they not hear my drumming heart?
Bastian claps his hands together once, the sharp sound making me flinch. “Come on. You should all know this.”
Another student raises their hand. “Don’t they, like, want approval even more? Like, they’d do anything to get it.”
“Yes! Which means…” He turns and scrawls a word on the board, tapping his chalk beside it. “They become the perfect victim.”
VICTIM
The word glows, shivers, and shakes as I stare.
Icy tingles start up in my fingers.
My face goes cold.
“Now here’s where it gets interesting,” Bastian says, sliding his thigh onto the edge of his desk, hand holding the chalk dangling over his knee.
“The cruel partner understands this dynamic instinctively. They create a cycle of intermittent reinforcement, alternating between affection and rejection, kindness and cruelty.”
He takes his phone out of his pocket, tosses it onto the desk beside him. The clatter makes my stomach tighten, my eyes blink, my head twitch.
“A relationship as toxic as yours and that free pay-to-win game you swear you’re going to delete…tomorrow.”
Scattered laughter ripples through the class, and the side of his mouth quirks as he scans his class with dark, glittering eyes.
He’s so handsome.
So charismatic.
So fucking normal.
This can’t be the same man who—
…you were meant to be eaten alive…
“This power dynamic,” Bastian continues, rocking forward, “creates what psychologists call traumatic bonding. The victim becomes emotionally dependent on the very person causing them harm.”
Beside me, Melissa snorts quietly. “That’s us, Haven.”
It feels like an impossible task to tear my eyes from Bastian. When I finally manage it, she’s sending a tiny frown my way.
“Trauma bonding?” she says, her voice billowing in and out of hearing. “Remember?”
What the fuck?
The panicked thought flutters through my mind like Bastian’s butterfly, trapped inside a crystal ball that looks invisible from the inside.
“You okay?” Melissa asks.
No.
Not now.
Not ever.
Please, God, help me.
But Bastian starts talking again, and she turns away from me with a lingering frown.
“The most insidious aspect,” Bastian says, voice dropping to a near whisper that somehow carries through the silent classroom, “is that the body, especially if there’s physical abuse, often betrays the mind.”
I’m drawn back to him too, but out of sheer morbid curiosity.
Watching Red Riding Hood’s wolf parade around in class like no one can spot his fur or claws under Granny’s nightgown.
“I see you’re itching to take out your phones and disassociate like Miss Lee’s been doing the entire class,” Bastian says, leaning against the blackboard.
My eyes sting as they widen, unblinking.
Did he just say my name?
“Let me paint you a picture, Miss Lee,” he says, gaze locked with mine.
Dark. Intent. Unrelenting.
Forget a trapped butterfly—he’s got me fucking pinned to a cork board.
Incapacitated, but alive…because it’s more fun that way.
“You’re at a party when you spot a cute guy. You’re both drinking. Getting high. Having the time of your adolescent lives.”
Bastian tosses his chalk into the air and catches it without taking his eyes off me.
“You kiss him, he kisses you, or vice versa. He gets handsy. You don’t stop him. Things escalate.”
As desperately as I want to, I can’t look away.
He puts down his chalk and dusts his hands, sparing the rest of the class a brief glance as if to make sure they’re still paying attention.
Because he loves a fucking audience, Professor Rooke.
“You’re too intoxicated to consent to anything, and he’s too drunk to care. The tequila eradicated a large percentage of your brain cells, along with any and all inhibitions, and your poor hormone-flooded bodies can’t get naked fast enough.”
There are a few chuckles, mostly from guys. Beside me, Melissa shifts in her seat. But my eyes are glued to Bastian, and he doesn’t look away as he stalks closer to me.
Every step he takes feels like another bucket of ice water being poured down my back. I feel lightheaded and bolted to the ground at the same time. Breath fast and shallow, heart racing.
He speaks as if he’s whispering the words into my ear, like they’re meant just for me and him. But loud enough for everyone can hear.
Everyone.
Because he doesn’t fucking care.
“Next morning, a few fragments come back to you. Perhaps even physical reminders. Not just of the violation…but the pleasure.”
I blink, and in the moment of darkness behind my eyelids I hear him grunt as he thrusts into me…and I hear myself moan.
Not in pain…in ecstasy.
But that’s not what happened.
I didn’t enjoy it.
I wanted him to stop.
…Right?
“Thing is,” Bastian says, turning on his heel and pacing back the way he came, “physiological arousal can occur during any kind of contact, consenting or otherwise. Pleasurable…or otherwise. Just another spectacular way our bodies like to fuck with our minds.”
There’s a sharp edge to his words, and when he turns back to the class, back to me, his brown eyes are deeply shadowed as he frowns.
He circles the word VICTIM on the board.
“Put yourself in their shoes for a moment,” he says, circling the word over, and over, and over again. “Imagine the profound confusion. The shame. The spiral of thoughts…”
He tosses the chalk back into the ridge beneath the board.