Chapter 73 - Bastian
Bastian
Five minutes left.
I prowl up and down in front of the massive board in the lecture hall, rolling a piece of chalk between my fingers. I can’t help but survey the room again, as if it would magically fill the empty seat beside Parker. Or the equally empty one behind the desk where Kai normally sits.
Five minutes left with these young, malleable minds, and all I can think about is how fucking ungrateful some people can be.
I turn to the board, the chalk screeching as I draw a thick line under the word PAIN.
“When was the first time you realized someone else’s pain made you feel powerful?”
I glance over my shoulder, and spot more than a few of my students shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
That’s better.
I chuckle, tossing the chalk up and down in my palm.
“That first taste of dominance always hits the hardest, doesn’t it?
” My voice drops lower. “Maybe you were six when you first pushed someone off the swing set. Maybe sixteen, when you let slip a tiny little secret that spread like a wildfire, obliterating someone else’s reputation? ”
My gaze drifts over their rapt faces, fixating just a breath on whoever looks the guiltiest.
They always look away first.
“We’ve explored schadenfreude through various theoretical lenses this semester.” I draw a lazy circle on the board under the word that I’m certain no one in class has memorized how to spell.
The lecture hall door opens, and Deputy Thatcher steps in like he has every goddamn right to. I do my best not to bristle, my mind scrambling furtively to pick up the thread of my lecture. And already running ahead to make sure I say nothing incriminating while he’s here.
Because why the fuck is he here?
Thatcher pauses before taking a seat near the door. His presence ripples through my students, starting up a buzz of whispers that I silence with a bang of my hand against the blackboard.
More than a handful of faces show shock. I’ve never had to use force to draw my students’ attention back to me, and that just makes my loathing for Thatcher grow even stronger.
Fuck it.
He wants a show? I’ll give him a fucking show.
“Savoring cruelty.” I bang the board again on each word, as if that had been the plan all along. And I have to suppress a smile at how my students jump.
My voice switches to something melodic, almost pleasant.
“Deriving pleasure—” I circle the word PLEASURE on the board “—from another’s pain.
” The stark underline becomes a circle too.
“Nietzsche called it humanity’s oldest festive joy.
Modern psychologists label it a defense mechanism. I call it honesty.”
I set down the chalk, dusting off my fingers as I amble back to the lectern.
“Cruelty can be taught like a skill, if you’re unlucky enough to have a tutor. But even in the absence of external sadism, it can still be uncovered through a type of…archaeology of the soul. Each layer unearthing something primitive.”
My voice drops lower, making everyone—even Thatcher—lean in.
“We’ve all seen that video from the Rain Dance. Of the people shown in the video, who wrote something in their Activity Log the next day?”
There’s silence. Utter, thrilling, breathy silence.
“Come on. Show of hands.”
Parker doesn’t raise her hand, she just blurts out, “I thought the point of these journals was to emphasize that cruelty was in the eye of the beholder?”
I’m never caught off guard.
Not before a certain dirt-poor Riversider crashed into my life like a fucking meteorite.
Now all I can manage is an annoyed, “And?”
“What’s the point of speculating whether one of them found it cruel?”
Thatcher isn’t even looking at Parker. He’s staring at me, as if he’s waiting for my verdict.
Why the fuck didn’t I cancel class today?
Oh, right, because then I’d have to cancel Sutter’s class as well. Only reason I didn’t pull a one-eighty on Norma is because Haven takes that class, too.
Took, past tense. She hasn’t been in class this week.
Because she hasn’t left her and Kai’s little fucknest by the coast.
I’ve spent too much time in the past few days staring at that beach house on StreetView. I knew it had to belong to the Jordans or associates of theirs, but I looked up the property records anyway, because apparently the knife Haven stuck in my back isn’t wedged in deep enough already.
When I went to Kai’s frat house to find out what had become of my TA, those idiots told me he’d been kicked out.
My pets have run off together. In my Land Rover.
How fucking adorable.
I was so damn tempted to go down to the station and report the car missing. But then I’d have to deal with Thatcher, and he’d undoubtedly want to know why Haven had my keys in the first place…
If anyone should be thinking with their brain, not their dick, it’s me.
Would be a lot easier if I had something else to keep me occupied, so I wasn’t constantly ruminating. But I’ve already been blessed with two pets this term. I don’t hold out hope of finding a third.
“Let me rephrase, Miss Parker,” I say, my jaw clenching with the effort of admitting it. “If you were in that video, would you have deemed anything worthy of your Activity Log?”
I keep staring directly at her, and my unwavering gaze makes her shift in her seat.
Not so glib now, are we, Parker?
She rallies surprisingly well with a sharp, “From Haven’s point of view? Obviously. And I’d have reported Ezra’s to the police, too. That wasn’t just cruel. It was criminal.”
“You want the alleged perpetrator brought to justice?” I tilt my head, tracing my fingers along my bottom lip.
“Of course!”
“Even after he’s already suffered what I assume was, and still is, an excruciating amount of pain at the hands of his brother?”
Her mouth opens and then closes again. She shakes her head hard enough to make her sleek hair shimmer in the fluorescent lighting. “I know where you’re going with this. But you’re wrong. It doesn’t bring me pleasure. It’s just right.”
I step back to slap the blackboard.
Several students flinch, and one of them drops their phone on the floor.
I hope the screen’s busted.
“Schadenfreude isn’t merely about deriving joy from another’s misfortune. It’s about the delicious anticipation of inevitable consequences. The satisfaction we derive when someone who believes themselves above consequence suddenly finds themselves...chastised.”
“I never—” Parker begins, but I cut her off like she didn’t even open her immaculately lipsticked mouth.
“The Greeks understood something fundamental about human nature.”
I thump my fist into my palm like a judge banging his gavel.
“Hubris. Demands. Nemesis. In layman’s terms, pride comes before a fall. And those who witness that fall often experience a pleasure so profound it borders on the erotic.”
I stalk back to the board to draw a line under all the words I’d scrawled on there during my lectures this week.
SCHADENFREUDE
PAIN = PLEASURE
CRUELTY
“This phenomenon is more than merely enjoying someone’s suffering. It’s the satisfaction of witnessing their pain as they realize just how powerless they are.”
I turn back to the class, soaking in their slightly glazed expressions as they try to process what I’ve just said. The implications, not just for themselves…but for every person they’ve ever come into contact with.
Some of them don’t even jump when I clap my hands together to signal the end of the lesson.
I love it when my students leave class with thousand-yard stares on their faces.
There’s some goddamn schadenfreude right there.
“You guys ready for midterms?” I get the usual grumbled responses, except for Parker, who’s staring at me like she’s thinking up imaginative ways for me to be served some kind of karmic justice. Which she will then inevitably claim she didn’t enjoy. That it just ‘had to be done.’
“Good news. No test, no quiz. And I’m giving you a head start. I want a thousand-word essay about schadenfreude. Put a few past events from your life under the microscope. Guaranteed, if you look hard enough at the skeletons in your closet, you’ll find a bone or two to pick with someone.”
Students trail out of my class looking several shades more depressed than when they walked in.
Still got it.
I head over to the TA’s desk, forcing myself not to rush as I pack my things away. Something Kai would do for me if he hadn’t eloped with his fucking train wreck of a girlfriend.
“Are all your lectures like this?” Deputy Thatcher asks as he comes to stand at my side, as if we’re equals.
His crow’s feet deepen as he turns his brown eyes to the board, frowning a little harder at each word as he recites them.
“Schadenfreude. Pain. Pleasure. Cruelty. Little heavy for a Thursday morning.”
I quirk a tiny smile. “If I don’t prepare them for what’s out there, could I really call myself a teacher?”
“Oh, I’m all for real-world education.” Thatcher chuckles. “Just not sure this is appropriate.”
“Young minds have terrific potential. It’s a travesty to coddle them.”
He glances back at the board, allowing me to study him as he toys with the edges of his name badge like he’s making sure it’s still straight.
Brown neatly trimmed hair. Slightly messy, no doubt from taking off his hat.
Carefully pressed uniform. Shoes shined.
Handsome, but so fucking reserved I’d bet good money he’s celibate by choice.
Probably waiting for marriage, like a pastor’s son.
Judging from the lack of a wedding ring, I’ll bet good money he’s scouring the church pews for ‘the one’ every Sunday.
My eyes go to the bulge in his shirt pocket where he keeps his little black book and that damn pencil.
I wonder if it’s going to make an appearance?
When my eyes snap back to his, he’s watching me. The instant our gazes lock, he gives me a faintly bemused smile.
“Isn’t this a college-level class?”
I just stare at him. Because what in the actual fuck?