Chapter 22
Aston
One, two, three…
It’s fine. Everything’s fine. I’ve got this all under control. Everything’s going exactly according to—
“SOMEBODY SEDATE ME!”
Hands—way too many hands scramble to hold me down.
“Aston. ASTON. Can you hear me?” I know that voice. What is she doing here? And why can’t I see her….why can’t I see anything but—
Wide, desperate black eyes find mine through the blur of bodies converging on me all at once. A hand stained red thrusting through to reach for me.
Blood. So much blood. It’s everywhere…
I try to reach back. I buck and kick and claw at the arms caging me in.
And I scream. Violently.
“VALE!”
I scream for him, and I reach for him, and I scream and I scream and I scream.
Why can’t he hear me?
Why is no one LISTENING—
Hold up.
(Checks notes.)
Just kidding! Yeah, so, that didn’t actually happen…yet.
Awk-ward…
Still curled up in a ball where Vale left me, I finally manage a swallow—the jagged rock of emotion sitting there finally budging just enough to allow me to do so.
The silence in his wake is heavy. Deafening. The kind that feels like a threat.
My ears ring, the roar from moments ago shoved aside by a high-pitched whine.
A sound I can’t even be certain isn’t just in my head, and not the product of my heightened senses tuning into the fluorescents overhead.
Fluorescents that feel like fiery blades against my corneas when I blink blearily up at them, searing black holes into my watery vision.
My knife. Where is my knife?
Rolling onto my hands and knees, I start to crawl shakily across the crushed carpet—
No, wait, that’s not right.
I lift my head, blinking furiously at my surroundings, trying to rid the blur.
Blink, and the walls are melting—lockers and paint dripping to reveal paneled wood.
Blink, and the bench I was just laid out across is now a bed—a twin bed with a too-thin, lumpy mattress and a creaky headboard.
Blink, and the glare of the lights blinding my vision are flickering swirls of red and blue.
A weird sound punctures the air—not quite a whimper, not quite a groan—and for a moment my vision blackens out completely. Pain shooting through my skull like someone took an ice pick to my eye.
I stumble, arms buckling, and I curl forward, forehead pressed to the floor. Ears crushed between my clenched hands.
I’m not there. It’s not real.
My pulse quickens, and I fling my eyes wide open to stare blankly at the dark hardwood floor. I inhale deeply, shakily breathing it in—the grime and lingering sweat that permeates the room—grounding myself.
“Get it together,” I mutter under my breath.
Once my head no longer feels like it’s going to burst like a gusher, and my heart’s slowed to a reasonable pace, I push up off my hands and fall back on my heels. Air expelling harshly from my lungs in a single gust.
I spare a quick paranoid look around, ensuring no one witnessed the embarrassing display.
It’s one thing for people to think you’re an unstable maniac prone to violent, unpredictable, scary outbursts…
and another for them to catch you rocking in the fetal position, unable to distinguish nightmare from reality.
I rub my hands down my thighs and blow out a long breath. Then, with a self-reassuring nod, I glance around, slumping when I find my knife spun out just a foot away, the blade pointed toward the exit. In the direction of where Vale disappeared.
I swipe it up by one of the handles, closing it with a snick. And then I peel myself off the hard, unforgiving floor, using the wood-paneled wall for lev—
Nope. Wait. That’s a locker. Because I’m still in the locker room.
I’m not…there.
Grumbling curses under my breath, I wipe my eyes with trembling fingers, wincing when another bolt of pain shoots through my skull.
It’s fine.
Everything’s fine.
Lifting my head, I blink blearily at the cold, sterile room around me. It’s as if Vale collected all the warmth and color and took it with him when he stormed out.
Is it just me, or is it so much smaller in here now?
How does air even circulate in a place this tiny?
Where are the windows???
Switching the knife to one hand, I use the other to dig my phone out of my pocket. I bring up Eden’s contact, ignoring the way my fingers twitch and stutter over the keyboard as I thumb out a text to him letting him know I’m ready to be picked up.
Not bothering to wait for a response, I lock the screen, and go to put it away when I catch sight of the very visible wet spot blooming over my crotch.
Nausea rises so swiftly, I rear back into the wall—locker—from the force of it. Torso caving like someone punched me in the gut, knocking the air out of me. I nearly crumple to the floor for the second time in as many minutes.
The phone creaks in my grip.
The blade whips out with a loud click, metal glinting off the light.
Minutes…
How has it only been minutes since I had Vale’s cock shoved down my throat?
Minutes since he held me at knife-point looking all sorts of debauched, his taste still lingering on my tongue, so much sweeter than the ugly words he spewed…
My underwear still warm with my release—not sticky and cold and chafing like it is now—and his cruel sneer hovering only inches away from my tingling lips.
Minutes since I opened my big fat mouth and ruined everything.
Again.
To be fair…if I knew me jizzing in my pants would piss him off that much, I would’ve tried a little harder to, you know, not jizz in my pants.
Okayyy, so at the very least, I would’ve refrained from taunting him with it. Especially after he made it oh so very clear that my pleasure wasn’t on the menu.
Hell, if his next actions proved anything, me getting off to him throat-fucking me was a straight-up offense to his very existence.
One second, he was slowly backing away, as I fumbled to unzip my fly to show him the mess he caused. See, see! Look what you made me do.
And the next, I had what felt like two-hundred pounds of solid muscle all but tackling me to the floor, and the sharp point of a knife gunning for my face. Eyes so cold, so black, so…so terrifyingly empty bearing down on me, threatening to shatter my bones into dust with a mere look.
“Vale, don’t!”
The yelp and plea that had burst free was as unbidden as the way my arms instantly lifted to shield my head. It’s been years since I last got my ass kicked, but the body remembers even when the brain does all it can to wall those memories off.
Not that I thought it would actually make a difference. Any of it.
Like stop and please… the word don’t is just as useless. Fighting back just as pointless. Nothing more than just another weapon to be used against me.
The phone still clutched in my hand vibrates.
Ediepoo
5 min
Blowing out a breath, I roll my shoulders back and crack my neck, before padding over to where I’d stashed my bag, along with my blazer, in an unmarked locker. Closing the knife I don’t recall making the conscious decision to open, I tuck it safely in the side pocket of my bag along with my phone.
I’m just about to tie the jacket around my waist when a thought occurs, inspiration striking and taking hold of me, driving my movements faster than I can see reason.
Circling back the way I came, I make a beeline for the gear locker with Riviera taped across the top.
Jackpot, I think when I find a neatly folded pair of gray joggers just begging to cuddle my butt and thighs and all the bits in between. I bring them to my nose, inhaling deeply.
Mmmm, that’s the stuff.
No thoughts, head empty…I drop trou, cummy briefs and all, and swap them out for buttery soft cotton that feels like Heaven on my skin and smells equally divine.
There. Much better.
Feeling more like my ol’ self already, I gather my discarded bottoms, spare Vale’s locker one last longing look, before forcing my feet to carry me away from temptation.
Because as much as I itch to do something… like leave Vale a little gift—a token from our tryst in the form of cum-stained briefs—something for him to remember me by…
Something to bring him back to me…
Alas, with comfort comes clarity—a double-edged sword in the form of gray sweatpants.
Before today, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But as much as I want to shake off the lingering weirdness, this wrongness, and forget what just happened—forget that look in his eye before he snapped himself out of whatever…or wherever…held him hostage—I can’t.
Whatever that was…
It was big.
It was bad.
Just not big or bad enough for me to return the sweatpants.
Can you blame me???
They fit like a glove.
And by glove I mean I have to roll them, like, three times around my waist just so they don’t drag, and manually hold them up when I walk, because gravity.
Which is how Eden finds me minutes later, when I emerge through the sliding front doors of the field house, one hand anchoring the pants, and the other shielding my face in shame.
My backpack is slung over my shoulders, bouncing against my butt as I awkwardly shuffle toward the idling baby blue Beetle.
And yes, my heart sunglasses are firmly back in place, despite the fact that clouds have moved in once more, masking the evening sun.
Angry screamo music greets me when I throw open the door and toss my bag in the backseat. I feel Eden gaping at me, but I ignore it for the moment in favor of getting myself settled.
“What the fuck happened to you?” he says after lowering the music. “Is that blood???” he practically screeches.
I go to reach for the cut Vale left me with, only registering the slight sting of it now, when my gaze catches sight of the red smears decorating my once pristine white sleeves.
Groaning, I throw my head back against the seat. “You don’t wanna know.”
A long moment passes where it feels like Eden might say something—maybe push me to talk. But just when I think maybe, just maybe, my new brother isn’t as immune to my efforts to bond with him as I thought…