Chapter 3
YELENA
I dream the same confusing mix of fantasies and nightmares as usual.
The fantasies involve masked men with knives.
The nightmares involve an unmasked monster whose weapons were alcohol, trust, and na?veté.
When I wake up, the second I shake those swirling dreams aside, I reach for my phone and navigate to the home page of the Hawthorne Herald. Instantly, I sit up in bed as my breath comes faster.
After I left the party last night—dodging questions from my friends why I was leaving so early—I stopped off at Ravencroft Library, which is open twenty-four hours a day, and used their landline to call in an anonymous tip to the Hawthorne Hollow Police.
Surely they’ve been to campus by now, and that motherfucker is sitting in jail after they found my planted incriminating evidence.
The fucked-up thing is, I’m not talking about the man in the mask who forced me against a wall, cut off my fucking bra, and made me come all over his fingers with a knife to my throat.
I’m talking about the other one.
But when I click onto the website for the local newspaper, the only headlines are about some upcoming 10k charity race and the new office building going up near the docks.
No “Jane Doe Murder Investigation Identifies Suspect at Knightsblood” or “Former Para Bellum President Arrested on Murder Charges”.
What the fuck.
I open Instagram and swallow back bile as I click on the fucker’s profile.
Instantly, my heart drops.
There’s a post from twenty minutes ago—a selfie of him, on campus, smiling that smug, practiced smile that masks the predator underneath, standing in front of St. Aldric’s Chapel with a bullshit caption about how good it is to be “back at the old alma mater” and three nauseating hashtags.
#KnightsbloodForever
#GoPrivateers
#Blessed
My mouth thins to a cold line.
I'll give you a hashtag: #DieInAFuckingDumpsterFireYouPieceOfShit
I drop my phone into my lap and slump back against the headboard, gazing up at the ceiling.
Dammit.
Again, planting criminal evidence on someone who didn’t commit that crime to frame them for murder is, objectively speaking, evil.
But so is getting a girl drunk, drugging her, locking her in a room, and then covering her mouth when she says no while you…
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to shove the memories back into the little iron box that sits in the back of my mind.
What’s the difference?
I grimace as the needling little voice in my head sneers the same question it’s been sneering since the madness of last night: what’s the difference between the predator who assaulted me this past summer, and the masked man last night?
The answer used to be that the difference was reality verses fantasy.
But after last night, the answer to that question has become exponentially more complicated, because that fantasy is no longer just fantasy.
It really happened.
A man in a mask, wielding a knife, chased me around in the dark, pinned me down, ripped my clothes off and quite literally ignored the word “no” as he put his hands wherever he wanted.
Actually, I guess the easy answer to how last night is different from what happened over the summer is that last night, despite my “no” and “stop” being ignored, I did have a way out.
“Remember your safe word.”
Okay, so I promptly forgot that safe word. It would be so easy and convenient if I had permanently forgotten it. But that’s not the case.
It came back to me.
Right there in the middle of it all, with his fingers inside me…
My face heats, and my thighs clench at the visceral sense memory of his firm hand prying my legs apart, sliding beneath my panties, and then sinking his fingers into me as I shivered in dark ecstasy.
I swallow and take a shaky breath.
I did remember that safe word.
…And yet, I didn’t use it.
I could have stopped it all. And for reasons I don’t quite understand, I think he would have, had I said it.
I guess that’s the big difference. This summer involved an actual predator. The man last night was merely roleplaying one.
Okay, he was roleplaying at a Daniel Day-Lewis level. But clearly, he was there to “play” with someone, and he thought that someone was me.
Ignoring "no" and "stop" were clearly part of the game, given that it was obviously consensually non-consensual—thank you Galina and your deranged book recommendations for teaching me that my fucked-up kinks have a name.
So, yes: the difference is, last night was a fantasy that went off the rails, if it even had rails to begin with. This past summer was assault, pure and simple, and no safe word in the world would have stopped it.
And last night…
I groan as I drop my face into my hands.
I haven't had enough coffee yet to figure out what the hell last night was, with me remembering the safe word and not using it with a masked stranger with a fucking knife to my throat as I came all over his fingers.
Jesus.
I squirm in bed, the same question lingering in my head as I had throbbing through my veins when I got home last night—shaking, trembling, buzzing.
What would have happened if he’d kept going?
What if it didn’t stop with just fingering? What if he’d wanted me to return the favor? What if he’d wanted actual sex?
I swallow.
Plenty of people have wild stories about losing their virginity in college. But somehow, I think “a masked stranger wielding a knife playing out a non-consent fantasy” might be a little above and beyond wild.
The rational, sensible part of me wants to indignantly add that of course I wouldn’t have let that happen. Of course I’d have used the safe word before it got to that.
…But would I?
With a sigh, I throw back the covers and get out of bed. I catch my reflection in the full-length mirror and grimace at my disheveled appearance, suggesting I was tossing and turning all night because of my dreams.
Both the fantasies and the nightmares.
Then I blink, frowning as I step closer to the mirror, my gaze stabbing into the reflection of my neck.
What the fuck…?
I stiffen when I realize what the little red lines are.
They’re tiny cuts from the edge of his knife. They’re reminders of that final moment before the fall, when I started to—mortifyingly—orgasm for the stranger, and spasmed so hard that his blade nicked me a few times.
I need help.
Just as I turn away, I gasp and suddenly whirl back to the mirror.
Fuck.
Besides the cuts and some light bruising—also courtesy of the insanity last night—my neck is bare.
My necklace with the wolf pendant is missing.
I rush over to my bed, where I carefully remove every sheet, pillowcase, duvet cover and blanket before checking under and behind it.
I check the floors beneath my desk and dresser.
I step into the shared bathroom that connects my room to Wren’s and look on the counter and the floor, in the shower and the sinks.
But I already know from worrying about this before that the pendant that I’ve worn almost every day since Dad got it for me when I was ten is too big to drop down the drain of either the shower or the sink.
I start to retrace my steps. Then a horrible thought hits me. I think I know where I might have lost it.
Not tossing and turning in bed. Not showering.
No, the smart money is that it fell off in the mad chase around that bedroom last night.
Shitshitshitshitshit.
I groan into my hands, then take a shaky breath. Okay, it’s not the end of the world. I don’t really know anyone in Para Bellum that well. But…it wouldn’t be a stretch to go over there and ask if anyone found a necklace, right? I mean, it’s not like I'd have to give the details of how I lost it.
I slump against the wall, frowning before turning to look at the other bathroom door.
I should check on Wren.
I felt terrible leaving so early last night. But I did make sure Ari and Galina would look after her. Plus I wasn’t asleep yet when they brought her back to Morvaine Manor last night, quite drunk, and I helped get her undressed and into bed.
I gently open the door to her room and peer in. Wren is still sleeping, and the big glass of water and the Tylenol I left on her bedside table are still there. I'm turning to leave when I hear a small, pathetic groan.
“Lena?”
I grin when I turn back to see her bleary eyes above the edge of her duvet.
“Hey.” I smile as I walk over and sit on the edge of the bed. “How’re you feeling?”
“Oh, just fuckin' peachy,” she groans in a scratchy, hungover voice.
My brows knit. Again, I know she’s going through it right now, and there’s a line between being a concerned friend and being an annoying dickhead. Still…
“You, uh, went a little hard last night?”
Wren winces and slowly nods. “It would appear so.”
“You want to talk at all?”
She groans as she sits up a little and hugs the blankets to her chest. “I need caffeine and a metric fuck-ton of carbs and cheese before I do anything.”
I smile and hand her the painkillers and the glass of water. “Take these first. Drink the whole glass.”
“I don’t deserve you,” she groans, giving me puppy-dog eyes as she pops the pills and starts chugging the water. When she’s done, she inhales and exhales deeply, then grins a lopsided smile. “Okay, now coffee?”
“Hell to the yes.”
I head back to my room to change out of my pajamas. Then Wren and I make our way downstairs to the huge kitchen of Morvaine Manor to caffeinate.
But I’m fairly sure that all the caffeine in the world won’t burn away the throbbing reminders of the man in the mask, the knife at my throat, or the lingering, aching pulse in my core.