XXIII
Tori
L ike an internet browser with a slow connection, I stand there, staring at the piece of technology hovering above me, waiting for my next action to load.
In the distance, heading towards me from Keyingham, I see headlights.
I’m not sure how I’m still standing because my brain, my thoughts, no longer feel like they’re inside me. It’s like I’m caught in a dream.
Then Syn’s laughter ripples through the air.
I don’t remember ever hearing Syn laugh, and it sounds more comical than it should—like I’m watching a cartoon, and the bad guy is laughing as he watches the world crumble in front of him.
Whether the sound is something I’m hallucinating, or it’s coming from the drone, it somehow kicks me into life. I turn away from the approaching car and run.
I just need to make it to the lights.
To safety.
I’m nearly there.
Just as I get close enough to see it’s a house, a red Ferrari swerves in front of me.
Before the door opens, I turn to the trees, forcing my body to move faster.
And I’m almost at the trees when someone tackles me to the ground.
As I fall, I scream before my breath is squashed out of me by someone else’s body weight.
“Got the bitch,” the guy on top of me yells. He forces something over my head, pulling it tight.
It feels like fabric, but with his weight on me already constricting my breathing, it might as well be plastic. My hands aren’t pinned down, so I try to claw the thing off me, then at his hands, but I can barely reach them.
“Why the fuck are you just sitting there?” a second voice asks—female. I recognize her voice, but I can’t think who it belongs to. “It’s freezing, and I’m done with this game.”
“Then go wait in the car. I’m going to fuck her here.”
“The instructions were to bring her back to the crypt and then we fuck her. If you want to go against Syn’s orders, you might not want to do it when Gemini’s got a fucking drone on you.”
“Remington would probably get off on it,” the guy mutters. But then he lets go of the thing over my head and quickly grabs my hands, pulling them painfully behind my back. “Look, bitch, I’ve got you. You’re getting in the trunk of my car, one way or another. It’s up to you how painful this will be.”
I stop trying to fight him then.
Without releasing me, the guy eases himself off before pulling me awkwardly to my knees. His grip is still tight around my wrists as he waits for me to clumsily stand.
Upright, I can just about make out the glow of the streetlight and the headlights through the thick weave of the fabric, but not much else.
The easiest thing probably would be to give up and go back with him, but something in me is still fighting.
I stand still, trying to catch my breath as much as figure out what to do next. And then he presses his chest up against my back, forcing my hands over his crotch.
“This is—”
With all the force I can muster, I slam my head back.
As something crunches, and he lets out a yell of pain, he also releases me.
I run forward, but before I’ve even managed to pull the thing fully from off my head, I use all the air in my lungs to scream.
A loud explosion ripples through the air. Almost instantly, there’s a second explosion behind me.
The first, I’m certain, is a gunshot. Instinctively, I cover my head, diving back to the ground.
“Get the fuck away from her, or the next one hits you,” someone yells from somewhere in front of me.
My arms and hands are barely listening to my commands as I try to fight through the tremors to pull the covers from my eyes. When I do, it’s in time to see the guy—a junior named Ross Linch—dive into the driver’s seat of his car.
In a squeal of spinning tires, he turns the car around and peels away.
“Tori?”
My mind feels like it’s seconds away from shutting down, but when I look in the direction of the voice and see Dr. Wright running towards me, carrying a gun. Wearing a pair of grey sweatpants, a white T-shirt, and an unlaced pair of boots, all I can do is stare dumbly, because he’s the last person I expect to see.
He reaches my side in seconds, and with his free hand, pulls me into a sitting position. “Are you hurt?”
“Are you real?” I try to ask, but with my chattering teeth and sore throat, I’m not sure that’s what he can hear.
Dr. Wright puts the gun behind his back, and when he brings his arm back in front of him, his hands are empty. He slides one arm under my knees as the other goes behind my back, and with very little effort, he’s holding me in his arms as he stands.
Heat radiates from his chest, and I press myself against him, trying to soak up all the glorious warmth his body is giving off. He moves quickly down the embankment beside the road, heading straight for the lights I’d been aiming for when Ross arrived.
The lights weren’t houselights, as I once thought, but the entrance to a winding drive between the trees. At the end is a large house. The door is wide open, and the porch light is on.
The professor walks straight inside, using his foot to kick the door closed behind him. The warmth that wraps around me is glorious, but it’s not enough to stop my shivering. Without stopping, Dr. Wright walks straight up the stairs, entering the second door.
With me still in his arms, he manages to turn the light on. It’s a bedroom with a large wooden bed in the middle of the room.
“How long were you outside?” he asks. “Your lips are the same color as your hair.”
“I don’t know,” I try to tell him.
He pauses, then moves over to the bed, setting me down in the middle. He turns, pulling the gun from the waistband of his sweatpants, and places it down on the bedside table before he reaches for the bed sheets. Moving quickly, he wraps me up like a mummy, leaving only a small part of my face showing.
Although my shivers are more like full body tremors, I feel warmer.
“I want to get you in the bath. Water will warm you much quicker than these blankets will, but the water needs to heat up. I’ll be back in a few minutes, so do me a favor, and stay awake, okay?”
Until he suggested it, I’d had no desire to sleep, but now the idea of flopping over and closing my eyes is really appealing. I nod, too tired to attempt speaking.
Dr. Wright presses his lips together in a thin line, staring at me with his hands on his hips. Then he sighs and hurries out of the room.
Wrapped tightly in these sheets, in safety, the energy I have seems to drain from my body. I’m certain that with the way my body is shivering, I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, but I don’t have the ability to keep myself upright anymore.
I lean to the side, letting my body fall into a mattress that feels like a cloud, and close my eyes.
Seconds later, I’m being shaken.
“Tori? Tori, wake up.”
“Mmmm,” I mumble. All I did was close my eyes. I’m not asleep. My body is pulled upright, and I groan as one side becomes cooler.
“Tori, you need to open your eyes. I’ve got a drink for you.”
It’s an effort, but I manage to do as he asks. Dr. Wright is crouched down in front of me, holding a mug with a straw. He lifts it to my mouth, feeding the straw between my lips.
The liquid is warm and sweet—not what I expected—but the more I drink the hot chocolate, the more alert I feel. Heat from the liquid travels down my throat, into my stomach, and starts warming me from the inside out.
My body is still shivering, but I feel better.
With one hand holding the mug and the other supporting my body to help keep me upright, Dr. Wright barely moves as I drink every last drop of the hot chocolate. Then he puts the empty mug down on the floor and stands.
“The water won’t have reached temperature, but if you’re this cold, having the water too hot will hurt.” I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or himself, as he walks to a door and opens it.
He walks in, flicking on a light, and I can make out the end of one of those old-fashioned bathtubs before he disappears from sight. Moments later, the sound of running water fills the room.
Dr. Wright comes back into the bedroom and starts to unpeel the blankets from me. As the warmth disappears, I try to cling to the blankets, but my fingers are too cold and stiff to cooperate properly.
Once free, he scoops me back up and carries me into the bathroom. The water in the tub is about halfway full. He reaches over and turns the tap off. Combined with the chilliness of this room, getting in is the last thing I want to do.
“I’m going to lower you in, bit by bit. The water is warm, but you’re so cold, it’s probably going to feel like it’s scalding. It will pass.” He leans over, letting my toes dip into the water.
He might as well have poured a pan of boiling water over my feet.
I jerk my feet out, trying to get out of his arms, but he grips me tightly, stepping into the bathtub himself. Before lowering us both down into the water, he ignores my screams as pain unlike anything else I’ve experienced tears through me.
Every part of my body that’s below the water feels like it’s on fire.
As I thrash, trying to get out, sending water flying, Dr. Wright hangs on.
Then, suddenly, it doesn’t hurt.
Exhausted, I stop fighting and sink back against the professor.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters, his mouth close to my ear. “I couldn’t think of a quicker way to warm you up.” He raises his leg and uses his foot to turn on a tap on. He’s still wearing his sweatpants. The dark gray cotton looks almost black now that it’s wet.
The water around my feet grows warmer, and as the level rises, I finally feel like I’m getting warmer too. My body stops shivering, but as my muscles start to relax, I realize how much I ache.
When the water nears the level of overflowing, the professor uses his foot to turn the faucet off, then he inches us lower, enough so my chest is submerged.
I’ve lost all concept of time at this point, so I have no idea how long we stay there, but eventually, Dr. Wright inhales deeply, placing his hands on my hips. “Scoot forward and don’t turn around,” he says as he gently pushes me.
“Huh?” I say, although I move towards the other end of the bath.
“I didn’t think this far ahead,” he tells me. There’s a rush of water behind me as he stands. “I’m going to take my clothes off, so I don’t flood my bathroom when I get out.”
Water splashes me as the professor moves around behind me. Even though my temperature feels back to normal, I suddenly feel uncomfortably hot. From the corner of my eye, I see an arm reach for a towel, and then Dr. Wright steps out of the bath, wrapping it around his body.
He leaves the bathroom, and a few minutes pass before he returns, setting something down on the side. Then he steps into my line of sight, holding out a towel.
From the way his dress shirts pulled against his body as he moved in the classroom, I’d guessed the guy worked out, but holy crap. I never imagined he’d have abs like the ones I see now. Droplets of water still clung to his dark skin, and from nowhere, the urge to run my tongue over the defined grooves of his body and suck his body dry hits me.
“Do you need help getting out, or can you manage?”
His expression hasn’t changed, so I’m hoping my perverted thoughts weren’t obvious.
Forcing myself to return to reality, I look down at myself. I’m still wearing Syn’s stupid little cheerleading outfit—little being the key word. With the way it’s clinging to me like a second skin, I may as well be naked.
Despite that weird thought and considering what I’ve done so far during this initiation, I’m suddenly embarrassed.
This guy is my professor .
Whether or not my body wants to, I’ll be getting out of this tub by myself. “I’ll be fine,” I tell him.
Dr. Wright places the towel on the side of the bathtub. “There’s something to change into on the side. If you need any help, I’ll be on the other side of the door.” He quickly walks out, closing the door behind him.
I take a long, deep breath. I’ve barely got any energy left in me, and pulling the top off takes more effort than I thought it would. My arms feel heavy, like I’ve just done a thousand pushups.
Only after I’ve dropped my top into the water do I try to stand. I clutch the sides of the tub and force myself upright. Pulling the skirt down is the easiest part of the whole process, then I somehow get out of the tub and wrap a large, thick towel around me.
My hair is still in a ponytail, so I squeeze the excess water out before I wrap it up into a bun. Then I dry myself as quickly as I can, but before I investigate the pile of clothing Dr. Wright left me, I drop my towel to the floor and try to mop up as much water as I can.
I find the plug in the murky bathwater and then get the tub draining as I fish out the items of clothing. After wringing them out as best I can, I deposit them in the sink. Finally, I pull on the clothes he’s given me: a pair of navy sweatpants and a navy-blue JKU sweatshirt.
When I leave the bathroom, Dr. Wright is waiting for me, already dressed. “Do you want me to take you back to school?”
While I’m not sure what time it is exactly, I see light starting to peak through the gaps above the curtains. By the time I get back to campus, the sun will have probably risen, but I don’t have the energy in me to face Syn. Even if it means I’m not there to serve him breakfast.
I shake my head.