Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
ASHER
I don’t know what makes me wait outside for Ruella.
Scratch that.
Yes, I do know why.
Because for some ridiculous reason unbeknown to me, I have become annoyingly obsessed with my little Vixen.
So much so that I am now waiting outside of the lecture hall, hoping to catch her off guard so I can confront her about why she is now avoiding me.
And because I don’t trust our slimy Lecturer.
It is from my position, back pressed up against the cold stone wall in the now empty corridor, that I watch the object of my decent into madness, flee from the hall in sheer panic.
My stomach drops as I push off the wall to run towards her, but she is moving so fast I don’t get to her before she bursts into the girl’s bathroom.
I pause, looking back to the lecture hall.
What did he do?
I am about to turn on my heels and beat the shit out of our teacher for whatever he must have done but change my mind as I hear Ruella’s breathy sobs.
She needs me more than I need to expel this growing fury on Mr. Chapmans face.
Without a second thought I push the bathroom door open but falter when I see the crumpled up, broken girl before me.
Her hands are splayed out on the tiled floor, tears falling down her face while her back heaves trying to get in oxygen, her breaths are too fast and short, she’s going to make herself pass out.
Shit.
She’s having a panic attack.
I drop my bag to the floor and slowly make my way over to her, trying my best to not catch her off guard.
She is so stuck in her mind that she hasn’t even registered that anyone is in the room with her.
Her beautiful eyes are wide with terror, and it’s a sight I never want to see again.
It reminds all too well of that night when we found Piper.
I crouch down to her level, slightly behind her, and lift my hand to her back.
“Rue,” I whisper as my palm meets her black cardigan. She may have dulled her fashion choices since that first day, but the blazer never made a comeback. And I am glad. Ruella Griffith is a woman that should never be made to conform.
“You need to try and slow your breathing,” She doesn’t respond to anything.
“Fuck,” I grunt as I sit down behind her and pull her into my chest.
“It’s Asher,” I announce as her stiff body connects with mine. “I want you to try and breathe along with me,”
I lock my arms around her chest and make exaggerated breaths that reverberate through her.
I start to think it is pointless until her hands come up to my arms that are crossed over her and sharp nails dig into my skin where my shirt is rolled up. There is a bite of pain, but I am more relieved that she is aware of me.
“That’s it,” I whisper in her ear. “Keep following me,”
We sit like that for a while, how long, I have no idea. Her fast choppy breaths start to slow and copy my rhythm and before I know it, we are breathing as one. Her spine softens and her body relaxes into mine. I feel my shoulders drop in relief.
I have gotten Piper through many panic attacks, but for some reason this one affected me even more. Ruella always comes across as a strong confident woman, yes, she showed her softer side when we were drunk the other night, but this is something completely different.
I thought I wanted to break her.
But you can’t break what is already broken.
And as Ruella sits up and wipes her tear-streaked face with the sleeves of her cardigan, I vow that I don’t want her to bow to me like everyone else, I want to be the one to put her back together again.
“Thank you,” She whispers, and it pulls at my heart. “You didn’t have to do that,”
I clear my throat. “Does that happen often?”
She doesn’t meet my eye, but her head shakes from side to side softly. “No, not in a long time,”
“Want to tell me what happened?”
I watch as another tear breaks free and falls down her cheek. I reach out and wipe it before it falls from her chin.
Finally, her eyes meet mine. Swollen, red rimmed and full of a darkness that calls to my own.
I reach out and spin her around until her legs sit on top of mine and we are face to face.
She doesn’t protest yet, she’s still in a sort of limbo between wherever she was and reality. The reality of her avoiding me for some reason.
“Did he touch you?” I voice what I am afraid of the most, because if he has touched her, I will lose my place here at the academy for what I will end up doing. In doing that, I will fuck my future and any hope I had of dethroning my father.
Yet, as I sit here with her, the idea of losing everything for her, doesn’t scare me like it should.
Her throat bobs. “No” she shakes her head again, this time more vigorously. “Not Mr. Chapman at least,” she whispers while looking down. She thinks I didn’t hear that part. But I did. Loud and clear.
My jaw clenches as well as my fists at her hips.
“What happened?” I ask again with more authority.
“Nothing,”
“It’s clearly not nothing Ruella,” I run my hand through my hair in frustration.
Not at her but of this situation. Why can’t I be someone she confides in, why can’t I have her smiles and laughter like Corden does, or her comfort like Max does.
“You just had a panic attack in the middle of the girl’s bathroom after a meeting, alone, with a male staff member who has a habit of pushing himself on students,”
She furrows her brows and I feel my shoulders drop a little more at the fire that sparks back to life.
“I told you. He didn’t do anything. It was a panic attack.
Happens to the best of us. Now, thank you for your help, but I have to go,” She goes to push off me, but I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her closer.
Her legs wrap behind me, practically sitting in my lap.
If this wasn’t a fucked-up situation, this position would have me rock hard.
“What are you do…” I cut her off when I put my forehead to hers like I did the other night.
“It’s just a lonely boy and a broken girl in here. No one else. Not Asher or Ruella,”
Her breath hitches, but her gaze softens.
“Tell me what happened. Please. You know how much is on my mind already, please don’t make this another thing that plays on repeat,” I beg. Because it’s the truth. I have so much on right now and if she doesn’t tell me what happened it will become a need to find out.
She sighs.
We sit in silence while she makes her decision. Then finally, she speaks.
“He didn’t touch me. I promise,” Her eyes close as I pull my forehead from hers. “He said something that triggered me,”
I leave space hoping she will fill in. But she doesn’t. Her mouth wants to leave it there, but when she awards me her focus again, whatever hides behind begs me to push for the truth. Like the darkness within wants to finally find the light.
So, I push.
“Rue,” I pull her even closer. “I don’t know about you, but I felt so much lighter after our conversation the other night. Maybe opening about whatever triggered you, will loosen its hold on you,”
She opens her mouth before closing it again. A look of guilt passing over her.
“Trust me, whatever it is, I won’t judge,” I chuckle. “The skeletons in your closest have nothing on mine,” I smile, and she returns one. The small action warms my chest and I watch as another barrier falls.
“He didn’t touch me,” she repeats. “But his words, they reminded me of someone who did, once upon a time,”
Rage washes over me like a cold wave, but I clamp it down. She doesn’t need my fury; she needs to keep breathing, to keep the story loose enough to pull apart. I nod for her to go on.
She looks away but stays curled in my lap. “My father has a lot of colleagues at the house for meetings and parties,” Her fingers press together between us until the knuckles pale.
“One night when I was sixteen my father had a party. One of his associates got lost,” she says, disdain curling the word.
“He somehow found his way into my room,” The air thins.
I can feel where this will land, and the knowledge of it makes my chest go hard as stone, because when she names what happened, I will cross a line I won’t be able to take back.
“Everyone was busy downstairs. My room was on the third floor. No one even heard me scream,” A tear slips free.
I don’t reach for it; I let her carry that small, private grief.
She sits with it until my fingers give a light squeeze.
She wipes the tear away herself and straightens as if gathering a frayed thread.
“He got lost a lot over the years,” she continues, as if reciting something ridiculous. “Whenever he was at the house,” She shrugs, as if it could erase the nights.
“And you never told your parents?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. They wouldn’t have believed me,”
Something in me sharpens. I thought my family was broken, but this is different. She truly believes it was pointless to speak.
“He eventually stopped coming. But afterwards, every time he left, he’d say the same thing,” Her mouth twists. “Mr. Chapman said it innocently, but it triggered me,”
“What was it?” I press.
“Our little secret,”
My jaw clenches so hard it aches. The word lodges like a stone.
I see, with a clarity that is almost violent, the long line of men who have carved ruin through other people’s lives.
Part of me wants to burn everything down.
If I weren’t so utterly obsessed with her, I might wish for the eradication of men altogether.
But I need her. I need her like my lungs need oxygen.
“What’s his name?” I ask.
Her eyes find mine and, for a moment, something softens there, like a tiny weight has been lifted from her shoulders. It is barely perceptible, but it steadies me.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, shaking her head. A faint, brittle smile ghosts her lips.
“It does. What’s his name?” I shift her slightly, just enough to grab my phone out of my pocket. Once I have this piece of shits name, I will get Bishop on to find his location. I smile to myself at the horror I have planned.
“Why?”
“Because I am going to kill him,”
She chuckles. “You are not going to kill him. What would dear old daddy think? Heir of the Vander legacy, locked up for murder,”
I chuckle back. “Haven’t you learned already that a name like mine is a get out of jail free card?” I smirk. “I have, and can commit any crime I want to, and walk away with barely a slap on the wrist,”
Instead of a little fear like I expect, I watch her hold back a smile of her own.
God, I want her.
“Now the name,” I tilt my head towards my phone and shake it in the air between us.
“You can’t kill him,”
I groan. “Woman!” I unlock my phone. “Never mind, I will find out myself,”
Her hand pushes my phone away and she stares at me, one eye brow lifted.
“You can’t kill him,” I open my mouth, but she presses a dainty finger to stop me blabbering. “Because he’s already dead,”
I raise my own brow at her. There’s something vicious behind her smile.
“Oh really,”
“Yeah, it was such a shame,” She takes my free hand and places it on the top of her thigh, where I feel a long lump through the material of her skirt. A knife?
“Poor man had his throat slit three years ago. Bled out slowly,” She grins. The manic look making my balls twitch.
I feel myself mimicking her. The zing of energy between us shifting from something so serious to all consuming.
My hand tightens on her thigh as my heart starts to pound in my chest. The feeling almost unbearable.
This woman does things to me I didn’t even know was possible.
I thought my future was mapped out, that everything was out of my control, and I had to make the best out of it.
What wasn’t in the plan, was Ruella Griffith.
Yet now I want to rearrange everything so that she is at the centre of my world.
Shit.
How did this happen.
I shake my head to bring myself back to the moment.
“He deserved a lot more than that,”
She nods taking her hand from mine, then pushes off me to stand. This time I let her go because my legs are starting to go numb. Not that I am complaining, I would happily loose the limbs if I could have her on me forever.
When I get to my feet, I give her a once over. “You good?”
“Yeah,” She finally sounds more like herself. “Thanks again,”
I grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder. “You going to stop avoiding me now?”
She looks at me almost contemplatively. Her mind whizzing with indecisions until it finally comes to one.
“Yeah. It’s not like you’d give me a choice anyway,”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I smile as I open the door for her. I glance at my watch and realise we have been in here for over an hour and as my stomach registers this, it begins to protest.
“Sure you don’t, Stalker,”
She isn’t wrong there.
She links her arm through mine, and I don’t flinch like I usually do when Darcy does the same thing.
“Come on, let’s get you fed handsome,”
She drags me towards the main hall, and I officially can’t wait for whatever is to come next. As heavy as this afternoon was, it has shifted our relationship like that night in the billiard room. But this time, she isn’t running. I won’t let her.