Chapter 35 #2
“You didn’t know?” Asher finally voices. It comes out as a bewildered whisper as I hiccup through my tears. When I look at him, I finally see some of that emotion, but it’s too late.
“No, I didn’t,” I close my eyes to shield myself from him.
“My father sent me to find her or what happened because the faculty gave the same excuses as they usually give. Every person he hired to find any information came up blank when all the firewalls and gates kept them out. The best way in was as a student. He promised me he would let me go if I found her. Give me enough money to start off somewhere new,”
“But you started finding out about the other missing girls?” Daylan steps forward and when I look at him, he softly wipes my chin with a towel he must have picked up from the washing bag.
I nod. “Then everything I found with Piper meant that we needed to work quickly to protect her, I didn’t want anything else to happen and the bonus was that it could possibly lead to Marlowe,”
“Why didn’t you tell us who you really were?” Daylan asks bending down and cutting my hands lose. I rub them as the pins and needles start to dissipate. Jacob gazes out the window, his fingers rubbing at his temples and the gun that was once pressed against my forehead, safely put away.
“My father can be quite persuasive,” I shrug, my voice still uneven with the exertion from throwing up and crying.
Daylan nods as though he knows I mean with his fists.
They both stand back, and I see Asher frozen in place. A man completely devastated.
He finally steps forward and goes to touch my face.
“Rue, I’m so sorry. I thought you knew,”
I flinch. “Don’t touch me,”
He freezes and his shoulders drop along with the hand he tried to touch me with, eyes blinking fast.
“I just…” He grabs at his hair and pulls. “I am trying to protect everybody. My sister. My family. Trying to stay afloat while I figure everything out and then I see…” He gestures to the photos on the floor by my vomit and closes his eyes as if it offends him.
His hand comes to his mouth, breathing hard through his nose before reopening with new focus as he takes in the room and my shaken form.
“I am so fucking sorry,” His eyes take on a sheen as his head shakes side to side, but I can’t bring myself to care at the moment.
I would never have done to him what he did to me, my body and heart wouldn’t have allowed it even if my mind was shouting at me to get the information out of him. He had no such issues.
“I need you to get out,” I say with a steady voice.
He shakes his head faster. “Baby, please. Let’s talk this out,”
I open the door and wait beside it. “I want you to leave. All of you,” Daylan and Jacob glance to Asher before listening to me. They leave without a word, and I am glad. What can you say after holding someone at gun point and scaring them half to death.
Asher takes the steps towards me, and I move back. Even when all I want to do is cry in his arms, I can’t love a man and fear he might pull away when he sees the parts of me he doesn’t particularly like.
“Ruella, I am so sorry. Please think of it from my point of view here. We can’t trust anyone; we have already been betrayed by friends and then I find that,”
I look at my feet, the socks stained with my vomit.
“I was going to tell you. All weekend I tried to explain yet things kept popping up. But, even if I put myself in your position, I don’t think I would have been able to do what you just did to me.
I couldn’t watch as someone held a gun to the head of someone I love and act like it wouldn’t affect me for them to pull the trigger,”
“You love me?” Asher asks completely ignoring what I said.
I push against his chest and close the door slowly as I speak.
“I do and I thought you maybe loved me too. Turns out I was wrong. Goodbye Asher,” Then I close the door to his pleading face and mouth ready to argue.
My back slides down the door until I collapse in a heap on the floor. My cries too guttural to keep silent. How did the night turn into this. How did it change so fast.
I finally hear his feet scuffling as I curl up into a ball on the floor and wish I was anyone else. A girl with at least one person who cares, no matter what.
***
The next two days pass in purgatory. I lie in bed, half-alive, a ghost tethered to my own thoughts.
Memories claw at me, visions I cannot escape, everything I should have said, everything I failed to do.
Shadows of the future press in, suffocating, filled with loneliness and the weight of a life I can’t untangle.
I rise only to take my pills, to swallow water, the barest flickers of survival. Beyond that, I do nothing. There is no point in moving through the world when it feels like it has closed its doors on me.
All I want is to curl up in Asher’s arms, to feel the warmth that could burn away the relentless cold gnawing at my chest. Yet even as I stew, I cannot stop the pull he has over me.
Every thought of him is a knife and a balm at the same time.
I hate it. I hate that I need him, that I want him.
But try as I might, try as I scream at myself in the silence, I am drawn back to him. Always.
The darkness is not just around me. It’s inside me, coiling and whispering, and still, amidst all of it, he is the only thing that feels real.
If it were Deena or Piper in my shoes and telling me they crave a man that tied them up and interrogated them, I would think they were crazy.
Trust me, I would be judging them left, right and centre.
But being in it is different. I don’t want to shut him out.
A part of me understands, and it’s that part of me I am trying to ignore a little longer, keep the anger alive. Make him suffer just a little more.
Today is a different story however, Corden called and told me if I don’t shower and come to breakfast, then he will be forced to smash my door down, and with the smell in here, I would rather not have any visitors.
I let the warm water from the handheld shower head wash over me as my mind works overtime. If Marlowe was a part of all this, then where did she go?
Did she have to go into hiding because the boys figured her out, or did she get taken herself? Was it as a punishment for Piper being taken back?
There are still so many unanswered questions, and the main one still stands. Where is Marlowe?
I used to have a feeling attached to it that held onto fond memories we shared, my mind trying to give me a reason to keep searching for her even though those memories were very few and far between.
Now though, with knowing she was a part of this sickening group, I want to find her so I can make her pay for it all. Pay for the daughters, sister and friends lost, to the pain she put Piper through and the futures she stole.
When I find her, she will wish she never stepped foot in Marrowton Academy.
I fill myself up on the revenge I will inflict on her, the payment she is due, as I get ready for the day. A newfound determination in my mind. I can keep my feelings out of this arrangement with the others, I need them and their connections to get where I need to be.
I open my door and take a step out, only to nearly face plant the opposite wall when I trip over a lump on the floor.
“Woah, careful,” Asher’s voice echoes in the corridor as I pull myself right again. When I meet his stare, I immediately give myself a minus point for once again melting at the mere sight of him.
He tied you up. He tied you up. I repeat to myself before straightening my spine, faking abhorrence.
He is dishevelled. His uniform is wrinkled, and his stubble is the longest I have ever seen. Dark circles ring his eyes, and his skin looks a little dull. He hops up from his seated position outside of my door. Has he been here all night?
“What are you doing here?”
“I was waiting for you. Can I walk you to the dining hall?” His voice is hopeful.
“No,” I walk past him. His feet shuffle behind me as I quicken my pace.
“Ruella please,”
I keep walking.
“Please. Please, can I have a minute,” He begs.
I turn on my heels so fast he almost runs straight into me. I lift the sleave of my cardigan and check my watch.
“One minute. Go,” I order.
He looks a little flustered, so I give him an extra five seconds.
“Can we start over. No bullshit. No lies. Just us taking things slow,”
“I think it might be a little late for that. 45 seconds,”
“I know I hurt you when I promised to always be there for you. There is no one on this planet angrier at myself, than me. I am disgusted at my reaction, and I know it might take a while, if ever, but I want to rebuild that trust between us again. I need you to understand that there is no one else for me. You are it. It is you or no one. So, I can take whatever you throw at me, however long it takes. You are worth it,”
I nod. “The thing is Asher; I have spent my whole life trying to feel loved. I deserve to not have to try so hard, I deserve to find someone who will think it’s as easy as breathing. Even on my worst days, they can hate me but love me at the same time,”
He growls. “I can be that person for you,”
“I’m not so sure anymore,”
His eyes darken.
“So, you want to go off and find someone who will?” He scoffs and it lights a fire in my chest.
“Exactly,” I lie.
“Not going to happen baby,” The old cocky Asher returns, and I don’t hate it. It feels familiar.
“And why is that?” I cross my arms over my chest as he steps forward, towering over me.
“Because you have had my come dripping out of your pussy. I’m pretty sure by now my DNA is imbedded inside of you where it should be. That makes you mine and I yours. So, whoever you try and put in between us will be removed, forcefully if necessary,” He grins and my core clenches.
I compose myself, tapping my hand to his chest. “Looks like you will have your hands full then handsome. Times up,” I turn and start to walk away as he chuckles.
“Choose wisely little vixen. I wouldn’t want someone of importance to go missing for talking to you,”
I give him the finger over my shoulder and his laugh soothes an ache in me I didn’t know I had.
“Crap,” I whisper. I fucking failed at the first hurdle. What happened to my newfound determination in making him sweat it out.
I shake my head but still can’t help the small smile that stays all the way to the dining hall.
And all through my first lecture.
My phone buzzes.
Shit. I didn’t think about facing Piper. If she knows I am related to Marlowe, will she hate me. My hand taps away on my thigh as I debate messaging back.
I stop my hand by clenching my fist before replying.
I open my thread with Asher.
My heart melts.
I smirk to my phone before I roll my eyes at myself. I am so fucked up in the head.
How did I ever think about letting him go?
What’s a little bondage session between lovers? Like they say, there is a fine line between love and hate.
And that hate sex hits very different, especially when I plan on making the next few weeks hell for him. See if he means what he says and that he thinks I am worth it.