Chapter 24 #2
“H-he tore my shirt and was touching me. I tried to kick and get away from him, but he had me pinned.” I think I was shaking.
Lukas put his other hand over our joined ones.
I was going to finish the story. “He leaned down to put his mouth on my neck. So, I bit his ear. It stunned him enough that he loosened his grip. I kicked him as hard as I could and ran all the way to my dorm.”
Silence descended. My story was over, and I was still in this room.
My body rested in the same wooden chair at the same wooden table with a crack at the edge.
The framed artwork was still on the wall.
The smell of tea and spices still hung in the air between us.
I could still hear the others in the shop.
Lukas still sat in front of me, his hands wrapped around one of mine, and his eyes locked on me. There was a shining look of sympathy in his eyes, along with sorrow. And something else I couldn’t identify.
“Elsie,” he whispered, leaning forward slowly. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Why?” I asked, my voice hoarse from the tears begging to be shed.
“You didn’t have to share your story. But you did. And you fought hard against him.”
“I just…I had to get away.”
“You did. I know it wasn’t fast enough, but you got away.”
I nodded, tears rolling over the edges of my eyes and streaming down my cheeks. There was no stopping them now, but my heartbeat remained steady and slower than it usually was when I even thought about that night.
I gently pulled my hands away to wipe at my tears, and then to take a drink of the tea Lukas ordered. It soothed the dryness in my throat and warmed my chest.
“Elsie.” Lukas was shaking his head, his hands vibrating as he rested them on the table between us. He wouldn’t look at me for a moment, but when he did, all I could see was uninhibited anger. It was a blazing fire in his eyes.
“Lukas, are you—”
“What I don’t understand,” he began slowly, “is how your own father could defend the actions of Aster…knowing that the potion harmed his own daughter.”
I reached out to grab his hands with mine, feeling the shakes as I squeezed. Not that mine were any steadier.
“He knows, right?” Lukas asked.
I nodded slowly. “It’s why I moved back into his house.”
Lukas pulled his hands away, squeezing them into white-knuckled fists.
“I’m sorry if this hurts you, but I hated your father before today.
Now, I want to see him rot. How could he defend the woman responsible for his daughter’s abuse?
” Lukas looked ready to explode with his rage, and it soothed some broken part inside of me.
Perhaps it was the part that felt like I had no one truly care about me since my mother.
That made my tears run faster. I wanted to bleed my heart out for Lukas, because he was safe.
“I-I called Lena. Couldn’t get an answer that night. I just needed a friend. The next day, I told her and…she was sad for me, I guess. But she was never there for me in the way I needed her. So I haven’t really talked about this a lot.”
Lukas’s eyes snapped to mine, softening instantly. The anger bled away into sadness. He grabbed my hands again and stroked my skin with his thumbs.
“You didn’t deserve any of this. To be assaulted. To have a father who didn’t care. A friend who didn’t care. I’m sorry you’ve been enduring this alone.”
My heart was in a million shards when I met Lukas, and somehow now it felt like he was gluing those pieces back together.
“Thank you. For…everything.”
“Let me be who you need. Let me be the one you talk to. Who you lean on.”
“You are,” I answered simply. And truthfully. Because in that moment I realized he was.
He lifted one of my hands and pressed a lingering kiss there, closing his eyes.
“Elsie.”
“Yeah?”
“We will see Aster rot for what she’s done to you.” His eyes shone with vengeance, the same vengeance that was in my heart.
But not just for Aster.
“Oh, Lukas!” I whispered sharply, reaching for my bag.
I remembered the second part of why I needed to meet him today.
Before opening my bag, I looked around the tea shop to assess who else was in here, and if anyone was looking at us.
Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I pulled the thick book out of my bag.
It was smaller than a lab journal, much closer to the size of a novel, but the pages were worn from years of use and age on a shelf.
“I found this.” I passed the book to him, looking over my shoulder once more. “Go to page two-ninety-seven.”
Lukas looked wary but curious as he flipped through the aged pages.
I watched his eyes track the words on the page, waiting for the moment of his realization.
His brows scrunched, and he flipped a few pages back, skimmed each page, and then a few forward.
Then he went back to the page he had started with and read it again.
Lukas was shaking his head in disbelief as he looked up from the pages. “What is this, Elsie?” He looked haunted, which was exactly how I’d felt when I found it. Though perhaps I was more so, because I’d vomited shortly after the discovery.
“It is exactly what you think it is. An ancient spell—a banned one—that can cause mysterious, random illness at the flick of a wand.”
He was still shaking his head, yet a look of glee came over his face. “So someone knows about this spell and has been using it on the witnesses! It has to be!” His voice was excited with the discovery, but he stayed quiet.
I shook my head, stopping his excitement. “Not someone, Lukas. I found it in my father’s office.”
The color leached from his face, and he dropped the book on the table.
“You’re joking.”
I shook my head, tears forming in my eyes again.
“Your father has been abetting. Committing crimes against witnesses.”
I nodded.
“Fuck, Elsie. I’m so sorry.” He reached out to grab my hand again, and I grabbed his with full strength.
“We already knew he was shit,” I said with a chuckle, wiping my tears away.
Lukas also let out a dark chuckle.
“How did you get this?” Lukas asked, his eyes going back to the book as he flipped through the pages.
“I just walked into his office. I wanted to look at the books on his shelf, but this one was sitting on his desk.”
“Was the office unlocked?”
“Yes. It always is.”
Lukas grinned. He looked positively elated.
“What?” I asked apprehensively.
“You can submit this as evidence. You live in the house where it was found. The door was unlocked, and the book was on his desk. You can submit this to Vane as evidence.”
“Really? Is that legal?” I knew a lot about policy, but this wasn’t something I felt sure about.
Lukas smirked. “Yes. This will shift the case entirely if Aster had anything to do with it—which I almost guarantee she did.”
“My father will go to prison for this, won’t he?”
“I can’t say whether they will have enough evidence against him to convict him, but this is a great start.” He passed the book back to me. “Are you okay with turning that in as evidence?”
I scoffed. “Of course I am. I don’t owe him any protection.”