Chapter 42
Dakota
Rain pattered down around me, hitting the top of my raincoat, darkening the sand and pebbles to near-black, splashing into the Pacific. My boots left footprints in the sand as I walked, my hood up, my hands tucked in my pockets. The hair around my face was damp, clinging to my cheeks.
I kept walking, sniffling a little, licking rain and salt off my lower lip. I was alone.
When warm tears started dripping silently down my face, I didn’t wipe them. They dissolved into the rain on my cold cheeks, gliding over skin flushed by the wind.
Anthony was the one who gave me my first shark tooth from this beach.
I’d been ten years old when that happened.
Ten years old and trying to get used to the fact that I now had an older brother.
Before then, my father never mentioned his other child.
I was sure my mother at least knew of his existence, but he didn’t start living with us until I was ten.
His mother had gotten hit with some drug possession and intent to sell charges, so she was sentenced to a few years in prison.
That was why Anthony had to move in with us.
He’d only lived with her prior. I didn’t know what to make of him at first, because he seemed much older and cooler than me.
He’d been in eighth grade at the time, and I was only in fourth grade.
But he was nice to me, a lot nicer than most people in my life, and I liked him for that reason.
I started to really love having an older brother.
He took me on the bus with him to this beach, showed me how to climb down the big rocks carefully, and showed me how to look for shark teeth.
We used to walk up and down the dark sand, our eyes scanning for the sharp treasures, my tangled hair probably in a braid and my jeans probably a size too large, the frayed cuffs soaked with seawater.
It felt special, like a secret adventure, like I was living a different life in a different world. A better one.
And I’d never really grown out of coming here.
I spotted something in the sand so I squatted down and grabbed it, rubbing off dark grains with my thumb to reveal the small shark tooth. It was black and sharp in my palm—another potential scalpel for carving out all my memories. If only it was that simple.
I walked down the shore to the ocean, bending forward and letting a shallow wave rush over my hand, clearing the sand off the shark tooth, the cold water making my fingers numb.
A few tears dripped off my face into the water.
White seafoam climbed up the beach, then retreated back into the ocean, murky and jade green beneath the breaking waves.
The drizzling rain blurred the line between the sea and the sky, fog veiling the horizon, the smoke-blue sky. I tucked my hand back into my pocket, the shark tooth held safe in my fist as I took shaky inhales of air, thick with mist.
It was unsettling to know that my secret lived in the brain of another person now. Mila knew that I’d been assaulted by my older brother, but I never went into detail about it with her—I didn’t go into detail with Mason, either. I had no idea how to say any of it aloud.
He fucked me and I kinda liked it, but I mostly didn’t, but I still begged him to do it, still begged him not to leave me, even while he made me wish I was dead. Do victims beg for it? Do victims orgasm?
I kicked my boot in the sand, an angry sob punching out of my chest. Mila had helped me get to the one free therapy session Blackpine offered all their students, but an hour wasn’t nearly enough time to fix me.
The therapist said things like it wasn’t your fault, and it’s just your body responding, and if sex was the only way he let you be close to him, it makes sense that you found yourself wanting it.
But I still felt dirty. Tainted by it.
Anthony lived in California now, and I hadn’t seen him in person in a while.
I wondered if he ever thought about what he’d done to me.
Probably not. He had a fiancée now, and I bet she didn’t know what he used to do to me.
She probably didn’t even know I existed.
I’d never met her, only seen her through social media.
I walked back up the beach towards the rocks, then grabbed a handful of pebbles and chucked them into the ocean as hard as I could.
They landed in a group of little splashes, disappearing instantly below the waves, bruised with shadow.
The sound of their impact was muffled, quieted under the rain and the swells of surf.
I picked up more pebbles, threw them again.
Again.
It did nothing to make me feel better.
I hated, hated thinking about the summer when everything changed. Between middle school and high school. When my kind brother became someone terrible.
When he took my trust and used it against me.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I figured it would be Mason texting me, but I didn’t want to see what he’d said.
I was running from him, scared of what he knew—in more than one way.
Now, he knew about all the terrible, disgusting things that consumed my thoughts in the dark.
My secret and my fantasy, the two forever linked.
I didn’t think of Anthony when I thought of my fantasy now, but he was the root cause of it, which made me feel weird and sick. Remembering myself in high school fantasizing about death, contemplating suicide, but ultimately deciding it would better if he did it…
I stared out at the waves, tinted charcoal and green, the cloud-smeared light filtering down on their frothy edges. I thought of Mason holding me below that surface, thought of how dark and cold it was down there, how alive I’d felt. How much I’d hated him when I took that first breath afterwards.
A dark-winged bird swooped past me in a shadowy blur, startling me for a second.
I turned my head to watch it ascend, then settle in one of the salt-brushed trees rooted on top of the cliffs.
The tree was growing crooked, leaning over towards the ocean a little, its branches sparse enough to see through.
I squeezed my fist in my pocket, the shark tooth poking my palm.
When I gazed at the ocean for a long time, its vastness swallowed me. It made me feel better, in a way, to see all that endless unknown. It grounded me.
I couldn’t keep watching it forever, though, because I had another lab today. In an hour, I’d have to see Dr. Killshaw—Micah—for the first time since having sex with him in his truck. Nerves made me stomach twist up while memories made my face warm.
There you go. Just like that.
How I was supposed to actually get any work done on today’s lab with Micah in close proximity was a mystery.
Unless he never showed up to check on us, in which case I’d likely just be distracted by his absence.
I needed to know how he felt about what we’d done—would he want to pull away now?
Would he be cold and cruel and distant again?
Or would he let me keep clinging to the closeness that was growing between us?
I prayed for the third option, because I had no idea what I’d do if he dismissed me again.
He was too far inside my brain to get out now, not without fucking wrecking me.
Hopefully he meant all the things he’d said to me in the dark in his truck, all the murmured promises he’d pressed against my skin with his lips.
His hands, mapping my body, holding me steady.
My journal was officially out of pages, now that I’d spent so much time writing about Micah and the fact that I’d fucked my professor. That and a mini-spiral over telling Mason about Anthony. I would need to get another blank notebook soon.
I wiped my fingers over my cheeks, brushing away the traces of my tears mixing with the rain as I went towards the rocks.
It was still raining as I climbed, but my rain coat had done a good job keeping me mostly dry.
My jeans were a bit damp, but the water didn’t sink through my boots so my feet were still warm and dry.
Once at the top, I grabbed one of the wooden posts holding up the rope railing, staring over at the way the land curved out into the sea, the trees stationed up high there.
I liked how the forest lined the ocean in that way, liked the cliffs and gloominess.
Eventually, I turned and walked to the bus stop, grateful for the covered bench while I waited for the bus to arrive.
I slipped my phone out of my pocket, surprised to see it was actually Eric who’d texted me instead of Mason. He was asking if I had time to pick up a shift later today. I told him I had lab, but was available after that, then put my phone back into my pocket.
The bus rolled up after a few minutes, brakes hissing, rain streaming down the flat sides in rivulets. I climbed on and sat in a seat next to the windows, as usual, watching droplets race across the glass, joining up with other droplets on their paths.
By the time I was actually in the Unit Ops lab at the continuous stirred tank reactor station with my group, my clothes were almost fully dry.
The only part of me that was still a little damp was my hair—the pieces around my face that’d been sticking out of my hooded raincoat.
They were drying a bit curlier than the rest of my hair, but the frizz was manageable.
Quinn smiled when she saw me, her hard hat on and her eyes bright through her safety glasses. There was a natural friendliness between us since we were both girls in engineering, and needed to stick together.
“Hey,” she greeted. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been good,” I lied. “You?”
“Good, good. I thought we could do the batch reactor and the boys can do the CSTR.”
I nodded. “Yes. I agree with that. I don’t want to put on a face shield.”
We both laughed. The person who injected the acetic anhydride into the CSTR was required to wear a lot more PPE. Gloves, lab coat, full face shield. I didn’t want to do it.
Jackson and Nate were on board with our plan—they wanted to do ‘dangerous shit’ and were excited about the full face shield.
The TA for this lab was named Sam, and he helped both pairs start getting set up with our reactors.
Quinn and I already had everything planned out, along with our data collection spreadsheets ready.
We were hoping to get out of here a few minutes early, especially now that we weren’t waiting on the boys.
Quinn worked on rinsing the walls of our batch reactor while I got scoops of ice from a bin on the side of the lab, pouring them into our water bath to get it to our first-run temperature more quickly. I felt jittery and weird, just waiting for Micah to show up. What was he going to do?
I grabbed two liters of tap water in a large container at the sink, then walked it over to the reactor and poured the liquid inside. Quinn set up our temperature and pH probes, then we waited for everything to reach the correct temperatures we’d inputted.
The sound of the door opening had my head snapping in that direction.
Fuck me.
I forced myself to stare at the batch reactor again, biting back a smile. God, he looked good. It would take some conscious effort not to stare at him too obviously, especially now that I was thinking about his big dick. And his mouth. And his hands.
He talked with the TA for a minute before approaching our groups.
“Masters,” he said coolly. I wanted to melt. “How’s it going?”
When I peered up at him, he raised an eyebrow. “It’s going well. We’re doing our first run.”
“Looks good. Keep it up.”
Dr. Killshaw headed over to the boys next, checking in on their beginning stages of progress.
Ugh, he’s such a teacher. Just…fuck. I love it.
We didn’t talk much throughout the lab—there wasn’t really anything to say other than reactor-related questions—but Micah looked at me a lot.
He was in his natural habitat, being all professional and shit, but then glancing over at me like he was thinking about how my pussy looked covered in his cum, glistening in the front seat of the truck.
My face was red almost the entire time, but at least he was professional enough to keep us on track, so we finished the day’s portion of the lab with minimal issues.
By the end of lab, all I could think about was going somewhere private with him and riding his cock again. His strong hands grabbing my waist, my wetness leaking all over him.
But, he had meetings in the afternoon, so my dreams were crushed.
Truthfully, I didn’t even know if he wanted to do anything else with me. Maybe it was a one time thing. He hadn’t acted that way in his truck, but what did I know? I’d read him wrong plenty of times before.
I chewed the inside of my cheek as I stuffed my hard hat and glasses into my locker, absently saying bye to my group before disappearing into the concrete stairwell. Motion in my periphery startled me, and I spun to see Micah standing there.
“Dr. Killshaw,” I whispered. It was almost like he’d been invisible, and somehow materialized right next to me.
“I’m not lying about having meetings,” he started.
“I am busy this afternoon. But if you think I’m done with you, you’re dead fucking wrong.
” He didn’t step any closer to me, nor did he raise the volume of his voice.
We were alone in here, but that could change at any moment.
Eagerness swooped in my belly, my head feeling fizzy with lust. ”That wasn’t a one-time thing—as much as it maybe should’ve been.
It’s going to be an all the time thing. Alright? ”
I nodded, nervous. “Yes.”
“You’re going to let me take care of you in my own way.”
Another nod.
“Good. You go ahead, I’ll wait a minute.” He motioned for me to continue up the stairs, so I did, turning only once at the top. The way he was staring at my ass made my cheeks flush, and I hurried out the door, knowing I should maybe stop this, but not wanting to. An all the time thing.
I was already dangerously attached, so it was too late anyway.
I’d been starving for affection for too long, and if this is how I could get it, I’d grab on with both hands. I’ll let you take care of me. Just please don’t break me in the process.