Chapter 24 #2
“I took it to the police,” I say. “I’ve been at the police station.” He’s quiet on the other end. “It’s okay, I’m not in trouble.
Well, I probably am for taking the journal pages, but I wasn’t arrested for murder . . . yet . . . so that’s a plus.”
“Just get back to campus. I’m at your apartment,” he says before hanging up.
Asher is sitting at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to my and Adrienne’s apartment door when I pull up. He stands when
I get out of the car.
“I’m sorry I left this morning,” I say, walking toward him. The falling snow covers his hair and his eyelashes.
“Why the hell would you go to the police without me?” He barks the question at me like I’m a kid that needs scolding. I figure sitting out here for two hours and wondering where I was all day must have made him irrationally angry.
“The real question is: Why did I wait so long to do it?” I say back. “This is what I should’ve done from the start, Asher,
don’t you see that? If I would’ve just gone to Grange after Marco’s fire, when I knew I was being set up, Bryce might still
be here; so would Graham. People died because we tried to play detective and it didn’t work! Their deaths are my fault! All
of them are.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is, it is true. And I’ll have to make peace with that, but I won’t let it happen to Tristan and Wes. It’s all in the hands
of the police now, like it should’ve been from the start.”
“So, what? That’s it?”
“What else is there? They can do more than we can. I won’t put more people in danger.”
When he doesn’t say anything else, I turn to walk up the stairs.
“And what about this?” Asher says. I look back at him standing there, his hands slack at his sides.
“I don’t even know what this is,” I reply, knowing that the “this” is us.
He nods once, and takes a step back, then nods again before walking back to his car.
I bite my lip to stop myself from telling him not to go.
But the entire drive back to Pembroke gave me time to think and wonder if I would still feel this way about him had this never happened to me at all.
It’s like that syndrome where girls fall in love with their captors.
He wasn’t holding me captive physically, but mentally.
I now feel like I need him. Somewhere along the way he’s become some kind of emotional crutch as well as my psychological tormentor.
Every rude remark paired with a smirk, every jab ending in a kiss, and even though it was all for show, it’s the only thing that’s been enough to distract me from the weight of it all. If he’s gone, will it crush me?
Back in my apartment I set my bag in the bedroom and am met with my suspect board. It won’t come off the wall so I take a
small blanket and toss it over the board. I don’t want to look at it anymore. It’s someone else’s problem now.
The second thing I notice is my goals taped to my mirror. Grabbing the marker, I cross out one of my last two goals.
You won’t let any boys get to you.
It wasn’t just Asher that got to me; it was all of them. The dead ones and the alive ones. There’s knocking at my door that
pulls me from my thoughts. Asher. He came back. I stand in front of the door, hesitant. If I open it will he swoop in, gathering
me in his arms to finish what we started in the hotel?
I decide I need to know as I unlock the door, swinging it open to find Miles Holland standing there.
I try to shut the door but he puts his foot in to stop it from closing. “Wait! I just want to talk to you!” he shouts through
the crack of the door.
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you!” I push harder, but he manages to shove the door open. I back up away from the entry as he steps in, with a small briefcase
in hand. It probably has a gun in it, or knives, or whatever he uses to kill people. Maybe it’s my journal or its contents.
“I told the police everything—they’re probably already at your place,” I say, mustering up some courage.
Miles looks around my place. “That’s what you keep saying.”
I realize my phone is in my bedroom. Maybe I could run for it and lock him out of my bedroom while I call 911. “What do you want? What’s in the briefcase?”
“This is what I’ve wanted to talk to you about,” he says, holding it up. “It’s my next book. I want you to read it. You told
me before that you wanted to be the subject of my next one; well, now you are.” He holds the briefcase out to me. I did say
that once, in a lame attempt to flirt. I never thought he’d take it seriously.
“Just get out of my apartment and I won’t tell anyone you were here.”
“Like how I haven’t told anyone that you broke into my house?”
I turn and run down the hall for my room and he follows, getting in the door before I can close it behind me. I grab my phone
from the bed but he rips it from my hand and tosses it into the hall. He stands by the door, blocking my way out.
“This isn’t what you think. Don’t panic,” he says, trying to reassure me after chasing me to my room and throwing my phone
into the hall. So reassuring. “I’m here because I love you.”
“You’re sleeping with my cousin,” I say. “In fact, where is she right now? Did you kill her too?”
“Adrienne? No, I only reached out to her to get a better feel for your life. It was research for my story. She doesn’t understand.”
“So you’re using her?”
But he’s done talking about Adrienne. “I’ve been watching you. You’ve been miserable without me. Drinking too much, throwing
yourself all over these boys. Adrienne says the blond one from the gallery makes you cry. I would never do that. He doesn’t
know you like I do. I can give you a better life than he can.”
“Is that why you’re killing my exes, then?”
“I’m not a killer, Sloane. I mean, look at me. Do you really think I could kill someone?” He motions up and down his body.
“Then you’re having your wife do it for you,” I say.
“My wife? Kate? I haven’t talked to her since she walked out on me. It’s you I want. Seeing you yesterday, hearing your voice,
I just had to see you again. I needed to make things right. If you take me back I’ll be better, I’ll change. Just read the
story I wrote—you’ll know how much you mean to me.” He comes closer until I’m backed up to my bed.
“I don’t want to read your story. I want you to get out of my apartment, you fucking psychopath.”
I try to push him away but he catches my wrist, bringing me close to him. “Maybe you just need a reminder,” he says, grabbing
the back of my head and pulling me in for a kiss. I try to yell and push and kick.
“Sloane?” I hear my name from the open front door.
“Asher!” I scream, and he comes running. Miles turns as Asher walks into my room, and hits Miles square in the jaw. He throws
another punch, and Miles falls to the ground. But he doesn’t stop there. Asher winds back over and over and I think he may
actually kill him. It’s years of pent-up rage at the hands of an abusive father. I wonder when he looks at Miles right now,
is it really Ben that he’s seeing? “Asher, that’s enough! That’s enough!” I put my hand on his shoulder for him to stop and
he looks back at me long enough for Miles to get up, broken and bloody, and run out of the room. I grab Asher’s arm before
he can run out after him. “Just let him go,” I say.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No,” I say. “I have to call Grange.” I push past Asher to get my phone in the hall. Grange doesn’t answer so I leave a message saying Miles just forced his way into my apartment and assaulted me. Hopefully that’s enough for them to arrest him and get a warrant to search his place.
Asher goes into the bathroom to wash his bloody knuckles and I stand in the doorway watching in silence.
“I’m staying over,” he says. “And tomorrow we can go back to not speaking or whatever it is that you want.”
I don’t fight him on it as he takes up residence on our couch next to the front door. I go to my room and get into bed, but
I can’t fall asleep. I have a feeling neither of us can.
When there’s a knock on the door the next morning, I hear Asher answer it.
Annica’s voice booms from the hallway. “Well, you’re not who we were expecting.” Two sets of boots walk in.
“I thought you weren’t talking to her right now?” Asher says.
“Oh, Sloane’s going to talk today,” Annica says. “She’s going to do a lot of it.”
I sit up in bed as I hear them coming down the hall.
Dani peeks her head into my bedroom door with an apprehensive “Hey.”
Annica shoves past her into the room and tosses her phone at me. On it is a photo of me and Detective Grange outside the police
station last night posted on PC’s gossip page. The caption reads “PC’s Sloane Sawyer seen being taken into custody by Boston
PD for multiple murders.”
“No, no, no.” I shake my head as I read it, scrolling down to read the comments, and there is no shortage of them.
Elianna551: Isn’t this the girl who screwed her professor and got him fired?
DukeFan40: Nah it’s the girl who got a DUI for being over double the adult legal limit after leaving Sig Chi
Griffin_H: It’s the same girl LOL looks like she still doesn’t have her shit together
I’m gripping Annica’s phone so hard it feels like I could shatter it in my palm.
“You have five minutes to explain to us what the fuck is going on.” Annica crosses her arms.