Chapter 6 #2
“Jasmine is coming with NDAs but agrees we take other steps to protect them. Too much magic is used here as challenges which is the point of schooling, so it wouldn’t even be their fault.
” She gave me a worried look. “But I suggest you not have this conversation after the day you’ve had.
Have a day Saturday after work. Be a college kid. Seriously.”
“I don’t even know how, but sure,” I agreed. “Thanks, Emma.”
“No worries. I’m going to sit in here though and just ignore me. I’m fucking tired.”
I snorted. Yeah, it had been a day.
“Okay, well, we’ll talk about it Saturday,” Gloria hurried to agree. She cleared her throat and focused on me. “We have options. There’s no wrong answer.”
“I don’t understand and I’m normally socially inept, but honestly I’m just too fucking exhausted to put much together, so please spell it out,” I practically begged.
“When I was sexually assaulted—raped defectus,” Kate took over.
“Wait, what the fuck is raped defectus?” I demanded, glancing around in horror when all the women there flinched. “This is a real thing?”
“It’s a designation witches have come up with,” Gloria explained.
“Basically, an interrupted or cut-off rape. The laws… They suck. It’s sexual assault—not even battery like other physical crimes—or rape.
And then special circumstances if it’s a kid or a purity is taken.
That’s not enough. There are so many levels of other ways people get hurt but… ”
“Not for us,” Kate whispered, staring at her hands.
“Crimes of a sexual nature are overwhelmingly committed against women. Why smear poor, poor men for a mistake, right? Their bright futures are what matter, not us.” She let out a shaky breath.
“He would have raped me, but he was so fucking drunk he passed out. So I was raped defectus.”
I swallowed loudly. “What happened to him?”
She gave a half shrug. “He graduated. My RA told me not to be stupid and report it against someone like him.” She quickly wiped her eyes before giving me a sad smile.
“Director Hensley told me it was my fault because respectable women don’t attend those sorts of parties and men cannot be blamed for their actions if we act badly by putting ourselves in that position. ”
“Okay, we need to find that asshole and do bad things to him,” Emma grumbled. She snorted. “I’m texting Taylor.”
“He will,” I promised Kate. I kept her gaze and swallowed. “People said the same about what Gregg Haddock did to me.” I realized it was time to admit it as well. “He tried to rape me. If Professor Wyatt hadn’t intervened, Gregg would have…”
“Wow, okay, it really was him,” Gloria whispered, scooting closer. “Kate couldn’t let us touch her after. She would lean against us—whatever you can handle.”
I took the offer and leaned against her, even putting my head on her shoulder. “My parents wanted us mated. They gave him a potion. I didn’t know him and…” I took a deep breath and told them the truth.
Minus that I slept with Wyatt. I fibbed that he got me out of there and I went crazy before passing out, waking in my own bed a mess later.
“Yeah, I would have taken a pregnancy test too,” Carmen whispered. “People need—I know it’s hard but set the record straight, Bev. That’s so far from what I’ve heard said.”
“Why do I have to correct their bullshit about my life?” I demanded, tears filling my eyes. “Why is it on me to explain what happened like it’s any of their fucking business? There’s a whole council case and—”
“Where the guards said you lost your purity already,” she said gently. “I watched it. A lot of us did because Gregg was such a fucker.”
“People are stupid because it’s basic interrogation to throw the person off,” Emma muttered as she read something on her phone.
“They didn’t have any real knowledge. I’ll message Jasmine that one of those guards should state as much.
” She gave me a sad look. “It’s not on you. It sucks. It sucks huge fucking balls.”
“But?” I whispered.
“Do it for you. Do it so the next asshole who spews crap you can sue like Coach Dunham because you can unlike Kate who was silenced and shamed. Do it for those of us who didn’t have the power or ability to fight. We’ll support you through it because that’s what we can do.”
My lower lip quivered. “It’s hard to always be the one fighting. I’m tired, Emma. Even the headmaster wanted me to be on that committee and—why is it always me?”
“It’s not,” Gloria said firmly. “Some of us just didn’t know how. Now we can. We have ideas. After we pulled our heads out of our asses—we have ideas. Let us help.”
“We’re going to need help harvesting again, but we have a baller idea to bust some assholes,” Kate promised.
“We want to be on your court and not just for the normal popular reasons. We want to change things. Kerwynn is open to it—we’ll fight with you.
Hell, we’ll do the heavy lifting if you give us the path. ”
“Others will join too,” Carmen added. “I had some female master’s students asking if there was something they could do to help so you didn’t get trapped in a relationship with that asshole. A lot of us want to fight but have been silenced.”
I accepted that and told them what Conrad had done to me physically. They didn’t downplay it or brush it off as just a kiss or like it wasn’t serious. They were… Amazing. It was exactly what I needed.
To hear that I didn’t deserve what had happened to me. Again.
Jasmine arrived with the proposed statement to the press, and she’d already gotten one of the guards on board like Emma wanted.
Carmen was awesome, adjusting a few phrases here and there so it sounded better and less aggressive. Some of it she said needed to be more defensive or people would brush it off as protesting too much or some such bullshit.
She also added in a few lines that this was repeatedly demanded of me, and while I didn’t owe anyone answers, if it could keep another thirty-something creeper with a teenager fetish from trying to trap me, it was worth sharing my personal life.
Unfortunately, the press conference was playing at breakfast when I arrived to the cafeteria. I simply sighed and watched.
“Let me start on a personal note that I hope many of you took to heart what Bevin Millen said yesterday that the media acted like rabid hyenas instead of logical adults with any sort of manners or morals,” Jasmine said firmly. “But I don’t have enough faith in our society.
“I did have several women reach out to me saying Bevin was not Conrad’s first victim.
Apparently, he targets women who he thinks can enrich his life and traps them in relationships using his father’s status and family’s wealth.
I will be submitting that proof and the list of names to the High Council after this press conference. ”
“She really is awesome,” Carmen said as she sat down next to me, Kate as well making it clear they were blocking me from the possible assholes who would try for me.
“Also, there are things such as facts,” Jasmine continued.
“The timeline is well recorded, so people just look silly spouting their nonsense.
Bevin Millen contacted me when she had issues with the attorney who ran the trust she set up with her grandfather, Henry Millen.
He refused to give up the financial power of it after she came of age.
“He also gave himself roles that the trust didn’t allow and were illegal given she was an adult.
Including, but not limited to, brokering her mating without her knowledge.
On top of which, the information wasn’t accurate.
He assumed the lies the Haddock family told about Bevin that she was intimate with Gregg Haddock.
“That attorney has lost his license and is in prison over the disgusting situation and a list of pending charges that there are piles of evidence for.
Because of that case, the president of Familiar Treasures learned of a female trying cases in front of the High Council, something nearly unheard of, and reached out to me.
“That is how I was hired as Familiar Treasure’s council and kept my position as the Millen family’s attorney.
I am the attorney for both Bevin and Clare Millen.
It’s not a complicated timeline. It’s not even worth some of the conspiracy theories I’ve heard because some people are bored in their lives.
Hopefully, that clears up things so people can… ” She sighed.
Oh boy, she wanted to say something she shouldn’t. Yeah, I don’t blame her.
“Now, back to the Haddocks. They lost the lawsuit and have faced criminal charges of fraud for their lies about what happened. Here are the facts, well-documented facts of what happened. Then Bevin Shaw and Gregg Haddock had never met before he stalked and followed my client the night he drugged her at Morrigan’s library.
“Yes, he was given the potion by her former parents, Charles Shaw believing that if Gregg Haddock raped his daughter, they would then be mated.
Clearly, he was insane for a while and people ignored it.
Once Bevin was affected by the potion, Gregg Haddock attempted to rape her in the library, the monster that brazen.
“Professor Derek Wyatt intervened and turned Gregg Haddock and the evidence over to campus security immediately. He removed Bevin Shaw from the situation before people could jump to conclusions—one of their favorite pastimes—and tried to figure out exactly what type of potion had been used.
“After Bevin passed out from the potion, he safely brought her to her room and gave his statement to campus security, asking to be unnamed given the contentious history between the Wyatt and Shaw families.” She gave everyone there a minute with it, seeming like she was staring down certain people in particular.
“She’s going to call out specific people later,” Carmen muttered as it dragged on. “She’s making it clear that she’s about to hand them their asses.”
That would be nice. We didn’t get to do that enough.