Chapter Twenty Three
Present Day
I wake with the taste of regret on my tongue.
For a few disoriented seconds, I don’t know where I am.
The ceiling above me swims in muted morning light, my curtains only half-drawn, a pale gray streaming in that is far too harsh for my eyes.
My head throbs in time with my pulse, each beat a dull hammer behind my eyes.
When I roll onto my back, my naked body shifts against the cover, and I suck in a breath. Oh, no. What have I done now?
Gripping my head in a vice-like grip, I try to remember the events that led up to this.
There was the party, the bass vibrating through the floors.
Laura laughing over beer pong. Reid’s hand on my hip.
The stairs. The study. Swirling whiskey in a cut-crystal glass.
And that’s where the fractured flashes end.
I don’t know what happened once I entered that study, and even worse, I don’t know if I got laid last night or not.
Did Everest’s smirk in the lamplight work its magic on me again, or did I end up finding Reid after all?
Did one of them bring me back to my room and undress me?
Sighing, I roll back onto my side slowly, nausea rising with the motion.
My body feels heavily used. Heat creeps up my neck despite the chill in the room.
I press my face into my pillow and let out a muffled groan.
What the hell was I thinking? Getting so damn drunk, thinking one night of loosened inhibitions would make me feel better.
I told Thiago I wanted to feel something.
Well, congratulations Meg. You feel like utter shit now.
Wait, Thiago! Reaching out for my phone on the bedside table, I tap the screen aggressively before realizing it’s dead.
Dammit. My throat tightens unexpectedly, the threat of a sob rising.
I’m a mess, and as always, I feel painfully alone.
I curl in on myself, filled with self-pity.
Despite the wetness that springs to my eyes, I somehow manage to drift back into a dream state again, and I wish I didn’t.
Images from last night merge with the regular nightmares I battle with.
Large hands shift between Everest and Harrison, the reassured smiles taking on different forms, walls closing in.
Then there’s Reid’s breathing teasing my ear, whispering how he’s going to bend, contort and break me like one of his paintings.
Every time I thought I could escape one of them, I’d be pulled back into the darkness, tape biting into my wrists, the scene blurring until I couldn’t tell who my captor was anymore. It didn’t even matter. I was trapped in the recesses of my own mind regardless.
Suddenly, a sound registers, bleeding back into my consciousness. At first, I think it’s inside my head, but even after I jolt awake, it continues. Banging, banging, and then hollering.
“Meg, open this fucking door!”
I sit bolt upright, debilitating pain shooting through my skull. The room tilts violently, black spots pricking at the edges of my vision, but the voice outside slices through the haze with terrifying clarity.
“Megan! I’m three seconds from breaking in!” The banging hits harder, the wood rattling in its frame.
“I’m—” My voice cracks like I’ve swallowed glass.
I clear my throat and swing my legs over the side of the bed, swaying until I steady myself on my desk.
Once I’m able to without emptying the contents of my stomach, I scramble for the nearest oversized hoodie on the floor and drag it over my head.
The cold air bites at my bare thighs as I stagger toward the door.
“Meg—” My name is shouted as I wrench the door open.
Everest freezes, his fist raised and hair disheveled.
His green eyes widen, a sharp inhale sucking through his parted lips.
For a split second, neither of us speaks, but relief pours into his dark-rimmed eyes.
Then, he grabs and hauls me into his chest, one arm around my back, one large hand pinning my ear against his pounding heartbeat.
“You’re here,” he finally sighs, a shudder working through him. I frown, confusion prickling under my skin.
“Where else would I be?” I ask, reaching back to tug my hoodie lower over my ass.
I suppose that solves one mystery though.
Everest didn’t come back to my room with me, but that doesn’t mean I stumbled back alone.
My mind trips over itself, trying to piece together the moments between his study and my bed.
My gaze drifts to the next closed door along the hall as if the answer might be etched into the wood grain.
Sobering in an instant, Everest thrusts me back a step, putting me at arm’s length. I watch in real-time as the concern in his gaze is withdrawn, his jaw resetting to a hard clench.
“There was a kidnapping last night. We thought…there are whispers that he might have come back.”
It’s my turn to become frozen on the spot. The pounding in my head ebbs away to become solely concentrated on those words. A kidnapping on campus? Again?
“He?” My throat tightens around the single syllable. “You think it’s Harrison?” Everest’s nostrils flare slightly as if he hates saying the name out loud. As if he suddenly cares.
“Not just me. The police are heading over here after they’ve finished ransacking my house.
” A wave of something close to nausea but much more terrifying swims through me and I stagger, grabbing onto the doorjamb.
Everest makes a move to catch me but thinks better of it when he sees I’m not going to fall.
I just need something to hold me up. Flexing his fingers into fists, his gaze lingers on my legs.
“You should get dressed. They might want to take you down to the station.”
Breathing becomes harder. All these months, I’ve been trying to heal. Trying to put the past behind me on some deluded hope that, if I simply erase it out of my mind, it will no longer exist. I was wrong, and now it’s back. He’s back.
My hands start to tremble, nails digging crescents into my palms. The last time I was interrogated by the police, I was wrapped in a blanket that wasn’t mine, sitting in a hospital bed and answering questions I didn’t understand, trying to recall the face of a man who had blurred into shadow.
But at least I wasn’t alone. I had someone there to hold my hand, someone I sorely wish I could get a hold of now.
A few floors below, a door slams open and boots trample through the lower level of the block.
We’re out of time, and my phone is still dead.
“Will you come with me?” I blurt out, grabbing Everest’s hand as he starts to step away. His brows disappear beneath his blond hair, his eyes darting down to where I’m clinging to his fingers. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he withdraws.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Everest swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. That same hand raises to rub the back of his neck, presumably putting it out of reach in case I lunge in desperation again. “It would draw…unwanted attention.” A bitter laugh escapes me.
“And we wouldn’t want my trauma to smear your perfect reputation.
” Mock-bowing, I retreat into my room, flinging the door closed.
It halts with a thud, which evidently is the sound of wood meeting Everest’s shoe.
He sweeps inside my personal space, curling a hand around my nape to stop me from backing away.
“I meant, it would draw unwanted attention to you. If Harrison is back, he’ll be watching the media carefully.
The last thing you want is to tip him off to my family’s protection.
” My pulse stutters for more than just the fact Everest is once again pressed up against me in my room, his mouth inches away, his eyes boring into mine.
“Do I have your family’s protection?” I breathe the question as the shuffle of movement approaches from down the hall. Everest’s eyes sweep my face for a moment before he retreats, his chest falling from a heavy exhale.
“I’ll hold them off for a few minutes.” Watching Everest leave strikes more panic into me than I was expecting. This is happening, and I’m going to have to endure it alone. Just as he’s about to close the door between us, my delayed thoughts catch up with me.
“Wait. Who was taken?”
Everest pauses and holds my gaze for a loaded second, regret passing over his features.
“Laura Hopkins.”
It’s a mystery how I’m still upright, managing to put one foot in front of the other as I enter the police station.
The wire of my phone charger is twisted tight around my fingers, the useless device sitting heavy in the pocket of my sweatpants.
The oversized hoodie is still in place, sleeves swallowing my hands, although the officers waiting outside my dorm permitted me five frantic minutes to shower and pull on a bra before escorting me to the car.
Five minutes to scrub at my skin like I could wash away last night.
Five minutes to stare at myself in the mirror and see a stranger looking back.
Students had gathered around the vehicle as soon as the flashing lights appeared, drawn in like moths to the flame.
No one looked relieved to see that I hadn’t been taken last night.
Instead, I caught the sideways glances, the subtle narrowing of eyes, the unspoken accusation forming behind them.
They believe this is my fault, and I can’t say they’re wrong.
I took Laura to the party. I walked her up those white stone steps. I was supposed to make sure she was safe. No one can make me feel any more shit about the situation than I already do.