Page 37 of Braving the Valley


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I need her to choose to come with me, or none of this works. She needs the illusion of a choice, even if it's forced, or her self-worth vanishes in an instant, and I lose her forever.

I can't risk that.

As I walk into my math class, the professor already packing up for the day, I take one look at her and know she's lost weight. She looks fucking terrible, half-asleep and staring at the board. She's an entirely new color of anemic this morning.

Goddammit!

She didn't obey, which means she has to be punished. Because this shit right here makes me feel weak, and I hate feeling weak. It reminds me too much of my own father.

I sit beside her, sliding into the chair. Kill glances over at me, but I'm looking at her, staring until she finally notices me. I guess what they have her on is strong today, but then again, I bet most medicines are strong if they're the only thing you're eating.

I reach over, across the aisle, and pinch her sides.

Sure enough, I can feel more of her ribs today. She yelps and swats me away, but the professor ignores it.

Anger, fear, disgust, it all blurs inside my head, growing louder and louder until the noise is blaring. Everything in me wants to grab her books and set them on fire, but I can't, not right now. I was gone for a little over a week, and she almost succeeded in killing herself. What happens when I'm gone for two?

I think about ways to punish her instead. I want her naked, bound, fuckingbranded.

Maybe I can take the lighter, shove it up her skirt, and let it heat her pussy.

Maybe I can take a cigarette and burn marks into that pretty, pale skin of hers.

Maybe I'll set her strawberry blonde hair on fire.

Then she'll know what it feels like to me when she hurts herself.

The professor drones on. I guess at least he tries, but he's got to be the most boring person on the fucking planet. Finally, the bell tolls, and the professor grabs his shit. He leaves with the students, one after another filing out of the room. She tries to leave too, but I'm faster. I grab her wrist, holding it tight between my thumb and pinky finger, squeezing it. Her eyes flare wide.

"Let me go," she tells me as the last of them leave the room, and the door closes behind them.

I stand, drawing to my full height as she sits at her desk, her hand still caught in mine.

"You've lost weight," I hiss.

"Maybe because you weren't here to force-feed me," she spits back.

I yank her out of her desk, and it's a messy exit. She jumps as the desk topples, and she lands against me, her small breasts pressed to my chest. While I like her there, I like it even more when I back her against the wall, trap her hands above her head, and make her stretch on the tips of her toes to look at me.

"Why do you insist on defying me?" I demand.

She scoffs. "Why do you insist on making everything about yourself? This isn't about you, creep! It has nothing to do with you!"

"It has everything to do with me," I hiss, letting my breath fall like ash raining from the sky across her beautiful face. "You are damaging what is mine."

She laughs, but there's no humor in it. If anything, it's angry.

"I am not yours, fire freak, and I never will be."

"You've been mine since the moment you stepped foot in class, baby girl."

"You truly believe that?" she asks, tipping her chin at me in defiance. "Then why are you trapping me here?"

Dammit.

She has a point.

I don't want her to have a point.

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