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Chapter 25
Nera
When the elevator doors close behind me, I gasp. I get my first look at myself in the reflection of the metal doors and I look filthy in every possible sense of the word.
My hair, usually iron straight and well kept, is a tangled, disheveled mess. My makeup is smudged down my face. I’m covered in dirt and scrapes and slowly appearing bruises and my fist desperately clasps Tristan’s shirt closed over my chest, the tails of it landing mid-thigh and revealing my bare legs. Anybody looking at me would know the truth – that I was fucked rough and dirty.
I’m still reeling from everything that happened tonight, my body having a hard time coming down from the massive adrenaline high of being chased and then brutally fucked. My lips are cracked and my ass is incredibly sore, but my pulse beats a wild rhythm in my veins.
I saw a different side of him tonight and it in turn brought out a different side in me. A side that’s maybe braver, definitely darker, and absolutely more alive. I want to hold on to that person for as long as possible.
I swipe hastily at my cheeks, trying to fix my makeup as much as possible given the mess caked on my face. When the doors open once more, I rush out and run down the hallway to our apartment, fumbling with my keys to open the door. I push it open quietly, happy to find it bathed in darkness.
Distantly, I hear Bellamy crying through the closed door of her bedroom. My heart lurches in my chest. It calls to me to immediately go to her, but I can’t, not looking like this. I force myself away from her room and into the bathroom where I take a quick shower in scalding hot water. I’ll take another one later once I’ve seen to Bellamy.
When I come out of the bathroom in a sweater and shorts loungewear set, I find Six and Thayer home as well. Thayer is sitting on Bellamy’s bed and Six looks on from the doorway with an anguished look on her face.
Bellamy is distraught, her face wet with tears and her cheeks reddened with emotion. I inhale a sharp breath when she tells us that Rogue betrayed her and lays out exactly how. What he did is unforgivable in my opinion and the depth of her heartbreak makes sense now. My own heart splinters further hearing her story and her sobs, my theories on relationships only further reinforced by her distress.
After we comfort her, Thayer gets in bed next to her. Six and I close the door behind us, leaving them to what I know will be a fitful night’s sleep, and we each head for our rooms.
I lay on my bed with a tired groan and look at the time on my phone. Seventeen minutes until an hour since he left. I drum my fingers on my stomach as I think about meeting him again, especially in the context of everything going on between Rogue and Bellamy.
“I fuck you and then I take care of you, that’s how this goes.”
Another first. I’m not used to being cared for, ever, let alone after sex. Self-preservation and the guard I have up tell me to be distrustful of him and this whole situation, even as a part of me yearns to believe his good intentions.
I find myself counting down the minutes until he’s here, unsure if I’m annoyed he’s forcing me to go to his place or secretly pleased. The lines are blurring between casual and…more. I don’t want them to, I can’t afford for them to. I need to remind him of it, for my own sanity.
I feel an intense pull to him and I can’t let myself fall into it.
Time drags by, fifteen minutes crawling like it’s fifty. The antsy feeling moves up my body until I can’t take it anymore and I stand. I walk to my window and stare out into the parking lot. When I look down, I see his car there, in the same place he promised it would be. My phone tells me there are five minutes left until the hour.
I wonder if he’s been there the entire time.
I wait until the time hits the hour and then I wait some more. Two minutes. Five minutes. Seven.
My phone dings.
Gary:Don’t make me come get you.
Me:Sure, because having my professor show up at my home in the middle of the night isn’t going to raise any eyebrows.
Gary:There are other ways to get you out of that building.
I frown at his text and then a photo comes through. It’s a top down shot of his hand placed in his lap. Clutched in his palm, his thumb pressed down on the igniter, is a lighter with a burning, bright orange flame.
My stomach drops even as excitement – which the sane part of me will question later once she’s regained control of my mind and body – thrills in my blood. After the side of him he revealed tonight, I believe he’s capable of just about anything.
I put on my slides and grab my phone, keys, and wallet. Stealthily, I sneak out of my room and then the apartment until I’m crossing the front door of the building and standing on the top step, staring down at him. His eyes are fixed darkly on me through the windshield and that uncontrollable, unexplainable electricity I feel when I’m near him buzzes to life once more.
I glare at him as I walk over to the passenger side and get in.
“You’re fucking crazy, you know that right?”
“Apparently,” he says, cheerfully. He pulls out of the parking lot and onto the street, his right hand coming down to rest possessively on my bare thigh. “It’s a rather new development,” he adds pensively, looking at the street ahead. “Seems to manifest only in relation to you.”
“Lucky me,” I say, dryly, but my stomach clenches happily, the traitor.
