“Seems you’re in luck. Naughty Headmaster Counselor Griffin was definitely tracking you. This code right here?” He points. “That’s you. These coordinates? All your locations. Anytime you took a shit, she knew about it.”
I move closer to the screen, trying to decipher what he’s looking at. “Any chance you can access the phone’s pictures?”
“Yep.” He’s back at it, until a bunch of thumbnails appear. I peer closer, and sure enough, the photos I took of the documents are there.
“Hey, can we get a minute?” I ask.
Envy is already popping up from his chair. “Have at it. No peeking at any other tabs, though. Would hate for you to get more than you bargained for by snoopin’.” He looks at my sister and winks. Then he’s gone.
“Why—?”
“Forget him. Look.” I take his seat and use the cursor to click on the first thumbnail. The photo enlarges, and I’m reading the screenshot document. My eyes widen at the bold titles. Misconduct. Sexual abuse to a minor. Test result: positive.
“Oh my god, do you think this is all true?”
I open another document and read. Police reports followed by large donations to the police department. Another document, and another document, all showing a pretty sick discovery and a cover up. “Is this why? Why—?”
“It all makes sense now. Listen…” I start clicking on the file tab and sending each photo to his printer. “I need you to lay low. I’m gonna end this once and for all.”
“Mason, no! You promised me.”
“I promised I’d fix this. And that’s what I’m gonna do.” I press print on the last photo, then stand, Evie in a state of panic beside me. “I need you to hold on to something.” I reach in my back pocket and hand her the gold trimmed card.
She unwillingly accepts it. “What is this?” She flips it from front to back. “No, Mason, no.”
“If something happens to me, give it to Micah, he’ll know what to do with it.”
“No! You promised!” She starts to cry. “We’ll find another way. We can go to the police with the information! They’ll help us!” I begin to walk passed her, but she jumps in my path, her arms shoving at my chest. “You fucking promised me. This isn’t you sticking to your promise. It’s you leaving me—again.” Her tears cascade down her face in rapid waves. My chest tightens at the pain I’m causing her. But this has to be done. I have to put a stop to her once and for all.
“Evelyn, calm down.”
“No! I’m coming with you. You’re not doing this alone.”
“Yes, I am. I have to.”
“No! You don’t. Stop trying to be brave for everyone. You saw what happened the last time you went off alone. They almost killed you!”
And they should have. I’m done letting Lillian pull my strings in this game. This is where I flip the tables, take those strings, and choke her near death. I grab Evelyn and pull her into my embrace, hugging her tightly to my chest. I kiss the top of her head. “I need to do this, okay? Nothing will happen to me, I promise. I won’t stop until you’re safe.”
“I’m safe with you. Please.”
“And with Lillian still around, I’ll always be a target, which means I’ll always be putting you in danger. Please. Don’t make me have to worry about you right now. Stay low. Go to your boyfriend’s. I’ll seek you out once I’m done.”
Her head raises off my chest, and I catch sight of her tear-stained cheeks. Her eyes are swollen, and it fucking kills me to see her this way. “You gotta trust me.”
“I do trust you, it’s them I don’t trust. Mason, this Elite, if they can cover something as horrible as that up, what will they do if you cross them again?”
I’m about to find out.
I give Evelyn another squeeze and peel her away from me. “Do as I say. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep your phone by you.” She doesn’t say another word. I walk out of Envy’s room, and after discussing my plan, I’m gone.
Megan
The smoke alarm sounds for the second time in a row, and I rip the oven door open only to receive a gust of smoke to the face. “Shit!” I use my oven mitt to grab for the cookie sheet housing another batch of burnt cookies. “Seriously, this is just not my day!” I shout, fighting the quivering of my lower lip. How hard is it to cut, place, and bake? Not hard at all if you weren’t such a mess. I take deep breaths, fighting back tears. I can do this. No, you can’t. You’re on round two of failure.
I take in my messy kitchen. I’m now going on round three of failure. But I refuse to give up. I’m too desperate to divert my thoughts so they don’t go back to him.
I lay out a new tray, slide it back into the oven and sit on the couch to catch the end of a Judge Judy episode. She’s about to let some scumbag get spousal support from a girl he married while drunk off his ass for only two weeks, but my mind goes rogue, and I start replaying Lillian’s frantic plea when she showed up at my door bruised and hysterical.
“Aunt—”
Aunt Lillian falls through my open doorway, forcing me to reach out and catch her. “I had to come straight here. You’re in danger, darling.” I gape at her, bruises forming around her neck and a welt growing over her cheek. “You need to know, Mason Blackwell, he’s dangerous,” she says, breathing heavily.
“Aunt Lillian, what are you talking about? Who did this to you?” I panic. She looks to have been assaulted.
“Megan, you must listen to me.” She begins to shake me. “I know what’s going on between you and Mason.”
“What?”
“He’s dangerous. He attacked me. Threatened me. If I didn’t allow him to do…things to me, he would do horrible things to you.”
My eyes go wide with shock, but even more confusion. “Aunt Lillian, you’re not making any sense.” How does she know about Mason? And why would he? He would never hurt me—
“Megan, he’s not who you think he is…”
The blaring of the smoke alarm in the kitchen drags me out of the flashback, throwing me three feet off my seat. I run into the kitchen, fighting the dark cloud of smoke to realize I burnt my cookies. Again. Tears pool and fall, disintegrating on the hot tray. I scrape the charred cookies into the garbage. “Pull it together,” I cry to myself. “If there is one thing you can control right now, it’s making simple sugar cookies.”
With a deep breath, I lay another batch on the sheet and shove them into the oven. I open my window to help get rid of the cloud of smoke. This time, I set a timer and go off to take a shower. It’s supposed to help calm me and wash away the last two days of grime and pain over the lies and betrayal, but it only heightens the memories of him.
“Hold on to the wall,” he orders, and I do what he says. My pussy is sore, but still pulsating for more. I throw my hands to the wet tile of the motel shower and hold on. He bends down, tossing a bare leg over his shoulder. My skin is pale compared to his colorful flesh. His tongue licks at me, pumping in and out of me, while he sucks my folds into his mouth. My head falls back against the shower wall, and my hands threaten to slip.
“Hold tight, or I might end up biting you.”
My belly tightens, and one hand twitches, sliding an inch down the wall. He catches me, his strong fingers digging into my thigh. “Jesus Christ,” I moan.
“Fuck, you taste like heaven.” He pulls his tongue away to nip at my inner thigh. “Not sure I’m gonna ever be satisfied with you.”
I know this is just a fantasy, but his words fill me just as much as his tongue and the pleasure he’s giving me. “Hulk have big appetite?” I joke, and swallow my own whimper when he’s up, flipping me, pushing my hard nipples to the cold tile, pressing his thick cock into my ass.
“Never knew it until you.”
I’m struggling to catch my breath, my tears mixing with the water as I soak my body under the steaming hot spray. I’m using any effort I have to wash the suds out of my hair when the smoke alarm sounds again, causing me to slip and take out my shower curtain to avoid killing myself and falling in my tub. I stick my head out to check my phone where I set the timer, and low and behold, my battery’s dead. With shampoo suds still thick in my hair and seeping into my eyes, I run in my birthday suit back to the crime scene of another batch gone bad.
“What the fuck, you stupid cookies!” I scream, whipping the oven mitt across the kitchen and knocking my plant off the counter. The pot shatters and soil explodes all over the floor. It was the perfect metaphor for how my world has felt since the moment Mason Blackwell came into my life.
Blackmail. Felon. Con artist.
One after another, I fight the sickness in my stomach, sitting in my parents’ home as Aunt Lillian gives them her statement. Mason wasn’t eighteen. He wasn’t even a student at the university. He was obsessed with my aunt and using me to get to her. He threatened to expose my dark secret to the school and my family if she didn’t give in to his sick obsession. He doesn’t even want me. He wants her.
“He kept going on and on about how he’s been stalking me since they were taken from our home. I tried to help him. We’ve wanted nothing but good things for those kids.”