I’ve never seen the whole frat before.
There must be forty of them—possibly more. The room Tristian brought me to is in the basement, but it doesn’t look like a basement. It’s windowless, but lines of sconces illuminate the room in a warm, if eerie glow. It’s furnished with rows of upholstered chairs, which are currently being occupied by a group of boisterous men. In the back, near where we enter, there are a dozen of them standing, shifting restlessly from foot to foot, even though there are still a few empty chairs left.
Tristian leans down to whisper, “Those are the pledges.”
I catch the eye of the guy who was mean to Ms. Crane that day in the kitchen, and then the two jerks from the party the same night—Tucker and Beckwith. All of them are grinning in a disturbing way. The vibe in the air, curious and full of anticipation, is a stark contrast to what’s currently roiling in my gut.
Tristian’s got his hand on my lower back, guiding me up the room from the back, whispering at me the whole time. “You can’t talk back. If you do, he’ll make it worse. He’ll have to, do you understand? He can’t seem weak to these guys. Don’t provoke him any more than he already is. You know how he gets.”
I give a tiny nod, but my eyes are on Dimitri now, waiting stoically up front. He catches and holds my stare, and I can’t help the shiver that wracks through me at the blankness in his gaze. It’s only now I realize how much he’s let me see while living here. The boy I used to know—his discomfiting, cold presence—has at some point shifted to that of a man who’s quiet and sullen, but also sharp and sly.
That’s all gone from his face now.
My heart sinks at the possibility he believes what Killian’s been saying. I’m not entirely sure why it should.
Killian is at the center of it all, and if I thought he looked like a gangster on that first day I walked into this brownstone, then I was wrong. This is the gangster. He doesn’t even look at me, but I can tell the malice in his eyes from earlier is gone, replaced with something hard and shuttered.
Until now, it’s always been pretty easy to reconcile this new version of Killian with the one I remember from high school. He might have all those tattoos and look broader, a little harsher, but he acts exactly the same. Only now I’m wondering if I might be wrong, because he commands the room with nothing more than a nod.
A nod.
The room instantly goes silent.
This is a version of Killian with power. A version who commands respect and gets it, without question.
Before he even opens his mouth, I feel the alarm of being powerless here. Briefly, I consider that I should have followed through upstairs, with Tristian. It all feels silly now, the way I’d felt when he kissed me so gently, chest aching from the tenderness he’d shown. I’d had this moment—this flash of clarity—that it’s possible I don’t hate him anymore. I’d thought about Ted, who no doubt knows about the three of them now, and I’d felt worried. For him.
The realization was startling and confusing, and I’d balked. Tristian has hurt me and humiliated me, and has never taken any of the blame. He’s the same selfish, entitled monster as ever. A few kind moments of comfort—a few sweet kisses—shouldn’t be enough to change that. It was a weak, frightening moment that made it clear just how ready I’m not. It’d be too easy to fall into the lie, to let my heart grasp onto something it wants so badly, that it stops listening to my head.
Still, if he’d taken my virginity, Killian might have two people to divvy all this hatred between. This? The way his cold eyes take me in? It’s too intense, too undiluted.
“One of you is a traitor,” Killian says, finally breaking the silence. The way the light hits his face from the sides digs two pools of shadow where his eyes should be. He looks out over the antsy crowd, jaw sharp and tense. “Someone is trying to take a run at our Lady, which is unfortunate, because it’s not even going to work. We have every inch of her ass locked the fuck down. Now we have to spend our week finding out which one of you is a disloyal, disrespectful piece of shit. That’s time better spent actually enjoying our Lady.”
He laces his hands behind his back, pacing the front of the room, projecting his voice. “I figure some of you are new here and haven’t had the opportunity to appreciate what it means to be in the presence of a Lord. Our Lady,” he sneers, eyes narrowing on me, “doesn’t seem to, either. Every single person in this fucking room needs a lesson in keeping their hands off of what belongs to me—her included.”
He stops, and even though he turns to face the room, I know he’s addressing me when he says, “Come here.” The words, low and dangerous, send my stomach churning.
I’d already decided upstairs with Tristian that I wasn’t going to take this ‘punishment’ the way Killian wants me to; cowed, scared, trembling and weak. I lift my chin and march myself right to him, schooling my features into something hard and blank. In another time, I might have cowered or run.
Those days are over.
If Killian wants to see me shrunken and hurt and begging for his mercy, then he’s about to be wholly disappointed.
He looks bigger when I’m standing in front of him, waiting, face growing stony when his eyes lock on mine. It’s a useless thought, but for a second, I wonder when Killian became this hard. Was he born this selfish and insecure, or did something happen to make him this way? Are monsters born, or are they made?
It doesn’t matter. This is the only version of him I’ll ever know, and it’s etched into my bones. This thought is solidified with five harshly whispered words.
“Get on your fucking knees.”
My stomach drops, eyes falling closed in dread. I think I’d known the second I walked into the basement what he planned to do. Maybe even the second he found the panties. This is how Killian works. He finds the deepest wound and works it open until it’s a gaping, ugly thing. And this is a wound he’s always known about. He helped make it, after all.
He’d hurt me less if he took that knife out of his pocket and buried it into my gut.
A week ago, I might have begged. I would have said ‘please’ and tried to reason with him. I would have cried and lashed out.
Now, I lower myself to my knees in front of him.
There’s a long moment of silence, the sounds of guys shifting in their seats behind me, impatient and expectant. I wonder if they know what he’s about to say—what he’s about to make me do.
“Take it out,” he says, voice deceptively even. “Make it hard.”
The room erupts into whispers and impressed laughter, like they just realized what kind of show they’re in for. Like they all think this is some fun game. The three of them really found their tribe here.
I stare forward at Killian’s crotch, but it takes me a moment to push my arms into motion. Robotically, I reach up to raise the hem of his shirt, revealing his button and zipper. Without bidding, I think about those times with Dimitri, up in his warm, comfortable room. Down here, it’s cold and hard and too quiet, and the sound of this zipper lowering just makes my blood run cold in anticipation.
He’s already half-hard when I ease his pants down the tops of his thighs, his cock jutting out. I try to shut out the sounds of the men behind me, but I can’t help but wonder if they like it. Will they pleasure themselves? Will they get off to this? Will Tristian? Dimitri?
He’s warm in my hand when I wrap it around him and it can’t be too appealing, the way I mechanically squeeze and work my fist. He still grows harder, though, thickening in my hand faster than I’m expecting.
There’s something black and breakable swelling in my chest, but I shove it down, watching the way he looks in my hand, sickly fascinated by how fast his cock fills.
Then come the words I’ve been expecting. They’re spoken quietly enough that most of the guys behind me probably don’t hear, but the hiss is caustic and cutting.
“Now suck it.”
I think I hear Tristian say something—a floating, distant whisper—but I can’t hear it over the crowd behind me. They’re laughing. Some of it has an edge of nervousness, like they’re surprised and not sure how to take it. Some of it just sounds jubilant and jeering.
If I’m ashamed of anything, it’s the way their laughter makes me feel: alone. Like I’m trash. Like I’m nothing, no one. Just a toy. Something to be used and thrown away. A punchline instead of a living, breathing human being.
Sitting back on my heels, I let him slip from my hand, resting my palms on top of my thighs. Killian’s staring down at me when I look up, meeting his gaze. Any argument would be futile. I know that, even without seeing the steel in his eyes. I could run away, but it never works. I understand that now. I don’t want to run for the rest of my life. I just want to look back on this and know that I have nothing to regret.
“You’re wrong about all of this,” I tell him. It’s not a plea. It’s just a bare fact. “I haven’t done anything with anyone else.”
“Now, Story,” he orders, eyes flashing.
Undaunted by the angry flare of his nostrils, I quietly confess, “I actually used to like you, you know. In the beginning, when things were…better. I wanted you to like me back. I wanted you to see me. I thought maybe we could…” It’s so old and flimsy a notion that I can barely grasp the substance of it. It doesn’t matter. He’s watching me with this look on his face, which has suddenly gone slack, eyebrows puckered. “I never wanted to admit it to myself, but even after everything you’ve done to me, I think it’s still been there. Just a little, like this residue I could never get rid of, even though it hurt so much to have it.” I hope my smile is as watery and cruel as it feels. “This won’t be a punishment, Killian. It’ll be the only kind thing you’ve ever done for me. Because after this, there’s no part of me—no fucking cell in my body—that’ll feel anything but disgust for you.” I look into his startled eyes and tell him, from the bottom of my heart, “Thank you.”
I pitch forward, sinking my mouth onto him.
The room erupts into a scandalized cheer behind me, but I block them out. It’s nothing like it was with Dimitri, and I’m grateful. Those moments with him in his room were like a balm to an old, smarting burn.
It’s also not like it was with Tristian, though. That had been all hurt and fear and shame. All of that’s still present now, but there’s also resolve and something unshakable—something that’s being created within me with every rise and fall of my head. I don’t really understand it—not yet—but I think it might be armor.
I think it might protect me.
