Jared is gone.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Leif
My thumb hovers over the screen, the blue glow reflecting off my face in the dark hotel room.
Carson
You think you can just vanish?
You made me look like the bad guy.
You owe me a conversation, Pet
We both know where this ends.
Don’t make me come find you.
My hand shakes. It’s been weeks since he last tried to contact me, and I had hoped my absence had made him lose interest.
Pet.Back when I interned underhim, I took it as an endearment. Now, the ownership of it is unmistakable.
My fingers tremble as I scroll back through the messages, searching for the moment when the tone shifted from colleague to hunter. But just like always, I can’t find the exact moment when things changed. It was so insidious I didn’t even know it was happening. Carson has always been this way, and I just couldn’t see it.
I set the phone down on the scratchy comforter and dig the heels of my hands into my eye sockets until colors bloom in the darkness. My jaw clenches as memories flood back.
Carson standing too close in the faculty lounge. Carson editing my teaching plans without permission. Carson introducing me to the headmaster as “my promising young project.”
Always praising.
Always undermining.
Building me up to tear me down.
The hotel room closes around me, and I push myself up from the bed to cross to the bathroom, flipping on the harsh fluorescent light. My reflection stares back from the mirror, hair mussed from running my hands through it, dark circles beneath my eyes.
I don’t recognize the haunted, hunted man I see.
The sink faucet groans when I turn it, spitting lukewarm water over my cupped palms. I splash my face, the shock of it clearing my head. Water drips from my chin, spattering the countertop.
When I packed up everything and left, I thought I’d escaped. My life here in Pinecrest lives like a world apart, a place untouched by Carson.
On the nightstand, my phone buzzes again, and I freeze, water running unheeded down my forearms.
When I return to the bed, the new message glares from the screen.
Carson
I can wait all night for a response. You know how patient I am.
Remember that time in the supply closet when you tried to tell me no?
My stomach twists, bile creeping up my throat. The unwelcome memory drags itself to the surface. Carson shoving me back into shelves stacked with copy paper and whiteboard markers. His body blocking the only exit, arms bracketed on either side of me as he explained reasonably how refusing to attend the faculty fundraiser with him would reflect poorly on both of us.
I’d given in, of course. I always gave in.
I shut the phone off, the screen going black. It doesn’t help. Anxiety still claws under my ribs. Carson’s in my head again. Even with the phone dark and silent, I can almost feel him leaning in, steady and persuasive, twisting my sense of what’s reasonable.