Page 97 of Killing Me Softly

The cat was out of the bag, then? Everyone knew. Or at the very least, suspected.Extra tuition.The oldest fucking code in the book. Whispers swirled, heads turned, and under normal circumstances, that would have mattered. He should have feltsomethingabout it. Shame. Rage. Embarrassment.

He felt none of it.

Because his vision blurred, not from shock. Nor anger. From pure, unfiltered terror as another photo popped into his chat.

Mel.

A belt wrapped tight around her neck. Eyes closed. Tears streaking her cheeks.

His body moved before his mind caught up and his chair slammed backward as a hush fell over the room.

“Are you going somewhere, Mr Jones?” The lecturer’s voice came over the stunned crowd.

“Yeah.” His voice was flat, almost unrecognisable.

“You’ll be marked as absent.”

“Whatever.” Aaron didn’t care.

Nor did he care about the scattered murmurs following him as he slung his bag over his shoulder and thundered toward the exit. Nor care about the lecturer watching him go. Or anything at all except getting to Mel. And he shoved through the swinging doors into the corridor, gripping his phone like somehow staring at it harder would change what he’d seen.

It didn’t.

Itwouldn’t.

He peered down one side of the student centre, then the other. Where the fuck was his police escort? His eyes darted, frantic, until he spotted him over by the vending machine, relaxed, thinking he’d tucked Aaron safely away inside his lecture. He opened his mouth to call, but his phone rang.

Mel’s number.

He answered. “Where the fuck are you?”

“Hey, baby brother. Did you get to see my birthday gift? Even dead Taylor’s hot, right?”

His blood ran cold, entire body locked up.

“Go fuck yourself,” Aaron snapped, voice sharp, teetering between fury and panic. “Where’s Mel? Let her go.”

A soft chuckle.

“Chill, bro.”His sister’s voice dripped with honeyed teasing, and it made him feel physically ill.“She’ll be just fine… as long as you come here. Oh, and without your little police friends. Don’t alert them, don’t try anything clever.”

Her voice dipped lower, colder.

“Because if you do?”She sighed, almost mockingly.“Mel will have a little accident. Autoerotic asphyxiation. Taylor was into that, wasn’t he?”

“You fucking—” His words choked off, rage strangling him. “How do you expect me to ditch thepolice?”

A dramatic sigh came through the line.

“I know how good you are at sneaking away. You used to do it all the time. Remember? When you were fifteen, sneaking out of your foster house every night to go fuck that bloke? What was his name again? Turned out to be a little nasty, didn’t he? But don’t worry. My doctor gave me his address and I took care of him for you.”

A sick, suffocating feeling spread through Aaron’s chest.

She had…

No. No.

“I mean, honestly,”she continued, her tone mockingly sweet,“do these people not know who you are? Who we are? And if he’s capable of doing that to you, imagine what he might have gone on to do to others. It’s really a national service, I’m giving here.”

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