Page 71 of Endless Anger
“Is it protocol to harass your students until you find an answer?” Dad chimes in.
The dean’s face pales.
Dad leans forward. “Surely, you didn’t think these old walls were soundproof.”
“Mr. Wolfe, I assure you, our students’ safety and happiness are of the utmost importance to us at Avernia College. Alongside ensuring they get the richest, most fulfilling education during their time here. My intent wasn’t to harass your daughter but simply to?—”
“Get to the point.” Dad’s voice booms in the office, bouncing off the bookshelves, and I swear someone walking past in the hall outside comes to a halt. “You think Lucy had something to do with the Hawthorne girl’s disappearance?”
Dean Bauer clears his throat but otherwise doesn’t react. “We don’t accuse at Avernia without due cause. However, I’m sure you can look at it from our point of view: Lucy’s performance has been consistently declining, she doesn’t seem to get along with the other students, and she certainly wasn’t happy about the semester’s dorm assignment.”
I bristle, on edge now with the audience. “Because it waspunishment?—”
The dean waves a hand, cutting me off. “Nevertheless, this simply is not the first time your daughter has been at the center of an…incidentduring her tenure, so it simply seemed most plausible that perhaps she was involved this time or knew something. I don’t mean to say she made her roommate disappear, just that there were signs of distress and other ways she could have been responsible.”
I glare at him, wishing my stare could burn straight through his skull. Shifting in his chair, the dean runs a hand over his head, his eyes volleying between the three of us.
My father slips his hands into the pockets of his black dress pants. He’s larger than life, one of the tallest men I’ve ever known, and has a presence that exudes charisma and confidence. Dean Bauer can’t look away when he speaks.
“Are there not security cameras in the dorms?” my father asks, his blue eyes piercing through the dean. “On campus?”
“Of course. They were the first things pulled by the police. They’d been tampered with and set on a loop around ten Friday night, playing the same footage over and over until about five Saturday morning.”
My parents’ gazes slide slowly to me.
I grip my knee as it bounces, unease weaving its way around my spine.
“That still doesn’t prove anything,” my father says after a moment.
“I have an alibi,” I add, lifting my chin. “I, um, left the party before it was over. Went back to my room and stayed there the rest of the night.”
“And Ms. Hawthorne didn’t return at all while you were there?”
“No.”
Dean Bauer’s cold stare makes my skin flush, but I ignore it as he nods, reaching for a notepad on his desk. “Very well. What about the time in between then and Saturday morning? Can anyone verify your presence in Erebus Hall?”
A warm, familiar voice rasps from the open doorway, “I can.”
23
ASHER
Beating offin a communal shower isn’t exactly ideal, but beggars can’t be choosers.
After being on the road for the last few years, it’s not even the most inconvenient place I’ve fucked my fist. It’s a better alternative to sitting outside the tour bus, waiting for Foxe and whatever groupie or two he met up with to finish.
At least I’m alone. Classes have started for the week, so the dorm’s been empty all morning.
Bright blue eyes assault my vision, teary and terrified as they blink up at me.
Pleasure snakes up my spine, slithering along synapses left dormant aroundeveryoneelse I’ve ever met.
Except her.
My balls grow heavy at the mere thought of her—that coconut scent, the soft planes of her body against mine, her clinging to me in terror. I hadn’t realized until then just how much I was missing.
I come hard, thinking about her smooth, pale skin and the smattering of freckles on her face. The way she rasped that fucking nickname from when we were kids, even as she told me to fuck off.
