Page 83 of Serpentine Valentine
“She’d never hurt me,” I argued, trying to wrench out of his hold by kicking at his shins.
He held fast, a happy smile on his face. “No one will believe that. Lex Gorgon is a fucking pariah on campus. Everyone hates her already. I’m just going to give them one more reason.”
I struggled hard, pushing against him with all my might so I could twist out from his grip. It worked, miraculously, and I was able to bring my knee up to hit him in the nuts. His breath escaped him in a rush, and I used the opportunity torun.
A lifetime of field hockey had made me fast, but unfortunately, the two hockey players were fast too.
I yelled as one of them tackled me from behind, trapping my arms at my sides so when I fell to the sidewalk, I did it fully on my face. Pain exploded like shrapnel through my head, and even though I fought to stay aware, blackness surged up to meet me, and I passed out.
“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.”
—Marcel Proust
Lex
I was lyingin the Ancient Greek section of the library between row D-E readingThe Oresteiain the same position Luna had found me in weeks ago when I’d first set the stage to seduce her.
The idea seemed so laughable now. She was the one who had seduced me in the end. No, not seduced.Captivated. I was so in her thrall that even days after she’d stormed out of my house, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I’d walk into a room and catch the phantom scent of her. Check my phone way too often to see if she’d texted. Study the selfie we’d taken in bed one morning, her smiling face pressed to mine, my mouth softer than I’d seen it in months, my eyes heavy-lidded with residual pleasure from the orgasms we’d traded when we woke. She had one hand pressed to my opposite cheek, holding me to her like I was…like I was precious.
I hadn’t been precious to anyone like that ever.
My sisters and Agatha loved me, but this was different.
This was a woman who’d wanted to put me first.
And I’d fucked it all away.
My sisters tried to talk to me about it, but I refused. What words could I find to explain the chaos of pain sweeping through me at all hours of the day? How I felt hollow again, brittle and on the cusp of shattering. The combined weight of the assault and breaking my own heart––Luna’s pure fucking heart––wasthisclose to dragging me down to a place I knew in my bones I’d never recover from.
So to slow the inevitable fall into a dangerous depression, I threw myself into my causes.
On Tuesday, I hosted my first self-defense lesson at the college gym. Rhea and Dahlia had invited friends. Taya had shown up, much to my surprise, with a few friends from the field hockey team, including Luna’s best friend, Haley, who watched me intently the entire session, and my sisters had invited even more. Forty women all packed into the exercise room, willing and eager to learn how to defend themselves from predators.
For that hour, and that hour alone, I’d felt free of the sick anchor of despair in my gut.
They trusted me to help them. To teach them. To protect them.
Even though I caught fear and some disgust in a couple of their expressions, it didn’t matter. I didn’t need them tolikeme. I just needed them to be safe so they never had to experience what I had.
My revenge plans for Mina Pallas were coming along. I’d persuaded Professor Diana Strong, the only faculty member to stand up for me after I was assaulted, to write a signed statement testifying to the fact Mina had hushed up two sexual scandals on campus that she knew of.
One of which involved Professor Morgan and an ex-student Juno had finally tracked down.
Tessie Baker lived in Oregon now and worked at a women’s shelter in Portland. When I reached out, she ignored my calls and emails until I finally divulged I’d been assaulted by him too and just wanted justiceserved.
She’d called me back then, and she was on standby to help however she could.
Another wolf to join my pack.
As for Professor Morgan, I’d approached one of his current “favorites” Rebecca, who agreed to collect as much evidence as she could about his activities without putting herself in too much danger.
Both of them would lose their jobs.
For Mina Pallas, maybe that was enough.
But not for Dylan Morgan.
He’d taken my goodness and corrupted it all to dark, dangerous desires. Desires for payback that extended far beyond the end of his good reputation. From what I’d been able to cobble together, he’d been assaulting his students since he was a student himself, TAing during his Master’s program at Ducat University.
