Page 93 of Serpentine Valentine
Please,I begged myself,make it through this without a panic attack.
I thought of Luna, the taste of her sweet mouth over mine and the fragrance of all that sunset gold hair, and it calmed me enough to look at the professor behind the desk.
He was still handsome. What a dangerous illusion. Dark hair waving away from his broad forehead, wide shoulders encased in one of the blazers he liked with the clichéd suede elbow patches, tanned throat exposed in the open collar of his Oxford shirt. He looked at me as if I was a monster looming in his doorway, snarling mouth dripping foam, handsbloodied and clawed.
It made a genuine smile curl my lips like scissors to a ribbon’s end.
He was quick to blank his expression, but that momentary flash of terror was enough to buoy me. He’d known I was coming for him, and the idea of him living with that venomous anticipation made me hungry for more.
“Hello, Dylan,” I greeted, pleased with the slick ease of my voice. “How are you?”
He blinked, his gaze somewhere beside my head as if he thought I could turn him to stone with my gaze. “What are you doing here, Lex?”
“Oh, did you think I wouldn’t visit?” I mocked, moving forward to take that seat,my seat, as I had many times before. “You used to love when I stopped in for tea.”
Every inch of his body was coiled with tension. I watched as he forced his stiff fingers to clasp in an uneasy approximation of casualness on his desktop.
“Why are you here at Acheron?” he amended. “You’re not wanted here. You must know that.”
“Oh, I don’t know about all that,” I disagreed. “I know President Pallas doesn’t like me much anymore. And there’s you, of course.”
“And the rest of the students who know you for the slut you are,” he added, viciousness edging into his tone. He was remembering himself. His maleness and power. A professor and a man faced with a female student who had no control over him.
Yes,the snakes hissed in my belly,relax.No matter what, we’re coming for you.
“We both know I was a virgin when you raped me.” The words fell flat between us, used bullet casings without any punch.
Morgan’s face twisted with a sneer before he could curb it. “Rape implies you didn’t want it. I know you wanted me. Youneededme.”
“I needed a friend,” I agreed, surprised my ribs hadn’t collapsed under the hammering of my heart. My palms were so slick with sweat, they left handprints on the fabric on my skirt. “I needed a mentor. I didn’t need what you did to me and neither did Tessie Baker.”
Surprise broke open across his face, and I grinned at him, feral as I closed in on my prey.
“Oh yes, I know about Tessie. I know you lost your old job because of rumors of misconduct with students. I know you used your pull with Mina Pallas to get tenure here. I know so much about you, Dylan. How you take your coffee in the morning, what time you get into your car to drive to work, the girls you’re grooming––Rebecca and Felicity––the safe deposit box you rent at the bank, and the gun you keep in a safe in your bedroom closet.”
He was breathing heavier but holding still as a deer who knows a wolf is somewhere downwind of him. He wanted to flee but didn’t know how without inciting a chase.
“I know everything about you,” I repeated, then took the copy ofThe New York Timesout from under my damp armpit, uncoiled it, and tossed it on the desk. The headline stared up at him in bold typeface.Sexual Misconduct at the Heart of Acheron U.“And now, so does everyone else.”
He snapped the paper up, cruel fingers ripping the edge of the fine newsprint as he devoured the short introduction to the article before he flipped to the full article and read that. I watched with voracious greediness as his skin blanched and his jaw tightened, muscles popping into relief.
Professor Dylan Morgan,I knew the article read,was accused of sexually assaulting a third-year undergraduate student, Alexandra Gorgon. Instead of properly investigating the potential crime, the president of Acheron University, Mina Pallas, placed Alexandra on academic probationfor two full semesters. The student in question was only reinstated due to pressure from her lawyer. This is one of many hushed-up sexual scandals that resulted in frustrated students taking matters into their own hands. A vigilante group, masked women known as the Man Eater Crew, began to patrol campus and expose supposed sexual assaults to public scrutiny. Still, the university failed to act.
It went on to list more details about the other sexual assault cases, about illustrious Professor Dylan Morgan’s shameful history, and the email exchanges between Mina Pallas, the Acheron Chief of Police, and wealthy alum who paid off their children’s bad acts.
In truth, I had the whole thing memorized.
So I knew exactly which words were running through his head as horror, fear, and anger—so much anger––played out over my enemy’s face.
Finally, he crumpled the newspaper into a ball, the loud crinkle of parchment and smack of his big hands coming together the only noise in the room other than his harsh breath.
“You fucking bitch,” he growled, slamming the paper to the table as he lurched out of his chair to loom over his desk. His eyes were as black as they were that night he’d drugged me, taken me, beaten me, and stolen so much from me. Nearly everything.
Fear burst like a firework display in my chest. The metal tang of adrenaline coated my tongue and teeth. My blood pumped so hard I thought it might burst from beneath my skin.
But somehow, I stayed in my chair.
It was the only way to get some of the poison in this abscessed wound out of my system for good. I had to absorb the fear like a lance, the pain and the horror of it, so I could purge it all here in this room of my nightmares and hopefully, leave the majority of it behind me.
