Once I’m in my room, I close the door, lean against it and then slide to the ground, hugging my legs to my chest.
My nails clink against each other as I stare at the walls entirely covered by pages from my favorite mangas. The figures appear shadowy under the dim lighting, looking as if they might become real and jump down beside me.
That’s what I take solace in—the images of fictional characters.
I’ve never been the type who asked my friends for help or told them about what I struggled with. Everyone sees me as the mother figure, the problem solver, and the listener.
Whenever I yearn to be listened to instead, nails dig into my chest, forbidding me from moving. From finding refuge in anyone but myself and fictional characters that don’t exist and have little chance of offering practical advice.
My fingers hover over the injury to my knee and I groan in pain when I touch the ripped skin.
But that’s not the only sensation tearing through me. No. It’s something much more potent and damning.
The pain might start with my skin, but it ends in the dark corners of my psyche. In unknown nameless places that even I didn’t know existed until it slammed me in the face today.
My fingers slide from my knee to the edge of my ripped jeans, ghosting over my thigh. I shiver and clench my leg when I touch my hip.
Something a lot more intense than pain slices through me, and my fingers tremble before they move up to stroke over my breast.
The same breast Orange Mask grabbed so savagely, tortured and dug his fingers into until I was gasping for air. But it’s not the same feeling now. The flesh is tender, my nipples ache, but the electricity from earlier is gone.
I lift my other hand, wrap it around my throat, and squeeze. Like the length of the golf club that crushed my trachea. I tighten my grip and hold, but no amount of pressure from my dainty fingers is enough to recreate the same image.
There are no rough gloved fingers squeezing my nipple, no wall of muscle at my back. Nothing.
I let my hands fall on either side of me. What the hell am I doing?
How could I recreate the image of being trapped with that monster when I should be glad I escaped him?
Or maybe I’m not recreating the being trapped part as much as I’m trying to reach the state of mind I was in at that moment.
The blankness of it all.
The promise of freedom it held.
I internally shake my head, purging all of that out of memory.
That whole twisted scene only happened because I was in a life-threatening situation.
Survival instinct is the strongest instinct any human or animal has, and at that moment, I was ready to try anything as long as I left that place in one piece. So under normal circumstances, the entire event holds no meaning.
Still, I kept watching my surroundings long after one of the bunny masks gave me zip bag number twenty-three that held my belongings, then escorted me off the property.
I kept watching as I ran all the way to REU’s dorms and even as I put in the code for the flat.
A part of me thought Orange Mask would follow me to finish what he started. He’d trap me against the nearest wall and tell me in that deep voice of his that running away was only the beginning, not the end.
However, that was total paranoia on my part. A sick person like him who gets off on hunting and inflicting pain wouldn’t have left all the potential prey just to come after me.
Once again, I’m thankful for my invisibility traits. I’m safe.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I flinch, then release a long breath before I fetch it and check the text.
Landon: You alive, love?
My heart skips a beat and butterflies erupt in my stomach.
I’ve always thought those sensations were clichés that only existed in shoujo mangas, but it took real-life experiences to realize just how true they were.
How one word, one text, from the person who matters, is more important than the whole world.
I straighten and reply.
Cecily: I think so. Just got back.
Landon: Meet me?
Cecily: Sure. Where?
Landon: Same place.
I smile at that. We have a place. It’s not big nor special, but it’s our little secret.
Cecily: On my way.
Thirty minutes later, I stop my car near the deserted rocky shore of the beach.
Since Brighton Island, which is situated near the south coast of the United Kingdom, is surrounded by sea on all sides, there are a lot of beaches and shores.
But we from REU don’t usually hang out in places that TKU’s students frequent to avoid unwanted fights.
This part of the beach is ours, and yes, it’s a public place, so we can’t stop TKU’s students from coming here, but they know not to unless they’re ready to face our club’s wrath.
Just like TKU has Heathens and Serpents, two notorious clubs whose members are part of the mafia, our university has the Elites.
They’re not mafia or anything that shady, but they’re equally lethal in an ‘old money rules’ kind of way.
And the one I’m meeting is the leader of this club.
I step out of my MINI Cooper, do a sweep of my surroundings, then open the passenger door of the black car that’s parked facing the sea and slide inside.
My heart does that skip again when my gaze falls on the most ethereally beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. So blue and deep, they might as well rival the ocean and swallow anything in sight.
Landon King is three years older than me, so while I’m a second-year psychology major, he’s already getting his master’s degree in arts and sculpting masterpieces that galleries all over the world snatch up before they’re even complete.
And just like his statues, he has Greek god beauty with sharp features, gorgeous dark brown hair, and a straight nose that might as well be carved from marble.
He’s the epitome of masculine beauty with his toned body and stylish clothes. Even his car is a special edition McLaren, made specifically for him and him alone.
I shift against the leather to face him, and that brings on the memory of a different type of leather.
The one that groped and touched me in places even Landon hasn’t.
“You do look alive.” His voice brings me out of my forbidden musings.
“Yeah. I managed to escape.”
“Interesting choice of words. Were you not allowed to leave for one reason or another?”
I go still.
Sometimes, I forget how much of a genius Landon actually is. He’s attuned to every single detail and nothing escapes his notice.
For some reason, I don’t want to talk about what happened back at the initiation. A part of me, a stupid, lovesick part, views it as a betrayal to Landon.
And that’s the epitome of irrationality.
Lan and I aren’t an item. Hell, he has no clue about my feelings for him and had friend-zoned me to the next planet when we were kids.
Not that I’ve liked him since then. I think I started to have a crush on him when I was maybe seventeen and we had a thought-provoking conversation about choosing lives that were independent to our godlike parents’. He said they wouldn’t shadow us if we didn’t allow them to and that if anyone could do it, I could.
There was something so sexy about a man who believed in my potential before I could reach it. Little by little, I developed a crush on him, but due to his obvious lack of interest, I backed off.