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I got the pizza from the union, and as I walked back, taking a leisurely pace, I turned my head up to the night sky. It was a beautiful, clear night, and I planned on keeping Ash with me for at least another twenty-four hours. I’d let her use the restroom, provided she didn’t try to run. I could be a gentle master too. It wasn’t always about the chains and the whips with me.
I gave a smile at the student manning the front desk of my dorm building, heading straight to the elevators. I had to get on with another pair of students. A guy and a girl, and they were all over each other. It was impossible not to notice the erection pressing against the man’s jeans. They got off on the third floor, giggling as they went. It was more than obvious why they chose to remain on campus during the long weekend.
Once the doors slid closed and I was alone once more, I thought about Ash. I’d love to have her in every way possible, love to know what she felt like around me, how soft her tender skin was. Not to mention the sounds she’d make…
Fuck. I better stop thinking about that now, otherwise I’d return to her with a hard-on of my own, and she’d get the wrong idea.
I would never, ever force myself on her. Never. When I took her—and I was almost overly confident that I would—she would want me just as badly as I craved her. She’d want me to take her. She’d beg me to do it. Raping someone…that took a special kind of psychopath, and I wasn’t one.
No, I wasn’t a psychopath. I didn’t get in trouble with the law, didn’t go out of my way to look for ways to make other people miserable. What I was, what I was taught to be from an early age, was complicated. Some, I was sure, would mark me as a sociopath, and that was a bit closer to the truth than a psychopath, but even so, it wasn’t strictly the case.
Like I said, complicated. I was a complicated creature who was only trying to enjoy my life before I gave my all to the family and its world-reaching business.
The elevator door opened, and I headed out, turning to walk towards my room. I inserted the key into the lock, pushing inside, about to grin and announce that I had returned with the food, but something was wrong. One huge thing was wrong, actually.
Ash wasn’t here.
The chains were Ash-less. Not a blonde, pink-haired girl in sight. Her backpack was gone, too.
I walked in with measured steps, taking in the way the chains were outstretched, how only one of them was unlocked with the key—the key that currently sat on my bed. I set the pizza down on my bed, sinking to my knees as I ran a finger along the manacle that wasn’t unlocked.
“My, my,” I muttered, “I think I underestimated you, Ash.” I spoke to her as if she was here. How badly I wanted her here. The resourcefulness, the tenacity. There was no way she would’ve been able to simply slide a wrist out; she had to have hurt herself to get out.
Any animal would gnaw off its own leg to get out of a trap.
I’d told her that I was going to let her go. I told her that I wouldn’t hurt her, didn’t I? As I got to my feet, my back straightening, I finally noticed everything else that was off in the room. The drawers in my dresser were opened, the clothes inside thrown around, like she’d gone through them before leaving. She found nothing. There was nothing to see, except…
I turned and headed to my desk, yanking open the bottom drawer. My eyes gazed down at an empty drawer, free of the journal, barren of the one thing I’d taken because I had to. Sabrina’s journal. The things written in there made me look really bad.
Of course, the journal was written before she died. Even if Ash read it, she’d have no idea that I was the last person to see Sabrina alive, the last person to see her lips pucker, to observe as she kept gasping and struggling, because the fall hadn’t snapped her neck. It wasn’t a tall enough drop.
I knew she lived for at least fifteen seconds after standing on nothing but air, because I watched her die.
It was not something I wanted Ash to know. I didn’t want her to think about Sabrina and link us together. “Well,” I mumbled, frowning at the empty drawer, “shit.” Just when I was about to swear again, I felt my pocket buzz, and I pulled out her phone.
Declan texted her. I need you.
Ugh. That fucking Declan was going to ruin it for me. Him and Sawyer.
My hands clenched around her phone. No. I couldn’t let that happen.
I knew what I had to do.
Chapter Twenty-Six – Ash
I should’ve gone straight back to the apartment, but I didn’t. Once I knew I had Sabrina Salvatore’s journal in my hand, I couldn’t. I had to read it, or at least read some of it, and I didn’t want to let Declan see it. Who knew what seeing something of his dead girlfriend’s would do to him. I didn’t want to take the chance it would make him spiral.
I didn’t want to hurt Declan any more than he already was.
I went to the only place I could think of: the McDonald’s just off of campus. I had to cross a super busy intersection to get there, not to mention hide my right hand from anyone who happened to stare too long at me, but I managed.
The pain…it still hurt like a bitch and a half, but I could handle it. Pain was something I could handle, unlike some people. This was nothing.
I entered through the side door, grabbing myself the nearest seat. As I held my injured hand below the table, I flipped open the journal, my eyes scanning the way Sabrina Salvatore curved her letters. A feminine handwriting, for sure. And then I flipped the front page, coming to the first journal entry.
I still couldn’t believe she had a handwritten journal, like a diary. It seemed so old-fashioned, but I guess when you were rich and spoiled, you had the time to handwrite long passages of feelings and stuff.
I read, and I read. When I was done skimming one passage, I plowed straight onto the next. The deeper into it I got, the more I felt anxious. An air of unease settled on my shoulders, and my heart caught in my throat. Everything she was saying…this girl kept her own secrets, clearly.
