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“Such as?”
“I knew you were hurting her which was why I’d followed the two of you around at the masquerade ball...” As he continued to speak, the tape the Dean received now made a hell of a lot of sense. “You fucked her like some cheap slut in a hallway. Professor Callum fucking Meyers, Titan of Chicago, and abuser of women. I know your reputation. The tabloids were right. You’re a damn monster, every one of you are. I’d tried to show her what a real man does for the woman he loves, but she’d still chosen you. Time and time again, she canceled plans with me, or flat out denied them, for you. Then, you invited her to the holiday bash before I could do it. I was there, though. You saw me...”
My mind flashed back to the elevators, and it all made sense. The photographs from that night had been taken by Travis, then delivered to the Dean. Travis had previously mentioned seeing us kiss more recently in my office, and that had to have been what set him completely off. No matter what he did to try to keep her from me, our attraction was too strong. It was too real. Nicole could deny her love for me all that she’d wanted, but when she was in my arms and her soft lips planted against mine, I knew. She knew it, too.
“She was even more broken after you, and basically holed herself inside her condo. I wanted to show her who you were, so I sent her reminders from the various times you had hurt her. I knew if she remembered how you’d destroyed her over and over again, she would finally let you go for good.”
“What else did you do?” I knew it had to have been more than that for a restraining order to be issued, and I needed to know what it was that pushed her over the edge.
Another maniacal laugh sounded. “I sent Nicole a textbook with a picture of her at the holiday bash. She’d looked so beautiful that night, but she didn’t look the same leaving in the dead of the night as she did when she’d first arrived. Nicole used to talk about Costa Rica all the time, and the society pages always talk about the sordid vacations you take to those types of places. I’d issued her a warning, and she had finally seen you for the monster you were, or at least I thought she had. Nicole tried talking to the Dean on your behalf, so I knew it was time to get rid of you for good.”
She tried to talk to the Dean? That was news to me, but not the kind that was important at this moment. He then pushed at me, and I stumbled slightly. Three other officers arrived, and blocked the doorway. He waved the gun from side to side as he tried to think about how and where he would escape.
“Falloray is down,” one of them said, and I turned to the man.
“Is he going to be—”
“He’s going to live. He told us to nail this crazy bastard.” They then pointed their guns at the perp, as did the other officers on the rooftop deck. “Travis Harrison, the third, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for—”
A shot rang out, then a piercing pain ripped through my calf and I stumbled. Another few shots rang out, and as I tried to hobble to the wall for support, I slipped in something warm and sticky. When I looked over to see what it was, Travis was lying motionless on the concrete. Jessie’s gun was beside him, but the kid was completely still. Blood seeped out from under the back of his head, but I knew the kill shot had been the wound in his chest, which was heavily bleeding.
I was immediately approached, and the EMTs finally arrived on the scene. About a half hour later, Jessie was being lifted into one ambulance, while Nicole and I were lifted into two others. One final stretcher was out on the street, only Travis was completely covered. His destination wasn’t the emergency room at Northwestern, but the morgue.
I was being loaded onto the stretcher at the exact moment his time of death was called. I had turned my focus away from him, and over to Nicole, who was still unconscious. I was actually glad she hadn’t seen any of the encounter on the roof. It wasn’t long before we ended up in an ambulance together. As it raced toward the hospital, I picked up my phone and dialed the first of two numbers – Logan, then I would call Jonas.
NICOLE
After my rescue, everything had gone by a blur. I thought I had heard Callum when I first started to come to on the rooftop, but I hadn’t been able to open my eyes. It was like heavy weights holding them closed. I did briefly come to in the ambulance, but he had not been beside me. I was alone, outside of the EMTs who were rapid fire speaking amongst each other about whatever was happening to me.
I almost thought it was the end of me. In fact, as I laid there being poked and prodded, I began to wonder if death would be the worst thing. Thoughts of my mother kept reappearing, and I wanted to badly to reach out for her. If this was the end for me, I’d be there with her which filled me with a great deal of comfort as the sirens wailed overhead on the commute to the hospital.
It also filled me with a great deal of remorse as well. Callum. The very thought of him was enough to spike my blood pressure. The last thing I remember before fading away once again were the two EMTs relaying numbers to each other that I couldn’t focus enough on to understand.
When I reawakened this next time, I was definitely in a hospital room. Even before my eyes opened fully, the incessant beeping from the various machines and monitors were enough to confirm my whereabouts. I did force my eyes to open, but this time with a lot less force than back on the rooftop.
“You’re awake,” the nurse had said to me as she added something to the nearby IV line. “How are you feeling?”
I groaned as even thinking caused my head to throb. “I feel like I have been run over by a bus.”
She smiled at me. “You’ve had quite the ordeal over the last six or seven hours. Do you remember what happened to you?”
I closed my eyes as I tried to think back. At first, nothing came to me outside of cold. Frigid, blustery cold. And pain. The more I tried to remember, the more successful I became. My cheeks and face had stung and I quickly brought my free hand to cheek. While still a bit sore, it was nothing like it had felt before.
“It’s okay if you don’t remember everything right now,” the nurse told me, but I shook my head as determination to remember filled me.
“What happened to me? Like, why am I here?’ I finally asked her.
“You were brought in with several lacerations, but outside of potential bruising, none of them should lead to any permanent scarring.”
“Is that all?” Something was missing, but I couldn’t remember what.
“You’d been given a drug that caused temporary paralysis. Your reflexes are returning to normal so there should be nothing to worry about on that end as well. I do need to let you know that there is an officer outside of this room that needs a statement from you.”
“I understand,” I said. When she mentioned drugs, I couldn’t understand how I had gotten a hold of one that could do all of that.
“Should I send him in?”
“Yes,” I said, anxious to get this over and done with. Once done with the officer, I could call my father and brother, and maybe even my uncle as well.
