Page 36 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Haven

There’s something off about Professor Rooke. It’s not just the fire poker he’s carrying. There’s something else. Something that tells me the least of my worries is pneumonia. Can’t figure out what it is, because I’m too occupied trying to figure out how the fuck I got here.

The last thing I remember is my feet slipping out under me, both flip-flops tumbling over the edge of the cliff as I scrambled to catch hold of the barrier.

To not die, despite being ready to jump seconds before.

“Haven?” My professor steps out of his house, glancing around his backyard.

Does he think I brought some friends with me? That’s rich.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I…don’t know.” The sound of my own trembling voice seems to reconnect my brain and my body. I’m nearly overwhelmed by the burning cold in my fingers and toes, the numbness on my face.

Why the fuck am I here?

Obviously, I was having a dark moment out there by Lookout Point. But I’ve had them before. I just shake it off and get on with my life. But something made me come here .

To him.

Of all the places I could have gone, why did I choose Professor Rooke’s house?

And is he the only person I’ve visited tonight?

I hold up my hands.

They’re shuddering, fingertips pruned and deathly pale.

But they’re clean.

Thank fuck, they’re clean.

I shove away the questions along with my disorientation, my sudden intense fear.

Can’t give in to panic. Not in front of Bastian.

I should leave, but I don’t remember if I walked or drove here. My junker could be parked somewhere nearby, or all the way back at Lookout Point.

“Don’t just stand there, girl. Get inside.” Professor Rooke uses the fire poker to gesture and then looks at it like he realizes he might be sending mixed signals.

Looks like he was getting undressed. Half the buttons on his shirt open, his sleeves flapping against his wrists. No shoes.

He looks…drunk.

He tosses it to the flagstones at his feet, and I flinch at the loud, ringing clang. Then he gestures again, frowning even deeper.

But I can’t seem to move.

He makes an angry, growly sound and storms through the drizzle to come and fetch me. I watch, mesmerized, as his feet splash through the multitude of little puddles that have collected in his pristine, zen-like garden.

As soon as he’s close enough, he reaches to grab me.

My body moves on instinct, leaning back so quickly that I stagger.

The annoyance on his face melts into confusion. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this expressive, but that’s booze for you. It dissolves the masks people wear around each other, the one you put on to hide what you’re really thinking, what you’re truly capable of.

He lifts his hands in mock surrender .

“You want to stay out here? Fine. But you’ll catch your death.” His features flinch, and he shakes his head. “You. Will. Get. Sick.” He enunciates every word, like he’s trying to rewrite something in his brain.

Carefully, he holds out his arm. Not touching me, but cautiously herding me, urging me closer to his house.

It works.

My muscles unlock, and I walk all the way inside.

It’s warm in here, even though I saw the professor turn on the fireplace only a few minutes ago. I’ve been watching him ever since he got home, trapped in my shivering body as I tried to piece together the last hour.

Or two.

Or three.

My toes dig into the soft carpet. Why is my mind so foggy? My head so light and floaty?

“What time is it?”

“Much too late for you to be wandering around in the woods.”

He comes up beside me, and I’m hit with the smell of booze. Something similar to the bourbon he put in my cocoa, I think. I’m no expert. When I still lived with them, my dad drank vodka and my uncle, beer.

They both preferred meth much, much more.

Fuck. Bad timing for those memories to resurface.

“Haven?”

“Yessir.”

“Where the fuck are your shoes?”

My toes curl again. I look down, see how muddy they are. “Oh. Shit. I’m tracking mud all over your nice clean house.”

I thought my shivers were getting less until a violent shudder goes through me. Maybe it’s the horror of getting mud on this white carpet.

“We need to get you out of those wet clothes. ”

“We really don’t,” I mumble, slowly wrapping my hands around my chest.

“Then shiver to death.”

I watch him stalk away into the kitchen and turn on the coffee machine, my eyes wide and my jaw clenched to stop my teeth chattering.

He’s not wrong. I am freezing my fucking ass off.

But something tells me it’s really not a good idea to take off my clothes.

Sodden as they are, they’re the only protection I have right now.

And since I still have no idea how I got here, I could be dealing with a concussion or something.

Maybe I hit my head when I slipped at the barrier by Lookout Point.

Anyway, my professor isn’t a threat, even drunk.

Right?

Bastian keeps his eyes on his task as he takes out two cups. “Coffee will be done in a few minutes. There’s a bathroom to your left. Grab something warm from my closet.”

“Really, I’m?—”

“You’re drenched.” He turns, eyes narrowed. “And you’re tracking mud all over my floor. So either clean up, or clear out.”

“Jesus,” I mutter, clamping my jaw closed at a violent shiver.

Survival overrules the gut feeling that I should be heading out the backdoor, not stepping deeper into the lion’s den.

I pass the fireplace and step into Professor Rooke’s bedroom. There are two barn doors on either side of the massive fireplace that I guess he can close to make this area more private. The walls in here are bare concrete and tinted glass windows, just like the rest of the house.

There’s a walk-in closet, and beside it, a partially open door that must lead to the bathroom, if those dark tiles are anything to go by.

Despite having his permission, I still feel like I’m intruding. I guess because, despite how barren and lifeless this house feels, I find glimpses of the professor everywhere.

The stack of weathered, spine-cracked books on the nightstand. A pair of reading glasses. Inside his closet, the row of suit jackets, mostly tweed.

And his smell.

It’s so intense inside this space, I can almost taste him on my tongue.

Pine trees. Leather. Rain-soaked soil.

I realize I’m just standing there, drinking in his smell, when he might come and check on me any minute. But I can’t help it. It’s so warm in here. So clean, and fresh, and neat. Terribly neat.

Every place I’ve ever lived in has always looked like a fucking rat’s nest after a couple of days. Dad stopped cleaning up after himself around the time Mom passed. Or maybe Mom had always been the one to tidy, and he was too broken from her death to bother keeping the place neat.

Also, doing drugs is messy. The prep leaves all sorts of paraphernalia scattered about, and Dad was even less capable of cleaning when he was high.

I tried tidying, but I didn’t have it in me to get near him when he was like that.

Guess I learned to live with the mess. The empty cigarette packs and snack wrappers lying around.

Vodka and soda bottles. Cigarette butts overflowing in makeshift ashtrays—usually half-empty dollar store frozen meal containers.

A hard shiver races through me, as much for the memories of roaches scattering whenever I turned on the lights, as for the aching cold burrowing deeper and deeper into my body.

Clothes, Haven. You need to find warm clothes.

I push back my shoulders and start rifling through the clothes folded and stacked so neatly inside Bastian’s closet. My eyes keep drifting over to the stack of vests and boxers nearby. Are those silk?

My hand encounters something warm, thick, and soft. I pull it out, smiling when it unfolds into a large hoodie.

Gotcha.

Professor Rooke isn’t brawny, but he sure is tall. He’s got at least a foot on me. So I guess he has to buy larger sizes .

I hold the hoodie up against me.

It reaches almost to my knees.

Well, I already know I don’t stand a hope in hell of getting into— fitting into —his pants. This will have to do.

It’s definitely warm, and dry, and since my sundress is plastered to my frame, it’s a hell of a lot less scandalous. I hear the faint sound of the coffee machine percolating in the kitchen, and hesitate before letting myself into his bathroom.

Fuck, it’s gorgeous.

Slate slabs, dark gray and rough enough to avoid slippage, but still smooth. The shower takes up the entire width of the back wall, with a small bench inside. Jets on the side, which I assume can turn it into a small steam room.

There’s a tub on one side, a double-sink vanity on the other. A small table used exclusively to store towels, it seems.

Weird that he has two sinks when he’s so obviously single.

Guess it’s just as strange that he has a king sized bed.

God, I need to stop fucking judging.

I shut the door and take one of the dark gray towels from the table.

Peeling off my dress, I hesitate, and then take off my undies too.

Everything’s wet. My feet are coated in mud. My hair is hanging in wet ribbons around my neck.

I make the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror. My eyes lock onto the scratch marks on my thigh. The bruise on one hip. Reluctantly, I turn, my jaw tightening at the scratch marks over my upper back where the tree bark scraped my skin.

…I know who you’re protecting…

Is this why I came here? To tell Bastian that the green-eyed boy in his class hates me, and it’s all my fault? That I drove him to it, and everything he does to me is not only deserved, but way overdue?

Tears well up in my eyes, but I blink them back with furious determination .

Stepping into the shower, I turn on the faucet and crank the heat until steam billows.

No more running.

No more hiding.

I’m sick of standing at the edge of the cliff and never having the nerve to jump.

I came here for a reason, and if that’s confessing my sins to Bastian, then at least I’m going to have one hell of a good shower before the guillotine falls.