Page 59 of Broken by my Bully (Lessons in Cruelty Dark Academia #1)

Haven

I barely slip past Melissa undetected, hiding in the shadow of an open door further up the hall from our room. I’ve learned to become invisible when I need to. Another Riverside survival skill these rich kids would never understand.

Only when I hear the toilet flush and hear my new roommate flick off the bathroom’s light, do I dare peek out.

She doesn’t look in my direction.

After five slow counts, I sneak into the bathroom, clutching the front of my ruined dress closed with my hand, grimacing at the feel of my cum-soaked panties. I slip into the shower as soon as the water is warm enough to bear, and peel my underwear off with a grimace.

Hot water stings the cut on my ribs and the prick on my throat, and makes the bite mark on my tit ache and throb.

I need slow five counts to work up the courage to look down and assess the damage.

With the blood already washed off, the knife wound on my torso looks like a tiny little tear in my skin.

Not wide, not deep.

So why does it hurt so fucking much?

The bite marks on my breast are red and angry looking, but it doesn’t look like he punctured my skin. I hiss when I touch myself, though. That’s gonna bruise.

There’s a bar of soap in here that one of the sorority sisters must have left behind. I lather up every inch of my skin, even my hair.

Especially between my legs, my cunt’s pH balance be damned.

I want him off me. Gone. Every trace.

I scrub harder. Like I’m trying to erase fingerprints from a crime scene.

Like I’ve done before, too many times. Kai’s stains aren’t permanent. I’ve washed off worse.

Dad’s complete lack of interest when I try to tell him there’s no food in the house.

The memory of Uncle Lenny’s hands.

Much worse.

This is nothing.

But the more I scrub, the more I can feel him.

His crushing weight.

His hot skin.

That sound he made when I grabbed his dick. When he came . I didn’t expect how much it would turn me on, hearing him give in like that.

Fuck!

I wish I could scream, but then I’d have everyone in the house running in here, seeing me like this.

Naked, damaged, broken.

That’s not going to happen.

What Kai did tonight will never happen again. It’s pathetic, and sad, and feels like a step backward, but from now on, I won’t go anywhere alone. Because that’s when he knows he can play with me as hard and rough as he wants.

I’m no snitch. Never have been, never will be.

That’s something that runs deep in Riversiders’ blood.

There’s a pair of towels near the sink, and one of them is just large enough to cover me from nipples to non-existent thigh gap. I don’t bother looking at myself in the mirror, because I know I look like shit.

…you’re so fucking beaut ? —

Melissa lays her phone on her stomach when I come back into our bedroom. “Where the hell were you?”

“Bathroom.”

“But I was just in there.”

I turn my back on her so I can drag one of the duffel bags onto the bed to look for something to sleep in. One of Bastian’s hoodies would have been nice.

“We must have just missed each…” I trail off.

“What’s wrong?” Melissa’s bed squeaks, and I jolt like I just stuck my fingers in a wall socket.

Do I seriously have PTSD, and my trigger is Melissa’s bed spring ?

Fuck, if only Bastian was still a therapist. He’d cream his pants over this.

She shuffles over to me in her bunny slippers, then peers over my shoulder.

“Oh, I know,” she sighs, patting me on the shoulder, then getting back into bed. “Hate opening them too. Sacrilege.”

I poke a finger through one of the plastic wrapped bundles neatly arranged inside the duffel bag. Then I tear it with a kind of calm abandon. The smell of freshly laundered clothes puffs into my face.

That scent could have easily landed itself in second or third place in my overall ‘things I’d love to smell again’ list.

If I didn’t feel so fucking violated.

And that’s saying a lot after what just happened under this bed.

Bastian had all my clothes laundered. Those that I’d brought along with me on this adventure of a lifetime, anyway. Was it because they smelled bad? Because they looked bad? Or because he just knew it was probably a while since they’d been washed?

He’s everywhere, fixing shit I didn’t ask him to fix. And the fucked up part? Some pathetic piece of me wants to let him.

“Hey, you almost done? I want to turn off the light.”

“Yeah, sure,” I mumble, dragging an oversized t-shirt out of the duffel and holding it up to my nose. One of Bastian’s hoodies would have been nice.

I freeze up.

God, when did I start thinking shit like that?

Melissa groans. “Could you do it for me? It’s all the way over there.”

I glance at her over my shoulder. She’s reaching for the night lamp, her fingers inches away.

“Don’t stop,” I say. “You’re so close.”

Her eyes go wide. I keep staring at her, refusing to look away. She lunges forward and flicks the switch, throwing the room into darkness.

I smile as I turn back to my bed, letting my towel drop to the floor and pulling the t-shirt over my head. Then I scoop all my junk off the foot of the bed, not batting an eye as it all crashes to the carpet.

“Jesus,” Melissa mutters from the bed. “Keep it down.”

She left herself wide open on that one, but I don’t take the bait. I’m done with this day.

But even after I crawl into my first proper bed in months, and I close my eyes, and I slow my breathing…sleep evades me.

I can’t stop thinking about Kai. About the awful thing he did to me.

About how fucking good it felt.

I don’t have any classes tomorrow, but Kai knows where I am now. I could stay inside this house all day, but there’s a chance he could slip in again, undetected.

Time to repay some of my debts.

And no, Kai doesn’t fucking count.

Although even as that thought crosses my mind, I already know I’ll have to pay him back. He has lent me a lot more than a few hundred bucks over the years.

I drag my phone off the nightstand, checking the time.

It’s a few minutes to midnight.

I open my messages and spend about ten minutes typing a DM.

@lee.haven

I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done.

Want to have lunch tomorrow? My treat.

It’s the least I can do.

I chew my lip.

This is so fucked.

Bastian’s probably balls deep in some beautiful, age-appropriate woman who doesn’t live in her car. Who doesn’t smell like fryer grease. Who doesn’t let her childhood friend finger-fuck her under a bed while her roommate?—

Fuck.

One tick appears. Then two. But they don’t turn blue.

I wait a while longer, two or three minutes, and then set my phone down. I guess Bastian’s had a long day too.

Professor Rooke. Bastian.

Fuck, I don’t even know what to call him anymore.

I open Melissa’s message and click on the link she sent me to pass the time. There’s a chance he might still see the message and respond.

Or I can just delete it.

Those thoughts quickly fizzle out as I stare at the social media post that opens on my phone.

It’s a photograph of a ballroom. Everyone’s wearing a tux or a sweeping, floor-length gown.

Every person in the photo was born for this shit.

Me? I’m just some Riverside piece of trash.

Will this nightmare never end?

Or maybe the nightmare is that part of me actually wants to go. Wants to walk in there and watch their faces. Show them that this trailer trash bitch can play their games too .

I stab my phone’s power button and set it down on my nightstand.

What the fuck would I even wear?

I have two dresses, and one of them just got slashed into ribbons.

My fingers drift to my ribs, finding the cut through my t-shirt.

It’s still bleeding, just a little. Tomorrow it’ll scab. Next week it’ll scar.

Another mark.

Another reminder.

But scars are just proof that you survived something that tried to kill you.

And I’m really fucking good at surviving.