Chapter 3
1179 Words
"Take your hand off her," Chase said, his voice lacking the authority he desperately needed it to have.
He stood three steps down from the back row. The carpet under his sneakers was stained with years of spilled coffee and ground-in dirt. He wore his Blackwood varsity jacket, the stiff leather sleeves creaking as he clenched his hands into fists. It was a stupid piece of clothing. Julia used to think it made his shoulders look broad. Now, standing five feet away from Theodore Thorne, Chase just looked like a boy playing dress-up in a man's world.
Theodore did not remove his hand. He did not flinch. He did not shift his weight or acknowledge the threat with any sudden movement. He just slowly turned his head.
His eyes were pitch black under the harsh fluorescent lights of the lecture hall. He looked at Chase with the exact same blank disregard a man might show a pebble trapped in his shoe.
"Are you lost, Chase?" Theodore asked. His voice was a flat, deadpan drawl. It was so quiet it barely carried past the edge of their particle-board desk.
Chase swallowed hard. The erratic tick in his jaw was firing off in rapid succession. It looked painful. "I said let her go. You don't know what she is. She's crazy. She's just trying to get back at me."
Julia sat perfectly still. She expected to feel a rush of triumphant adrenaline. She had mapped this exact scenario in her head for three weeks. She wanted to see Chase humiliated. She wanted him to feel the same suffocating helplessness she felt when those photos hit the team group chat. But sitting trapped against the cinderblock wall, with Theodore's heavy, calloused fingers pressing bruises into her bare thigh, she felt no triumph.
She felt like she had thrown a lit match into a dry forest and was now locked inside the fire.
She looked at a loose, white thread hanging off the bottom of Chase's zipper. It was annoying. She wanted to pull it until the whole jacket unraveled.
Theodore's thumb dragged a slow, deliberate circle against Julia's skin. The friction burned straight through the thin black fabric of her skirt.
"I know exactly what she is," Theodore said. "The question is whether you know what you are."
Chase took a half-step up the stairs. His chest heaved. "She's my ex. This is between us, Thorne. Back off."
Theodore finally moved. He leaned forward, resting his free forearm on the desk. A crushed paper coffee cup sat near his elbow, left behind by whoever had the seat last. Theodore did not stand up. He did not need to—his sheer mass swallowed the oxygen in the space between them.
"You are a second-line right wing," Theodore said. The words were surgical. "You have twelve goals this season. You have a weak left side that you try to hide by dumping the puck early. You are a complete liability on the penalty kill. The only reason the scouts from Boston are looking at you is because I pass you the puck."
Chase stopped moving. The angry flush drained out of his neck, leaving his skin a sickly, pale gray.
"You sold private pictures of this girl to the captain of Penn State to secure a draft favor," Theodore continued. He did not blink. "You are a coward. You are weak. You are a parasite living off my ice time. And if you ever speak to her again, I will not just bench you."
Theodore tilted his head a fraction of an inch.
"I will make sure you never touch the ice for the rest of your pathetic life. I will break your legs in practice and tell the coach you tripped. Do you understand me?"
The lecture hall was filling up rapidly now. Students were filing into the lower rows, dropping heavy textbooks onto desks, unzipping winter coats, completely unaware of the execution happening in the back row. The smell of cheap vanilla body spray drifted up from a girl passing by on the stairs. The world was moving perfectly normally while Chase's reality was being dismantled.
Chase looked at Julia. He was begging her with his eyes. He wanted her to intervene. He wanted her to be the soft, supportive girl who used to type his sociology papers, manage his schedule, and stroke his hair when he was stressed about finals. He wanted his victim to save him.
Julia looked back at him. She let her face go completely dead. She did not say a word. She just watched him drown.
Chase's shoulders collapsed. The false bravado shattered completely, leaving nothing but the terrified, hollow boy underneath—a boy who realized he had just lost his shield. He took a step backward, his heel catching on the lip of the carpeted stair. He stumbled, catching himself on the handrail, his face burning red with fresh humiliation. He turned and walked quickly down the aisle, taking a seat six rows below them. He stared straight ahead at the blank chalkboard, his posture rigid with shock.
He was broken. The hierarchy was reset. She had won.
Theodore leaned back in his chair. Down at the front of the room, the professor walked up to the podium and tapped the microphone. A sharp screech of audio feedback echoed through the hall, signaling the start of class.
Julia let out a long, shaky breath. The transaction was over. Chase had seen them. The message was delivered. She shifted her weight, trying to pull her leg away from Theodore's grip so she could open her notebook.
Theodore's fingers clamped down instantly.
The grip was iron. It sent a sharp, involuntary spike of heat straight to her stomach, completely bypassing her cold, clinical brain. She gasped, the sound entirely swallowed by the professor beginning his lecture on supply and demand.
She turned her head to look at Theodore. She wanted to tell him to let go. She wanted to reestablish the boundaries of their business arrangement.
He was already looking at her.
His eyes were completely hollow. There was no victory in them. There was no human warmth. There was only a dark, bottomless possession that made her breath catch painfully in her throat. The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow. He had not defended her because he cared about her trauma. He had defended her because she belonged to him now, and no one touched his property.
He leaned in. His broad chest brushed her shoulder. His mouth hovered mere inches from her ear. She could smell the sharp, clean mint on his breath mixed with the lingering metallic scent of the freezing campus air.
"When this class ends," Theodore whispered, his voice a terrifying, deadpan rasp against her skin, "you are going to walk to the library. You are going to go down to the basement archives. You are going to wait for me in the dark. And when I get there, you are going to get on your knees."
- Writer
