I jerk backward with all my might, gasping as my hand rips free of his. Whirling, I scrabble for the doorknob, only to realize when Oliver’s arms wrap around my waist that I never should’ve turned my back to him.
Screaming, I manage to open the door, his jerk on my waist only helping to pull it open. It comes with me, then slips free from my hands when he turns enough to slam his foot against it so the door crashes forward on its hinges and shakes the house.
I scream and writhe, and do everything I can to get out of his hold as he hoists me higher in his arms. My hands find one of his arms, and I dig my nails harshly into his skin, expecting him to loosen his grip, or at least yell at me for how much it hurts.
Instead, helaughs.Oliver fucking giggles as he carries me down the hallway, legs flailing as I kick out and try to grab anything I can. One of my shoes catches an end table, and Oliver doesn’t even stop as it crashes to the floor, a lamp shattering and an obvious lost cause. My hand shoots out, catching onto a doorframe, and it finally forces Oliver to stop unless he wants to break my arm.
It should give me a few precious moments to think, except that Professor Solomon is there, gently unhooking my fingers. “You’re going to hurt her,” he admonishes, eyes narrowing at Oliver as he easily dodges a kick from me.
“She’s going to hurtme,” Oliver protests, once more the target of my heel against his kneecap that makes him grunt. My now-free hand goes up and back, and I find his hair andpull. “For fuck’ssake, Blair!” he snaps, finally staggering into a larger room and spinning around enough that I realize we’re in the kitchen. “I’m nothurting you!”
“Let go of me!” I scream, unable to do more than this. He bumps into the counter, and I throw my shoes onto it for some kind of leverage, but when Oliver pulls back, all I’ve managed to do is knock a bowl of bananas to the floor and shatter it.
“Find somewhere tosit, Oliver,” our professor sighs, following after us and kicking the shards of porcelain to the side. “Unless you’re going to throw her into the dirty dishes next.” It’s even more frightening that he’s this calm, because that feelswrong. If he’s this calm, it can’t mean good things for me, can it?
“I didn’t think she’d fight so much,” Oliver snaps, finally shaking free of my grip. He sets me down enough to readjust, this time pinning both my arms even as I go deadweight to try to make him fall. It doesn’t succeed, of course. Nothing seems to be going well for me today, and I sob in fear and defeat as he hauls me backward and sits down hard on a kitchen chair pulled away from the table with me in his lap.
I scream again, wordlessly, letting out the panic I feel and hoping that someone, anyone, can hear me. “Let go!” I cry, barely noting the tears streaming down my face as I turn my face to Oliver’s. “Please!”
“Please?” He raises a brow as another chair is dragged over. “I might need stitches from your claws, and that’s the best you’ve got?” In response I kick him, and he lets out a chuff of surprise and, somehow, amusement. “Don’t make me—”
“Stop.” Professor Solomon’s hands are suddenly on my bare thighs, just above my knees, and before I can do more than pull back my leg to kick, he slips his fingers under them, scooting closer, and holds me there so I can’t do anything that would hurt him.
Even when I try to kick backward at Oliver, I can barely move more than a few inches. It’s just enough for the professor’s fingers to dig into my skin, and for him to frown at my efforts. He opens his mouth again, but I cut him off with another, hoarser scream, and I can’t miss the way his smile turns a bit dark.
“All right, all right, little puppy. Howl it all out.” Which I do, screaming for help again and again as both of them hold methere, unable to move. “No one can hear you, Love,” he informs me, when I gasp for more air to do it again. “But come on. You have more in you, I can feel it. Howl again, puppy, there yougo.” He enunciates the last word as I scream again, but it’s starting to feel pointless, since no one has come to bang on the windows and the cops aren’t speeding down the road.
Not only that, but it doesn’t seem to bother either of them at all.
I tremble, gasping for breath as my heart pounds, and try again to writhe against Oliver’s lap, trying as hard as I can to free myself from them.
“Are you done now?” Professor Solomon asks, letting go of one of my knees. “Kick me, and you’re getting tied up,” he adds, when my leg tenses to do just that. “I don’t want to tie you up, Love. I don’t want to upset you more.”
“Too late,” I gasp hoarsely, wrenching backward against Oliver’s shoulder as he reaches forward with long, graceful fingers toward my face. He smiles, but it’s not like I can go anywhere, and within a few moments, he’s wiping the stray tears from my cheeks in a surprisingly gentle motion. “Just let go of me,” I beg, trying to look back at Oliver and failing. His grip has loosened enough to no longer be painful, though he holds me firmly enough that I doubt I can go anywhere. “I-I won’t tell anyone anything. I’ll leave, and you’ll never see me again, and—”
“Oh, baby girl, no,” he chides, cupping my jaw in his hands. I fight the urge to bite him, though I barely manage not to try. Instead, I bare my teeth at him, and I can see in his face that he knows what I want. “You’re confused. And besides… you don’t know anythingtotell anyone. But don’t worry. We’ll change that for you—”
“I don’t want to—”
“But we do,” Oliver purrs against my ear. I tense up again, prepared to run, and he adjusts his grip so that my arms arecomfortably pinned under one of his, and he can reach the other up to lightly grip my throat.
“Oliver.” Our professor’s voice is a warning.
“She let me do it before,” Oliver argues sweetly, though his touch on my neck makes my breathing pick up and I draw my knees back to kick anything I can.
“Not right now.” He knocks Oliver’s hand to the side, his hands coming back to my knees to hold them gently in warning. “He won’t hurt you, Love,” he soothes, rubbing circles against my skin. “Just relax. You’re not being hurt.”
“Why?” I ask, my voice high and panicked. “Because you want to play some sick fucking game before you kill me?” I cringe at my own words, but I don’t want to go out sobbing and simpering.
“No one’s going to kill you,” our professor promises. “No one’s going to hurt you. Not Oliver, and not me.” He reaches up to smooth his hands over the hoodie I wear, and murmurs, “I knew you’d like this.”
“You knew I’d—” It clicks in a way that makes me sick. “You’reThrillingterror. So, you bought me the fucking camera and…” I can’t finish, but he doesn’t need me to. A smile spreads across his lips, only to fade a second later. “Let me go.”
“No. We weren’t going to do it this way,” Oliver admits, his fingers plucking at my sleeve. “It was just going to be me for a while. I thought maybe after the semester, I could get you used to the idea, you know?”
“The idea ofwhat?You being a murderer?”
He snorts and shakes his head. “Ofus.”