21. Psychopath

TWENTY-ONE

Psychopath

NICHOLAI

I had to leave. If I looked back at her, I would have stopped myself. I wouldn't have been able to walk away—but walking away was exactly what this situation needed because there was a pretty good chance I had just fucked up Mika Grey's life for good.

"Jen." I snapped the word, tapping on the door to Mag's guest bedroom.

It didn't take a genius to figure out where the woman would hide. I knew her well. The door cracked open and I stepped through, closing it behind me. Jen was sitting on the bed, tears streaking down her face, her cell phone clutched in her hands. I searched her arms, and then her legs. Sure enough, there were nail gouges marking the skin of her upper arms, half-hidden beneath the sleeve of her dress .

"You promised," I said, wincing at how emotionless my voice sounded.

The more she did this, the less I cared. That made me a terrible psychologist, in a way, but it also made me human. Our brains were designed to protect us from danger and pain. For too long, Jen had blackmailed me with self-abuse. I would break up with her and she would threaten to kill herself. I knew on some level that she was bluffing, that anyone selfish enough to manipulate a person so drastically was also too selfish to end their own life, but I was also … imperfectly myself. I had a hero complex. I couldn't stand the thought of someone hurting themselves because of me.

So I let her hang around. I let her call herself my girlfriend even though she wasn't. I let it go on for too long, and now this thing that I had allowed to fester was sitting on my cousin's guest bed, stained with tears and ready to tear down whatever temporary euphoria I had felt watching Mika Grey give in to me.

"You can't see her again." Jen's voice wobbled, her face flushing with blotchy colour. She held up her phone, showing me an image.

It was Mika, her clothes on the floor beside her, her hands on her breasts. Fuck.

Fuck .

Too many emotions slammed into me all at once, and for a moment I struggled to breathe at all.

When Mika was in the room, nobody else existed.

I knew that would ruin us, eventually.

"It's a video." Jen's hands were shaking as she shoved the phone into her pocket. "I already uploaded it to my cloud. You're a disgusting pervert, you know that?"

She stood, and was suddenly pressing against me, her hand working to get into my pants. I grabbed her wrist, shoving her away.

"Get the fuck off me." My tone was too rough, my actions too aggressive. She flinched.

I felt hatred in that moment. Pure, unadulterated hatred.

"What do you want?" I asked her, as she cowered against the wall.

She was being dramatic, trying to make me feel bad. I had never hurt her and I never would. I also knew not to use my strength against any person who was weaker than me: man or woman.

"I don't want you to see her again." Jen moved back to the bed, sitting on the edge.

She was wearing a flower-print dress beneath a long black cardigan, and she pulled up the skirt now, bunching it around her thighs. I felt a roll of sickening premonition roll through me .

"You like this kind of thing?" she asked me, pushing her panties down her legs and exposing herself to me.

There were scars on the insides of her thighs—a reminder, just for me. A reminder not to walk out of there and cut her out of my life completely. A reminder that I was weak. A pushover.

"I don't want to do this," I told her, fixing my eyes to the window behind her.

Hopefully Mika had left already. Jen wasn't stable—I didn't want them running into each other anymore.

"Yes. You do," Jen told me. "All men want to do this, and you're a man. What did you say before? You want me to fuck myself?"

"I wasn't saying that to you. I was saying it to someone else."

"No, it was really for me, wasn't it, Nic?" A moan caught in her voice, and I tried to curb the acidic feeling that was creeping up the back of my throat. She moaned again. "Am I making you hard, baby?"

I still wasn't looking at her, but I could see enough through my peripheral vision to know exactly what she was doing. She was trying to copy Mika.

I closed my eyes, blocking it out.

I didn't want that memory destroyed.

"Watch me," she moaned, somehow getting off on the act despite how obviously I didn't want to be there. "Watch me or I'll make you regret it."

I opened my eyes. Get the fuck out of this house, Mika .

"Yes," she cried out, not even trying to be quiet. "Yes. Fuck. Yes, you love this. You love me. Nic. I love you."

I turned, sending my fist into the wall. Jen didn't even seem to notice as she fucked herself to orgasm. The plaster cracked around my knuckles, my hand breaking through and punching a clean hole in the otherwise unblemished, lilac-painted surface. I'd have to apologise to Mag and Clay. I could come around next weekend and fix it.

Jen had quietened, and I turned around to find her slipping her panties back on.

"Let me see your phone?" she asked me calmly.

"No," I replied.

I should have walked out. I should have told her to back off. I should have demanded that she delete the video. Anything. Anything at all . She had trained me, punished me by hurting herself whenever I walked out on her, whenever I did something to upset her. It was a complicated thing, to know that something was bad for you and be unable to walk away from it all at once.

"I'm going to text her off your phone, tell her that you don't want to see her anymore. Hand me your phone, Nic."

"No," I repeated. What the fuck was I doing ? Trying to buy time. Trying to keep her talking until I could figure out exactly what to do with her. "You're going to delete the video, and you're going to make an appointment to see someone, Jen. To talk to someone about your issues."

"I could talk to you," she offered, slipping her hands around my waist, her breasts suddenly pressed to my chest.

I disentangled her, pushing her away again. "That would be a conflict of interest?—"

"Exactly," she cut across me, smiling. "A conflict of interest. Like you telling that poor girl to touch herself. The video shows you, too, Nic. I can send it to the school."

"I don't work at the school anymore."

"I can send it to the clinic, to your supervisor, to your dad. Don't you think they'd all like to know about your conflict of interest?"

The reality of how trapped I was suddenly slammed into me. The choice of walking away disappearing as though it never existed. I had struggled to escape our toxic relationship for so long, unable to decide if I could risk it or not. Unable to decide if I could live with the consequences of her possibly hurting herself, or worse. And now, suddenly, I knew. I wanted out .

I could deal with those consequences. I wanted nothing more to do with this selfish, fucked up person. She wasn't the one I wanted to save, and she wasn't mine to take care of. I also wasn't hers to fuck with, but now it was too late, because now the choice had been yanked away from me. The choice wasn't so simple, anymore.

Now, it was a choice to lose my job or not, to destroy my career or not, to cause a ripple through Mika's life that she may not recover from. She could pretend that she didn't care about people hurting her, using her, discarding her. She could pretend that she didn't care about the boy who had kissed her, who had set fire to her home. She could pretend as much as she wanted, but no amount of pretending would cover up the reaction she might have over that video being released.

I shoved my phone at Jen—hating myself more and more with every second that she spent on it—until finally, she sighed and handed it back.

"I wouldn't do that to you, Nic. You're the love of my life. This is something unforgiveable. I understand that. So … I won't send anything."

"You were typing something."

"I set a reminder in your calendar." She smiled .

It seemed that she was trying to look bashful, but I couldn't see any expression on her face, now. I could barely even look at her. Every part of her disgusted me. I quickly opened my calendar and sure enough, there was a reminder set for the next day.

Dinner with Jen .

Fuck. My. Life.

"I need you to delete that video," I told her. "Right now. In front of me."

She stepped back, her hands moving to protect her pocket. She was laughing nervously.

"I can't do that." She shook her head. "You won't see me anymore if I do. I can see it in your eyes. You want to be done with me, don't you, Nic? But if I keep this video, you won't leave me, and then eventually … eventually you'll love me again. You just need time."

In that moment, I really wondered if I was above hurting her. I could overpower her and take the phone. That would solve all my problems. Jen probably wouldn't like me anymore, Mika would be out of danger, and I would be free.

The only problem was … Jen was already fucked up. She didn't need me adding to her issues, and as much as I didn't want to care, I couldn't ignore what this would mean to me, as a person. I was in this mess because of my own cowardice. Jen was still obsessed with me because I had allowed her to continue this game of emotional bl ackmail, to still look up to me as the centrepiece of her obsession. I could have ended this before it exploded, but I didn't. These were my consequences.

"Jen …" I swallowed down my rage, schooling my expression into something calm. "I need you to delete that video. I can't bring you back into my life in the way you want if there is no trust between us. Delete the video. Do it right here, with me watching. Show me that I can trust you."

Her smile trembled into existence. Vulnerable. Unsure. It was a true smile, and for just a second I almost felt sorry for her.

"I understand what you're saying." She sucked in a deep, trembling breath. "Maybe this was the push we needed. You can trust me, Nic."

She pulled out her phone, and I watched as she opened her cloud account. She deleted the video quickly, and then went into the saved videos on her phone, deleting it from there, too.

"Are you happy now?" She tilted her face up to me, and I swallowed back the urge to say something cutting. It wasn't necessary.

"Yes," I replied calmly, opening the door and taking a step away from her.

"Will I see you tomorrow night?" The vulnerability was back, the tremulous hope that might have warranted sympathy in a completely different person.

"No." I watched as her face fell, her hopes crumpling, the darkness flashing over her expression quicker than I had expected. "You won't see me again, if you know what's good for you. This—all of this—is over, Jen. Goodbye."

I shut the door just as she spluttered out a response.

"You'll regret this, Nicholai Fell."

"I'll add it to the list," I muttered into the empty hallway, walking back to the bathroom.

It was a dim hope, but I checked it anyway. Empty. I moved to the stairs, taking them two at a time until I landed in the kitchen. Also empty. I ran to the door, shoving it open. A storm had broken out, ending the party. Crap littered the lawn, sodding towels hung over the railings beside the pool. The temperature had also dropped, driving everyone into the warmer depths of the house. I could hear music thumping from the basement, but I already knew that I wouldn't find Mika down there.

She was gone.

I cursed, restraining myself from running back up the stairs and blaming all of this on Jen. My phone buzzed, and I almost dropped it in my haste to pull it out of my pocket, holding it up before my face as though it would change my life.

It was a text from Mika.

I trusted you .

For just a moment, I panicked, thinking that Jen had sent her the video after all, but there were no previous messages. This wasn't about the video. This was about the bathroom.