Three days passed. Three days of glancing over my shoulder, jumping at every noise, sleeping with the phone in my hand. The police told me Scarlett was being monitored, that it wasn't possible for her to get close to me without breaking an order of bail.
And still I never felt safe.
"You have to eat something," Ella said, sliding a sandwich across the table in my dorm room. She had barely left my side since the incident in the warehouse, acting as both bodyguard and best friend.
"I'm not hungry."
"Brook, it's been two days since you've eaten. You will get yourself sick." She settled in next to me and looked at me with concern. "How long have you been awake? I mean really slept, not just stared at the ceiling?"
I couldn't remember. I kept seeing Scarlett's face.
My phone buzzed. Daniel.
Daniel: How are you coping?
Me: I'm okay. You?
Daniel: Liar. I'm coming over.
Me: You can't. No contact on campus, remember?.
Daniel: I don't care. I need to see you.
Twenty minutes later, I heard a gentle knock at my door Ella answered it, saw Daniel's anxious face and took her jacket.
"I'll leave the two of you alone. You call me if you need anything."
The second she was gone, Daniel scooped me up in his arms and squeezed me so hard I found it difficult to breathe. "I'm going out of my mind," he murmured against my hair. "Not being able to see you, talk to you properly! Make sure you're really okay. Make me sick."
"I'm scared," I finally said, the words rushing from my mouth. "She's out there and planning, God only knows, and I can't, I can't get what she said off my mind. And she'd take everything down with her."
"She won't." Daniel cupped my face between his hands. "I won't let her hurt you any more. Neither will the police. She's being monitored constantly."
"Then why don't I feel safe?"
"Because Scarlett is unpredictable." His jaw clenched. "Part of the reason that I believe you should consider leaving. Just for a while. Go stay with family out of state until after the trial."
"No." I stepped back. "I'm not running. I'm not going to have her chase me out of my own life."
"Brooklyn."
"She wins if I run. Don't you see that? She wants me alone and scared and destroyed. And I'm not going to give her the satisfaction." I grabbed his hands. "Besides, I'm not leaving you. Not when we - just — when we finally."
"When are we finally what?" His eyes searched mine. "Brooklyn, what are we? Because I need to know. I need to know what I'm fighting for here."
My heart hammered. "I don't know. Do you want to know, what I do know is that when I'm with you, I feel alive. Real. Like me, for the first time in forever."
"I feel it too." He drew me to him and rested his forehead against mine. "That's why this is just so impossible. I can't be around you while I'm your teacher. But I can't imagine not being with you, either."
"So we figure it out. Together." I lifted up onto my toes, gently touching my lips to his. "We're survivors, remember? We got through Scarlett's trap, everything. We can survive this too."
He kissed me back, more deeply this time, pouring everything that had gone unsaid between us into the contact. We broke away, both breathless.
"I better get going," he said sheepishly. "Before someone sees."
"Stay. For a while longer."
We sat down on my bed, his arm around me, my head heavy and liquid against his shoulder as we let ourselves pretend for a moment that we were normal people with regular problems. No stalker stepsister. No ethical violations. Just us.
There was a text on my phone from an unknown number.
I froze.
"What is it?" Daniel asked, sensing my tension.
I cracked it, and my blood ran cold.
It was a photo of us. Right now. Sitting on my bed. Shot from my dorm room window.
Unknown: Cozy. Does the dean know that Professor Anderson is breaking the terms of his reinstatement? He knows you guys are playing house, right? He's fired with one call from me. Permanently this time. Your choice, Brook. Meet me at Riverside Park in an hour. Alone. Or I make that call.
"It's her," I murmured, indicating the phone to Daniel. "She's watching us. Right now."
Daniel sprang to his feet and ran to the window. Down on the quad, there were a few students walking to class. No sign of Scarlett. But she'd been there. Close enough to photograph us.
"Call the police," Daniel ordered. "Right now."
"If I do, she's going to send that picture to the dean. You'll lose everything."
"I don't care about my job!" His voice was fierce. "I care about you being safe. Call them."
"I won't." I jumped up, snatching my jacket. "I'm going to meet her."
"Absolutely not. That's what she wants, to trap you in the past."
"Then come with me. Hide nearby. If anything goes wrong, you call for help.' I tugged on my shoes, hands shaking, but with a steady resolve. "This ends today, Daniel. I'm done being her victim."
"Brooklyn,"
"Whether you come or not, I'm going. Your choice."
He cursed under his breath. "Fine. But Ella and the police will be on standby. And if we sense anything anything , is wrong, we're gone. Understood?"
I nodded.
Thirty minutes after that, I was at the Riverside Park entrance and stomping through brown crispy leaves. Fifty yards away, Daniel was behind a maintenance building, phone in hand. Ella had pulled over to the side of the road, with 911 dialed on her phone.
The park was empty, mostly too cold for most, the sun already setting at five P.M.
"Hello, sis."
I spun around. Scarlett stepped out from behind a large oak looking disheveled. Her auburn hair was unwashed, there were mascara smudges beneath her eyes and her broken wrist was in a cast. She was completely different from the shiny mean girl who'd dominated our high school.
She looked broken. Desperate. Dangerous.
"You came," she said, sounding almost surprised. "I didn't think you would."
"What do you want, Scarlett?"
"Want? I want my life back. The one you destroyed." She stepped toward me, and I noticed she was shaking. Out of cold or fury, I couldn't say. "Everything was perfect before you. Jayce loved me. We were happy. So then you had to go and do the victim thing, make him feel bad, seduce your professor into trying to make him jealous—"
"That's not what happened, and you know it."
"ISN'T IT?" She screamed, the cry filling the empty park. "You took everything from me! My family, my boyfriend, my dignity! And now you want to put me in prison?"
"You brought it on yourself when you was walking around with a gun.
"Because I had no choice! "But you have given me no alternative!" Her face was streaming with tears, her voice shaking. "I loved him, Brooklyn. I loved Jayce so much, and you turned him against me. Made him think I was crazy."
"You are crazy. You need help, Scarlett. Real help."
"I don't need help. I need you gone." She reached into her jacket pocket. "I need you to understand what it means to lose everything."
Ice flooded my veins. "Scarlett, if you have a gun—"
"A weapon?" She laughed, the sound manic. "Oh, Brook. I do not require a weapon to kill you. I already did."
She took out her phone and pushed a button. "You see, while you were coming over here, my attorney was filing motions. "And can I use the term 'insufficient evidence' to get out of unjust detentions and for a motion to dismiss." Addisons recording is out of question, because she secretly recorded me. Illegal in this state."
"What?"
"And that tablet with the live feeds? Chloe took it when she ran. Destroyed it. No evidence." Scarlett's smile was venomous. "But here's the best part. I filed a restraining order on you and your professor. Said you've been me harassing, stalking, threatening me since the warehouse. And I have people that will swear to it."
"That's insane! No one will believe."
"Won't they? Poor Scarlett, scarred by her stepsister's horrifying fling with a predatory professor. So afraid for her safety she had to file a lawsuit." She took a step closer. "The hearing is tomorrow. And when I win and I will, you're the one who won't be able to come near me. You'll be the villain. And Professor Anderson? He's going to be fired for breaking the terms of his reinstatement by being here with you all today."
My mind raced. "You're bluffing."
"Am I?" She flashed me her phone screen legal documents, official stamps, a court date set for nine AM tomorrow. "Check your email. You've been served."
As all the guys were doing crazy ass shit earlier this night everyone was horny as fuck and my dick thump on his arm too. There it was. Notice of a hearing for a protection order. Scarlett Miller vs. Brooklyn Miller and Daniel Anderson.
"This is insane," I breathed.
"This is justice." Scarlett's smile was triumphant. "You wanted to play games? You wanted to destroy me? Now watch as I destroy you. Legally. Systematically. And there's nothing you can do.
She rose and turned to go, but stopped. "Oh, and Brook? I hope you said goodbye to your professor." "Because after tomorrow, you will never see him again."
She giggled and walked away, laughter bouncing off the walls of the park.
I was still, staring at the legal notice that burned in my hand. She'd outmaneuvered us. Without revealing anything physical, she'd managed to win: again.
Daniel stepped forth from his place of concealment, with pale face. "Please tell me you got that on tape."
I pulled out my phone where it had been recording in my pocket. "Every word."
"Then we fight this. We get a lawyer, we."
His phone rang. He replied, listened, his face paling further.
"What?" I demanded when he hung up. "What is it?"
"That was Dean Morrison." His voice was hollow. "Someone sent him the picture of us from in your dorm room. He wants to see me him tomorrow, morning." He gazed at me with a defeated expression.
"I'm gonna get fired, Brooklyn. And we can't do anything to stop it."