Page 33 of Among the Screaming Trees

“Jack!”

“What?”

“We’ve got a problem.”

He arches a brow, but his expression remains neutral. “Continue…”

“The email from Grundy this morning about a stalker sighting near the dormitory.”

“Are you worried about her safety? Because we agreed the best place to keep her safe was here, away from all the shit and out of Colorado.”

“I’m always worried about her safety,” I add, running my fingers through my hair in a motion that makes it stick up at odd angles. Any longer and I’d look like Jackson. “I went to her dorm last night.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he seethes. “Why? The stalker sighting was probably you!”

“Keep your voice down. I needed to see her. I crept in through her window. Don’t worry, I had gloves and the Larch mask on.”

“Oh, then. Why didn’t you say! That makes everything perfectly fine.” Sarcasm drips from him like nectar. Asshole. Jack had her first.

“Finished with the snark, Doctor?”

He huffs out breath through his nostrils. I guess that’s a no. “Look. I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been craving her smell, her touch. I thought I’d sneak in and watch her sleep.”

“Not creepy at all. Continue…”

“I don’t have to. I can keep this to myself and leave this squalid fucking space. Fuck knows I don’t even want to sit down for fear of contracting some exotic disease.”

He glares at me. A litany of insults is poised on the tip of his tongue, but he’s too proud to let a single one fall. He wants to know everything. “I snuck in and watched her sleep for a moment. Just studied her face and chest rise and fall as she slept. But she woke up disoriented. I didn’t want her to freak out, so I shushed her and held her hand.”

“Again, not creepy at all. Didn’t she recognize your voice, Professor?”

He’s goading me. I know it; he’s reveling in it. Not today. “I only whispered. She was drowsy; there is no way she would have recognized my voice.”

He sits up straight. “So, she’s sound asleep in her bed, all cozy. Then some asshole in a fucking mask creeps through her window and tells her to be quiet when she wakes up in a panic from said masked asshole being in her room in the middle of the night? Have I missed anything?”

I don’t respond. He looks at me, not daring to blink. I stare back, focused.

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Run her a bath and read a bedtime smut story. What the fuck do you think I’m asking?”

When I say nothing further, his weight shifts. He steeples those thick fingers under his chin. “You are such a bastard.”

My ire bubbles. “Why? You’ve been in there. Repeatedly.”

“That was different. She came back to my place willingly. We had multiple rounds of consensual sex facing each other.”

“I was facing her!”

“You can be such a cunt sometimes. This isn’t a joke. She isn’t a joke. She’s all we have left, and you couldn’t control your urges, had to go sneak into a student dormitory, masked, and fuck her. Is it any wonder someone called in a sighting? I should dob you in myself!”

“You wouldn’t dare!” My ire is no longer bubbling; it’s full blown.

“Of course I wouldn’t. Jesus fucking Christ, that you would even consider I’d do that is insulting. How far back do we go? And why?”

He bristles, and I regret my words. Jackson Bonner is one of my oldest friends. He has my back, and I, his. He’s the most precious person in my life after Aspen Aldereyne. “As I was leaving, I saw some guy standing in the shadows near the rotunda. Not the building side with the security lights. I almost missed him, but I caught a flash of something silver in his hands while he was lurking. I believe it was Fox Muir. I want you to tell me if he’s going to be a problem.”