sakura
No.
This can’t be happening. Not after yesterday in his office.
“I need to be getting home,” I said, stepping back toward my door.
“Girls like you shouldn’t be out so late,” Vaughn hummed. “It’s almost midnight. There are bad men who lurk around these streets at night. God forbid, someone might take advantage of a pretty schoolgirl like you.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“My dad is waiting for me,” I whispered, fucking terrified.
Where the hell is Callan when I need him?! Like yesterday, when Vaughn had touched my breasts in his office. And now, after Vaughn had apparently followed me to the Overlook to do God only knew what to me.
Tears welled up in my eyes. Why did Callan give me that damn head?! To prove to me that he’d do anything for me? Well, I goddamn believed him now. I would never ever, ever question that again.
I just hoped I’d get a chance to question it again and that Vaughn didn’t fucking kill me here.
“Sakura!” someone called from behind.
And for a split moment, I thought Callan had come to rescue me. Or Kai had magically somehow learned out that I needed to dispose of a head and found me down by the beach. Hell, even Akio would do at this point. I needed someone because Vaughn was creeping me the fuck out.
When I gazed behind me, Gunther jogged up to us. My eyes nearly bulged out of my head. Isn’t he supposed to be in the hospital, recovering from a damn gunshot wound?! Why did they let him leave so soon?
“Gunther,” I whispered.
As much as I didn’t love the guy, he was saving me from this creep.
Still dressed in a hospital gown, he hobbled up to us while clutching his stomach and grimaced at Vaughn. “What the fuck are you doing here with him?” he asked me, lips curled in utter disgust.
I cowered behind Gunther’s tall and scrawny figure, heart pounding. I didn’t know how the hell he would protect me from Vaughn, especially after he had just left the hospital, but I needed to put space between me and the principal.
“You haven’t been in school,” Vaughn said. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You shouldn’t be here with an eighteen-year-old girl,” Gunther said, eyeing him. “Someone might get the wrong idea and think you were trying to take advantage of the senior class’s valedictorian. Wouldn’t want that, would we?”
Vaughn clenched his jaw, teeth gritted. “Gunther,” he warned.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Gunther growled. “You pedophile piece of shit.”
“Mr. Zurn,” Principal Vaughn said sternly, “I could have you expelled for that.”
Gunther slammed his fist into Vaughn’s face and pushed me back. “Leave.”
Vaughn grabbed his jaw, then straightened himself out and walked back to his car. In a moment, he started the ignition and drove off into the late night, away from the Overlook and back toward the heart of Redwood.
“What-what are you doing here?” I asked, eyes wide.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“B-but you were in the hospital, unconscious. They let you leave?”
“They didn’t let me do anything,” he said. “But I had shit to do.”
“Gunther?! You could be hurt!”
“That piece of shit paid for my medical bills,” he snapped suddenly, grinding his teeth together.
“Who paid for your medical bills?” I asked, glancing at Vaughn’s taillights in the distance.
“Avery.”
My eyes widened. “Callan paid for your medical bills?”
“Yeah, and I’m going to fucking kill him for it,” he growled. “Where is he?”
I highly doubted that Gunther had insurance, so that meant that Callan had offered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for Gunther’s bills. Sure, it was most likely dead Jett’s money—definitely not from a teacher’s salary—but … damn.
Damn, he fucking cared about me. He loved me. He’d really do anything for me.
I need to find him. Now.
“He should’ve fucking left me dead,” Gunther said, stumbling—probably from the loss of blood. He should’ve stayed in the damn hospital until he healed completely. “I hate this fucking town, my life.”
I caught him and sat him down in my car. “You don’t mean that,” I whispered. My chest tightened. “Please, tell me that you don’t mean that. Redwood is shit, but you can always leave once we graduate. Hell, you can leave now if you want.”
“I have fucking nobody here. I was trying to protect you from the damn sex ring going on in Redwood, and my teacher fucking shot me,” he said. “I would rather be fucking dead than live another day in this damn place.”
“I told him to save you,” I whispered. “Callan was protecting me.”
Gunther’s lower lip twitched. “I don’t get it. What do you see in him?”
“He cares about me,” I said softly, leaning against my car and staring out into the sea.
“He cares about you or getting in a young girl’s pants?”
“He cares about me,” I said with certainty.
While, on the outside, Gunther might’ve thought Callan wanted me because he was some sick pervert, I knew that it wasn’t that. I had felt it, experienced it. I wasn’t just falling into some trap, like immature girls my age did with older men.
Callan … cared about me.
If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have killed Jett–and he had to have killed Jett, if he gave it to me for a freaking present. If he didn’t care, he would’ve used up my pussy the other night and not begged me to let him talk. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have lain in the back of his car with me while it poured outside, reading literature to me.
Smutty literature, but still beautiful words that had made me feel things.
“You have to believe me,” I whispered. “It’s not weird.”
“You’re fucking a teacher at our high school,” Gunther said. “How is it not weird?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. I didn’t have time to fight with him about this. I needed to figure out a way to get rid of this damn head and find Callan. Why the hell hadn’t he returned my calls yet?! It had been almost two hours.
“I’ll explain it later,” I whispered. “Right now, I have … someone’s head in the back of my car that I need to get rid of! Can you help me dispose of it?”