"No, you'd better hold me back, otherwise I'm going back for round two for that bitch. A slap isn't enough for her!"

"Actually, it left a pretty damn good mark. Her nails caught a bit of her cheek and she was bleeding when we left," Taylor filled Vera in, some of the fight leaving her as she looked at me triumphantly with pride shining in her eyes, but what I had done was nothing to be proud of. I'd laid hands on another human being...I'd stooped to his level.

And she was bleeding? I'd made Jenna bleed from a single slap? Maybe I was worse off than I thought, the demons inside of me festering and just waiting to pounce like I'd done to Jenna.

Those damn blue eyes flashed in my mind's eye and once again I felt the need to punch them straight out of her head, the cerulean irises squishing under my feet once I was done, but those images made the pot roast I'd eaten earlier in the night want to make a second appearance so I focused on something else, anything else...mainly Lachlan.

"And what were you doing there," Blythe asked her brother accusatorially, like he was the one to instigate the altercation in the first place, not the one who shut it down so quickly.

Lachlan shifted under her stare but didn't back down or look uncomfortable, always seeming on top of the situation.

"I heard screaming and came by to see our Kat here about to jump Jenna, so I grabbed her and brought her back here."

Taylor's eyes twitched in recognition of something as Lachlan spoke, but of what I wasn't sure. Everyone then turned their eyes to me as if to ask if that was true.

"Yeah, because I'm obviously not staying with her anymore," I said and everyone seemed happy with my answer.

"I can call my dad and ask if he can talk to the headmaster and get your room switched? If you want?"

"No. I'll talk to dad, Blythe."

Lachlan's voice held no room for arguments so she shut down and then when everything had been settled, Taylor and Lachlan walked out. I waited a few seconds before telling the girls I had dropped something from my bag on the way over, and dashed out of the room before they could argue with me.

He was waiting around a corridor when I came looking for him.

"Hey, are you okay?"

I didn't even have to reach for him, those arms enveloping me in his scent and strength that numbed those grim senses that always tried to throw me overboard.

"I'm fine, not sure I'm okay yet. Thank you for being there, for stopping me from...whatever it was I was about to do. I'm not usually like that, I've never put my hands on another person before."

"She deserved it, Kat, she was totally out of line. She has no idea what you're going through."

"Yeah, maybe not, but it still wasn't right what I did. I need to just stay away from her and Sloane, they trigger me way too much."

We stayed like that wrapped up in each other's arms, his hands drawing circles across my back that sent chills dancing up and down my spine from the contact. I had no idea what we were to each other, but that was okay.

He saved me from my mind, and that was everything I needed.

"Kat?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do you only let me call you that?"

My mouth quirked up in a sly smirk as I pulled back slightly to peer up into his eyes.

"I don't let you, you choose to call me that."

There was that grin that I'd grown to crave in the short time that we'd spent together.

"Yeah, but you bite everyone else's heads off when they try to call you that."

"I don't know. Don't push it, maybe I'll start biting your head off too."

He chuckled against me and I rested my head against his chest as we just stood there, breathing in each other's energies and presence.

"They're going to start thinking I dropped my entire earthly possessions in the hallway pretty soon and come looking for me," I told him reluctantly, not wanting the girls to find us in the position we were in.

"Tell me again why I'm your dirty little secret? Not that I mind all too much, maybe I just want to grab your hand in public, kiss you..."

My breath caught in my throat as I pulled back to regard him in a different light, expecting a joking smile on his face but what I found there was nothing but pure unhidden desire and want, need.

I gulped as his head dipped down low, so desperately close to my lips that they were tingling with the anticipation of what his would feel like crashing down upon my own.

I cursed Vera as she opened her door and shouted my name down the hallway looking for me.

"This isn't over, Kat," he told me all too seriously, that voice deep and dripping like sin. Before he slipped away he placed a gentle and lingering kiss on my forehead, the skin where his lips had been burning and stinging almost like how it felt before I had a panic attack, but this burning was all consuming and energized with lust and desire, a feeling I could definitely get used to devouring me whole.

And then he was gone in a blur, my body protesting as if he'd etched himself into my soul, making it physically painful to part ways with him. How I'd grown so accustomed to his presence in these few days, so dependent on him, I had no idea, but there was no going back, not anymore.

Blythe and Vera ushered me inside their dorm room just as I heard a scuffle out in the hallway and I tensed, wondering if it was Lachlan still leaving...or if someone had been listening to our very private conversation.

Slithers of fear shimmied up my back and I had to block out the insane idea that he'd already found me, infiltrated the school grounds and was spying on me with a boy. There was no way...

And yet before bed, I checked my phone incessantly, waiting for the notification that never came, except in my nightmares as I fell into a tumultuous sleep on the floor of Vera and Blythe's room, wishing desperately that I was in a cabin about a mile from the school, draped in the grey comforter while Lachlan held me against his chest and I fell asleep as he recited poems from Edgar Allen Poe.

***

A thick blanket of snow covered the ground as he snuck up behind me, his dark hair pulled into a low ponytail and his beard untrimmed, his clothing loose and ill fitting on his large, lanky body.

His scent permeated the air, the musk and odor of the man forcing a gag to claw its way up my throat, but still I didn't turn around.

"TURN AROUND!!!"

I was screaming at myself inside the nightmare, but I wouldn't listen, like I was trapped inside a bubble that couldn't see anything but what was right in front of me, and what was right in front of dream me was Lachlan.

His hands were around my waist, his lips on the side of my neck, and as I moaned out in pleasure, the evil man's hand struck out.

"NO!"

"Kat!"

The man lunged and went for Lachlan, but I jumped in the way and suddenly I had morphed into my birth mother, her beautiful features lining my face from the remnants of a photograph I'd once glimpsed of her.

She was absolutely gorgeous- all dark hair and skin, yellow brown eyes framed by thick black eyelashes, her face heart shaped and angular with high cheekbones.  If she smiled, there'd be lines pulled taut against her face and if she frowned, the indentations by her eyebrows would crease as she furrowed them.

"Stay away from her," my mother shouted at the evil man, and he only laughed haughtily at her, like there was nothing that she could do to keep him from me and Lachlan.

And then Lachlan stood in front of the man, his bravery shining through but it was nothing for the man who suddenly held a glistening silver knife in his hands.

"NOOOOO!"

I lunged in front of the knife, but it was too late, the silver coated in scarlet red lifeblood, my birth father holding it up in the air like a trophy for his amusement.

The tears trickled out of me like the blood out of Lachlan's body, and it was only when my birth father dropped the knife on the snowy ground, clumps of it melting where Lachlan's warm blood had coated it, did I grab it up and hold it in the air.

But he wasn't paying attention to me any longer. No, he was kneeling on my mother's back, her face pushed down in the bloody snow as he beat her down over and over again, Sloane, Holden, Jenna, and my adoptive parents in the background laughing maniacally as he ripped her clothes off and-

"Kate! Wake up!"

"No, Lachlan-"

"Wake up!"

The dream dissipated as I found myself face to face with Vera and Blythe both looking over me intently, their faces drawn and almost frantic, the fear seeping out of them as they realized that I'd finally come to my sense.

"Are you okay? You were screaming a lot..." Vera was the first one to speak and express her concerns.

"Yeah, was it a nightmare about Jenna? And Lachlan?"

I shook my head to clear out the images.

"Yeah, Jenna was in it but it wasn't really about her."

"Oh. Do you want to talk about it?"

I didn't really want to, but it would only cause more questions if I didn't.

"It was stupid. Just a dream that my father-" I cut myself off, knowing that the both of them would assume I was talking about my adoptive father, so I continued.

"My dad tried to kill me and Lachlan for some reason, and Jenna was just in the background laughing. It was pretty weird. I think I had too much sugar before bed," I joked, wanting to lighten the mood.

"Oh wow, that is pretty crazy. Why were you dreaming about Lachlan?"

"I don't know, maybe because he was there last night with the fight with Jenna?"

"Yeah, makes sense. Well did Mr. Randolph at least kill him? He needs a little punishment, even in your dream."

I shuddered as Blythe spoke so candidly about her brother's death, though I had a sinking feeling it was less of a dream and more of a warning.

"Yeah, he killed him."

"Hah. Serves him right! Okay, I have to get ready, I'm starving, and there's no way I'm going back to sleep after hearing Kate's screams," Vera said, shuddering in remembrance of them as if they were chilling enough to give even her nightmares.

Blythe merely patted me on the shoulder.

"It's okay, I used to get nightmares a lot too."

Yeah, like that made it any better, but I didn't tell her that as I grabbed my small bag of belongings and prepared for the day ahead, glad that we adhered to a dress code so I didn't have to worry about what I was wearing for the day.

Once dressed and ready to go, we all walked together to the breakfast buffet set up in the dining room, Blythe and Vera hand in hand.  It made me feel very single.

I was halfway through the line when Jenna bumped into me.

I rolled my eyes and continued on, not allowing her to shatter me any more than I already was. No, that privilege was granted to my biological father who chose that moment to blow up my social media account with countless likes and comments on my pictures and posts across multiple different platforms.

The phone was a stone block in my hand, a cement brick that was desperately begging to drag me down underneath the waters of pain and torment that undulated out before me in the ragged sea.

Well, any chance of my good mood was immediately snuffed out the moment I laid my head to sleep the night before, so why fight the grim realities I was faced with?

When Jenna shoved me, well I sure as hell shoved right back, showing her my teeth in a faux smile.

She rolled her annoyingly blue eyes and huffed, storming away to Sloane and Holden who were, thankfully, sitting at a different table. The more distance between us, the better.

I was about to throw up a victory sign when I noticed another person had deigned to join them as well, and it shouldn't have hurt me, but it did.

Especially when Lachlan didn't meet my eyes a single time during lunch...just what I wanted him to do, right?

Nope, that didn't hurt...not at all.