Caspian

My brother Kai had a knack for terrorising people, and his business in the town had played in my favour.

I had roped him in for threatening Rhys Cornell and he hadn’t put up a fight either, perhaps because of how much he loved scaring teenagers.

Half an hour later, Rhys walked out of the room trembling, no- shaking to the core, sort of hugging himself. I was no sadist, but his pain made me smile.

He deserved it.

I gave him a tense, sinister smile, before escorting him to out of my house. I had asked Lara to let me deal with him, and she’d agreed immediately.

It was better to wrap it up easily without anyone having to go to court a dozen times.

Kai came out of the room a minute after, fixing his cufflinks. “No blood on the shirt? I am surprised?”

“I don’t torture kids,” he replied simply, but he didn’t meet my eyes. I eyed him, trying to figure out what was wrong.

“Shocker,” I spoke and he went to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of scotch in his hands. “Are you okay, Kai?” I asked him, but he didn’t spare me a glance. He poured the contents in two glasses and handed one to me. “Kai?”

He finally looked at me before drowning the drink in his hand. “Let me know if something else comes up. With January,” he added, before speedwalking to the door.

He seemed suspiciously concerned about January. There was no way he could’ve known about her, yet he knew her name from just her parents’ names. He had agreed to help her without asking for anything in return.

And if that wasn’t suspicious enough, his timing definitely was.

I put a tracker on his car when he was with Rhys to know exactly what sort of business he had in the town.

I opened my phone, and found him driving towards my apartment, and it took me a moment to realize where he was actually headed towards. I got into my car and trailed him, breaking red to catch up with him as fast as I could.

His location stopped in front of January’s house and I stopped the car right around the corner, walking the rest of the way.

The door of the car opened, but there was a moment of pause before Kai exited the car.

He strode towards the gate and unbuttoned his jacket before reaching out his hand to press and doorbell and hesitating and I had never seen Kai hesitate before in his life.

He fixed his tie once before pressing the doorbell. Audible footsteps came from inside the house and there was shuffling before the door unlocked, but right before someone could open it, Kai moved aside, hiding himself.

It looked like a split-second decision from the way his chest was rising and falling.

January’s voice came as she called out sleepily, “Who’s it?” I hadn’t heard it all day long because of how stubborn she’d been about dodging me.

Something eased inside me at the sound of her voice, making me smile to myself and revelling in it for a moment before redirecting my attention to the issue at hand.

January closed the door after a few seconds and locked it again, and I waited to hear her retreating footsteps before striding towards where Kai was hiding himself.

“What the fuck is going on?” I heard myself ask in a voice that I wasn’t sure belonged to me.

Kai gave me look, but didn’t bother to answer and closed the distance between himself and his and proceeded to open the door but I slammed it shut back again.

“What is going on, Kai?”

“Nothing is going on,” he replied shortly. “Now if you’ll excuse me,”

“Why did you come here?”

“To see if that girl was worth the trouble,”

I didn’t stop him again. I was aware that he wasn’t being honest, but I knew him well enough to know that extracting information from him wasn’t easy by any means.

He detached the tracker from the hood of the car and flung it to the dirt on the sidewalk before getting into his car and driving away. I turned my gaze back to January’s house to find her looking at me through the window, but as soon as our eyes met, she slid the curtains and disappeared.

A horrible realization crashed upon me. January was afraid of me. She believed that I was going to hurt her, thought that I was some crazy stalker.

I was a crazy stalker, but I would never hurt her, and I wasn’t crazy in the literal sense. I was crazy because of her, because of how she made me feel, because of the way her voice made me relax and made my head feel guarded.

But she’d assumed the worst. She’d even gone to the student counsellor and had asked to drop biology and stop the tutoring.

Lucky for me, she was stuck with biology for the rest of the quarter, but she could drop the tutoring. She didn’t even come by herself to inform me that, she asked the counsellor to tell me.

As much as offended I was, I sort of understood. I should’ve broken the news more gently, more subtly, and in a less creepy way, but I lost my senses often when it came to that girl.

***

January spent the next week beautifully ignoring me. She became the last one to come to the class and the first one to leave. Every time I tried to talk to her, she ran away, not even being discrete about it. I knew that January hated being impolite, but apparently, she had started to hate me more.

But her hate held no candle to her desire for me. Every fraction of a second of an eye-contact we had made her uneasy, but not in the uncomfortable way, but in a way that awoke something forbidden inside her.

I was her teacher and she liked me.

I was her stalker, and deep down, it pleased her, amused her even.

But she was too ashamed of herself to be able to admit it out loud, so, she pretended even to herself that she hated it. That she hated me.

And I let her little denial go on for two weeks, until I found a guy named Jake asking her out for a dance that was in a few weeks.

I understood the concept of giving space, but the concept of giving up? No, that was beyond my grasp.

After shooing him away, I turned to January only to find her gone.

I needed an excuse to talk to her. I needed something.

A malicious thought came to my mind and despite my efforts, I failed to push it aside.

I couldn’t do that to her.

But there wasn’t anything else that would make her come talk to me.

I went into my office and found her paper. I had gone through it thrice and had found it flawless, better than anything I had ever read, yet despite that, I reached for my red pen and gave her a C minus.

It wasn’t the right thing to do, yet I couldn’t stop myself. She’d have to talk to me if she wanted to up her grade, and I could use that as my chance to explain everything to her.

I was blocked everywhere by her. I couldn’t very well show up to her doorstep without scaring her further, and I didn’t trust her to not call the police.

It would make sense if she did, and it would be a whole lot of trouble to get through and my impunity would also scare her more.

There was no other way, no.

That night, like the others, I watched her through my balcony. Her curtains were drawn, windows closed, but she was still awake despite it being two in the morning.

She hadn’t been able to sleep lately. I think I part of her is scared that I will try to kidnap her or something when she’s asleep.

It hurt me to see her like that, compromising her physical wellbeing and mental health out of fear of me.

I had to put a stop to that, and there were only two ways to do that: putting myself out of her vicinity, or explaining everything up and pushing deep inside it.

I was a selfish bastard, so, I chose the latter.

The next day, I personally gave back the graded papers to see January’s expression, but she took one look at the paper before turning away, not looking at me at all.

I found moisture building in the corner of her eyes and felt as if I was being strangled, but didn’t say anything.

She’d ask me to change her grade. She had to.

But, the way she put it in her bag showed exactly how quickly she’d come to terms with it.

I gulped as the realisation hit me.

She wasn’t going to fight it. She hated me so much that she didn’t want to claim her days of hard work if it meant talking to me.

I had to go. I had to give her space, had to let her come to terms with it without shoving myself in her face. I had to move away, or at least leave her school.

I made the decision to move away and hand in my resignation the following week during that day, and planned to move back to England for a few months.

Just long enough to put her at ease.

I was almost done, when my phone rang, and I looked to find Torry, January’s guard, calling and he’d been ordered to only call me during emergencies.

“What happened?” I asked, my gut answering that for me. I jumped to my feet and grabbed my keys as fast as I could, before he could even answer.

“It’s January,” came Kai’s voice from the other end.

January

I assessed my paper for the hundredth time before leaving it on my table. There was no logical reason why he’d give me a C minus, unless, he wanted to provoke me or tempt me into talking to him.

Either ways, I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction.

I climbed down the stairs to the kitchen to find some food. I had to be extra careful so as to not make a sound since my mother was in her room, ‘focusing’.

The best to avoid getting beaten up by my mom was by pretending I didn’t exist. If I didn’t make a sound, didn’t get in her way, then I wouldn’t become the outlet of her anger.

Years of living with them and that was what I had concluded. They weren’t going to change, so, I had to adapt, and like the evolutionary theory said, ‘survival of the fittest’. 

I poured a glass of milk in the blender before adding a special coffee brew in it. Mom’s room was far enough from the kitchen so, unless she was trying, she wouldn’t hear the noise.

I hoped she wouldn’t.

I added some chocolate syrup, some chocolate biscuits, a scoop of chocolate brownie icecream and chocolate chips before shredding some chocolate over it just because.

I was just a little girl with her needs.

I was one sip deep when I heard my mother’s footsteps, and from sixteen years of experience, I knew they weren’t her ‘happy footsteps’.

She was pissed as fuck from the sound of it.

I contemplated running from the back door in the kitchen, only to realize that instead of coming down, she was going upstairs.

I pushed her to the back of my head before finishing the milkshake/smoothie/chocolate overdose.

I climbed the stairs back up to my room only to find the door wide open. And my mother on my bed. With my C minus paper in her hands.

Fucking fuck.

“Mom,” I called out in a small voice, and my mother turned around at a chilling pace. The anxiety kicked in, and my heart rate jumped to cross a hundred.

I cursed under my breath slightly, taking in my mother’s viscious gaze. She looked enraged. Not the kind she usually did when she was upset with me, it was worse.

Way worse.

“Come here, January,” came her detached, freezing voice. I couldn’t resist her command, so, I slowly walked towards her. “What is this?”

“I don’t know why he gave me this grade. I deserve more, I swear, there’s been some mistake. I’ll talk to him, I am sure-” my mother cut me off with a slap to my cheek.

I bit my lip to hold in my cry and fixed my gaze to the floor. “Stop making fucking excuses!” she shouted, delivering another slap to my cheek before grabbing me by the hair.

Tears pricked my eyes, and decided to be traitors and leave my eyes. I switched my object of attention and looked at her straight in the eyes.

“You are a fucking disappointment, you know that?”

“Mom-”

“Shut up! Don’t call me mom!” she shouted, punching me in my already aching ribs. “You were good at one thing and I get a call from your school counsellor that you want to leave that thing and she tells me you got a C minus! A fucking C minus!” another punch, this time making me yelp. “You are no daughter to me, you are just a disappointment. I wish I had aborted you!”

“You know what mom?” I snap, for the first time in my life. “I wish you had aborted me!”

She snarled, before punching me in the face so hard that I was certain I was going to black out.

She punched me again and again before saying, “I hadn’t killed you back then. Maybe I should do it now,”

Using my hair to pull me, she dragged me out to the balcony, fate playing in her favor with the glasses being over. She pressed me against the railing, and I tried to fight, but my head seemed to be skipping my requests.

My mom lifted me up with ease and pushed me.

I looked at the dark sky and thought, I wouldn’t die because of a fall from the first floor, right?

Right?

My back collided with the ground too soon and was instantly joined by my head. I groaned slightly trying to scream as the pain kicked in, but nothing left my mouth.

“January,” a strong masculine voice came from my right. It had a rough texture with concern dripping from it. For a second, I wondered whether I had imagined it because of the strong, familiar accent, but that wasn’t possible. I hadn’t lost enough blood to hallucinate. “I got you, sweetheart,” came the voice again and I felt him gently lift my head and pull me into his lap.

The moonlight casted a soft glow on his face, barring his features to me. In the dim light, I managed to make out eyes as dark as our surroundings, and crush the hope of the saviour being Caspian.

The shock finally kicked in before I could get to the other details, and I passed out in his arms, something inside me feeling safe there.

***

I woke up in the hospital bed, injured for the hundredth time that year, but this time, it was more severe than the others.

I quickly noticed someone sitting on the couch near me, with his head in his hands. It took me a moment to realize that it was none other than my saviour, the man who’d discovered my unmoving form in my house.

“You’re awake,” came his posh yet unruly voice and I finally took it upon myself to notice other features of his. He had jet black hair with a muscled and well-built frame. He had thin bright lips, and looked like he was in his mid-twenties. He was in a suit, one that screamed ‘money’.

“Hi,” came my quivering voice.

“I am Kai,” he spoke, looking at me in the eye. There was something about that gaze, it was as if he couldn’t look at me for enough time and with enough intensity. It was as if I was a flower and he wanted to unfurl my petals one by one, and see what was inside, and get to know me intimately.

“I am January,” came my small voice. I cleared my throat, only to realise that there was nothing there. It was only me and my fear.

“Hello, January,” the name rolled off his lips in a practiced manner, as if he’d spoke it over and over again, which in a way made sense since I was named after a month, but the way he said it, it didn’t sound like that. He, by no means, sounded like he was naming a month.

He sounded like he was addressing someone familiar, someone he’d known forever, and for a second I wondered whether I had lost my memories and had known him all along. “I will call the doctor,” he informed me, before gracing me with a smile so comforting, that my heart’s pace visibly settled on the monitor.

He smiled wider at that before getting to his feet and leaving the room and I could swear that I heard him mumble ‘January’ to himself.

A few minutes later, the doctor came in with Kai and performed some tests before checking my vitals. He told me that luckily I hadn’t broken anything but my ribs had gotten bruised and that some scars might not disappear for good.

That was okay. I didn’t mind a few scars, what I was afraid of was my mother. How she’d come in and try to kill me. Try to finish what she started.

“Caspian Grey is outside,” Kai told me in a soft voice. “He wishes to see you. Should I let him in?”

I considered it for a second before nodding. I might not have known Kai at all, but I had a weird feeling that I could trust him. That he wouldn’t let me get hurt.

I nodded and Kai opened the ward’s door and Mr Grey entered. He looked the most casual and ruffled that I had ever seen him look. His hair wasn’t combed properly and he was still in a suit, but he’d ditched the coat, and had opened the first few buttons of the shirt and had rolled up the sleeves of it as well.

There were dark circles under his eyes and he looked like hell, yet upon seeing me, he smiled. He smiled before rushing to me and stroking my cheek gently, as if to make sure that he hadn’t conjured me up out of lack of sleep.

“You’re okay,” he spoke, more to himself before approaching me with careful steps.