Say You’ll Stay

Chapter 1 – Vasey

Chapter One

VASEY

“ I know the bird isn’t going to heaven. I don’t believe in that, but at least he’ll be at peace, right?” Jasmine, my twelve-year-old charge, pushes a piece of sod down into the dirt. I help the girl to her feet.

“Yes.” Even if I believed otherwise, I’d lie to make this girl happy. I smooth down her golden hair. “This is a good place for him.”

Jasmine found the bird on the terrace this morning. The neck had been snapped and the body left there for her to find. She and I always are the first ones to have breakfast. Her father, Thomas Ware, is the only one who is up before us, and he eats breakfast in his office downtown. Jasmine’s stepmother, Roberta Franklin-Ware, doesn’t roll out of bed before nine as only the “poors” need to see the sunrise. She’s not wrong, just a classist narcissist. Yes, poor people see the sunrise because they’re either getting up to work their grueling jobs or coming home from working their grueling jobs. Only the indolent rich can sleep in every day.

As for Jasmine’s stepbrother, Gideon, he stumbles home in the early morning hours from whatever drug or alcohol, mostly both, dominated rager he attended. At sixteen, he’s on the fast track to destruction, but his mother is too afraid of him to intercede. Jasmine’s dad is busy tending to his empire. Plus, it’s obvious to everyone, including Gideon and Roberta, that the Ware patriarch does not care about Gideon.

He does love Jasmine in an absent-minded, open-wallet sort of way, but this enrages Gideon and Roberta even more. It would almost be better if Jasmine’s father despised everyone equally.

“Let’s go inside, sweetie. I think it’s going to rain.”

Jasmine wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and lets me lead her back into the mansion. The summer sun is starting its descent, and by the time we reach the back of the house, the outdoor lights have turned on and the cicadas have begun singing.

Kai, one of the staff members, holds the door open. “There’s a situation near the front,” he warns quietly as I pass by.

I nod in acknowledgment. “Jasmine, go upstairs and wash up. I’ll have dinner brought up. We can watch some Minecraft builds together.”

She sends me a grateful, watery smile. We part ways with her going upstairs and me heading toward the situation. I find Roberta and Gideon facing off.

“Going out?” Roberta steps toward her son, who is at the door. Every line of her body screams fear from her tightly clasped hands to her hunched shoulders and bowed head.

The sixteen-year-old stares down his newly healed nose. The surgery he got earlier in the summer has made it perfectly straight. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“The Academy’s entrance examinations are coming up, and I thought we could go over a few things.”

“You study it if it’s so important.”

“I can’t take the test for you.”

Gideon makes a face. “Figure it out.”

“If you take this one test, then your future is secured. The Academy has a 100 percent placement rate.”

Her son pulls the door open. “I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

“Every Ware has gone to Harvard, Gideon. You must get in.”

The cold in his eyes could freeze a battalion. “Buy my way in like everyone else does.”

The door slams shut. Roberta’s head falls even farther. I back away quietly. I don’t think Roberta will come after Jasmine tonight, but I can’t be sure. I wish I could pack her up and spirit her to a safe house away from Roberta and Gideon, but her father would hunt me down and kill me then. I do like my life.

Jasmine is pretending to study when I arrive at her room. The TV’s off, and the dinner tray is barely touched. “Hiding on the stairs again?”

She shrugs lightly, not a denial but not a confession either.

“If Roberta caught you, you’d be locked in here for a month,” I chide. The plate is cold to the touch. I take it to the little kitchenette that separates her suite from mine and reheat it.

When I return with the warm food, Jasmine is watching a Minecraft simulation. She hardly ever plays it, but she enjoys watching the videos. I don’t understand the appeal, but there are worse ways to spend an evening.

“I know he’s going to hurt me someday. That’s why I watch him.” She takes the tray from me without looking away from the screen. The nonchalant tone spears me. Her world is one where she assumes she’ll be harmed. I hate that. “Do you think the bird felt anything?”

“No. It’s a quick, painless death. I looked it up.” I’ve researched so many gruesome animal deaths that if anyone saw my browser history, I’d probably be locked up. It would be okay if I could get Gideon in there with me.

“That’s good.” She lapses into silence as she eats.

A few moments later, she says, “Will my death be quick and painless or will Gideon torture me?”

“He’s not going to lay a hand on you,” I say fiercely.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m here.”

She turns her head until her eyes meet mine. I hold her gaze steadily until she nods. “Okay.”

As she readies for bed, I clean up. The easiest thing would be to kill Gideon myself. I clench the table knife in my hand and try to envision myself stabbing him. I can’t do it. He’s still a child himself. A sixteen-year-old child with an ugly temper and a propensity for cruelty, but still a child.

I have dozens of photographs of animals he’s killed—mostly small creatures like birds and rats which the city has in abundance—but no actual proof that it’s him. Jasmine and I know that he’s the one behind it because he told her, the day after he moved in, that she’d better watch her back because he was going to take everything she has—her father, her family, her home. The first warning offering was a mouse left on her window sill, which means he crept in while she was sleeping and placed the animal there.

Jasmine woke up and screamed her head off. Her dad was home and came rushing in. I suggested it was planted. Thomas Ware called the exterminator. Three dead mice were discovered outside of Jasmine’s window in weird, contorted shapes. Ware believed this was the result of the exterminator, but Jasmine and I knew it was Gideon.

A week later, there was a family dinner. Gideon arrived first. Jasmine came second. I hovered outside the door, so I saw her jump up from the table, and something gray and small flew off in her direction. I heard Gideon laugh. When Ware arrived with Roberta, I had Jasmine in my arms. She was crying and stammering about a mouse on her plate, but the plate wasn’t empty. Instead, there was paté in the shape of a panda that wasn’t there before. Gideon said that Jasmine was seeing dead mice everywhere because of what happened earlier. Ware agreed, and the next day, a trauma therapist showed up.

Jasmine didn’t say a word in those sessions, though. Somehow, she knew that she would never be believed, and ever since then, I have been the only one she told when she found a dead animal near her room or around her belongings. And I knew I could never leave her after that. She’d never be safe alone.

“I’m sorry I’m holding you here.” Jasmine rubs her lips together and hugs her big, floppy bear close to her chest.

“I’m not. I love being here.” I shut out the memories of my past and focus on the present. I do love Jasmine. Ever since I pulled her from the ocean five years ago, I’ve loved her. She’s a precious, sweet child.

“You’re alone though. Even Daddy has somebody.”

That somebody being Roberta. He must have been lonely because why else would he hook his carriage to such a terrible human being? I guess she doesn’t look terrible to a man. She’s tall and blonde with a big rack, and despite being in her mid-thirties, she still looks dewy fresh. I should give Ware credit for marrying someone his age instead of a twenty-something model.

“I don’t think I’m meant to be with anyone, Jasmine. Some people are okay being alone. Plus, I’m not really alone. I have you.”

“Don’t you want a husband some day?”

I stroke her small head. “What’s brought this on? Why are you trying to marry me off?”

“I’m not. It’s just like, even in some of the Minecraft sims I watch, there are couples. You’ve never been a couple, Jasmine. Aren’t you lonely?”

“No.” I need to get out of here. I give her a swift kiss on the forehead. “Don’t stay up too late reading.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I try not to rush out, to make it look like she’s hit a nerve, but for some reason, her words are causing me to tear up. Yes, Jasmine, I’m lonely because I have been a couple before. I was one half of a perfect whole, and because of that, I will never be able to love another. I gave my heart to someone a long time ago, and even though he no longer loves me, he no longer wants my heart, it is still in his hands.

I close my bedroom door quietly and sink to the floor. That someone lives here in this city. He’s only a few miles away. I can’t text him, can’t reach out to him. I severed that connection long ago, and I don’t deserve to ask him for help. He probably hates me. Even if he doesn’t hate me, I know he’s moved on. I agonize about it, avoiding all society pages so I don’t have to read about who he’s seen with. I know he’s with someone. How could he not be? He’s too attractive—and now too rich—to be single. I try not to think about it but sometimes, particularly at night, it torments me. Images of him with another woman, him kissing another woman, him putting his hands and mouth on her body. Him sliding his cock inside of another woman’s sex. I cry out, the sound startling me in the silence of the room. I bite the back of my hand and reach between my legs with my free one.

I try to replace those bad images with the good memories that I’ve kept, ones that I’ve tended carefully and revive again and again even though I know they’re bad for me. The ones where we were young and dumb but so, so eager. He would do anything with me. He loved my body. He brought it to life.

I rub myself slowly at first, remembering the feel of his rough fingers, the inexperienced but eager exploration. We were each other’s firsts in every way. He learned everything I liked. How the friction against my sex needed to be hard and fast, and that he could make me come just by rubbing me, even through my clothes. He took advantage of that, by getting me off in theaters and at restaurants.

Once he even did while he was driving. We were going to the shore, over three hours away. I’d gotten bored and horny from watching him drive. There had always been this innate sexiness about him. He handled himself with such confidence, even back then when we were teens, that I didn’t have much control when I was alone with him. That time, I slipped off my panties and braced my heels against the dash and fingered myself. He swore and reached across the console and pushed my hand away. His long fingers replaced mine, and it wasn’t just one, but three that thrust inside me. I pinched my clit while he fucked me with his hand. Never did he take his eyes off the road despite my shuddering and crying in the seat next to him.

The moment we arrived at the shore, he was on me. He hauled me into the back seat, tearing at his jeans so hard that the metal button popped off. He slammed into me and came about two seconds later. Sweat dripping off his forehead, he pressed his nose against mine and said, “Never ever fucking do that again. It’s not safe, and I only have so much self-control.”

He hitched up his jeans, hauled me out of the car, and dragged me down to the beach. I hadn’t come, but he made me sit there and eat subs and chips while I was a mass of nerves and want.

He was right, though. It was unsafe, so I took my punishment silently or what I thought was silent. When the sun set and the shoreline grew dark, he drew me under him. “You suffering, baby girl?”

“Yes.” I wasn’t ashamed to admit to that. I pushed at his T-shirt, hungry for contact. My whole body was quivering.

“You were testing me today.” His hands slid under the elastic of my swimsuit bottom.

“The car ride was boring,” I whined.

“So you decided that you’d touch yourself and make me sit there when I couldn’t do anything.”

His hand hovered over my sex. Every time I raised my hips, he’d lift his hand higher. I couldn’t make any contact.

“West, please.”

“You put yourself in danger, baby. I can’t have that.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Please, please make me come.”

For a moment, he hesitated but he couldn’t hold out because he loved me so. He slid into me gently, but after the first few strokes he lost control. I loved it when that happened. His face would grow taut and his grip hard. I never felt so secure and loved than when he was thrusting inside of me, chanting my name between promises to love me forever.

I move my hand faster and faster, imagining that it’s his fingers between my legs, his hand squeezing my breast. He loved me. Loved me so much that I left him. I come with bitter tears on my lips. I have no right to reach out to him, no right to call him, no right to ask him for help.

I wash my hands and face, pull the nightgown over my head, and take my sleeping pill.