Tarnished Vow: A Student Teacher Forbidden Dark Romance (Boys of St. Augustine Book 2)

by R Holmes

  My hand goes to my shoulder and comes back with bright, red blood, and then my vision goes fuzzy. Black spots dance, and I look towards Presley who's struggling to her feet. Once she stands, he stands opposite of her, a sickening smile on his face.

  Whatever deranged fucking world he lived in, he held hope Presley would still love him.

  Anyone who loved Presley was a fool to wish they'd ever stop.

  Using all the strength I have left inside of me, I stand shakily, swaying with the movement, and the moment his eyes lock with mine he realizes, I'm not giving up until I'm dead. He raises the gun towards me, but before he can fire, Presley charges him, all five feet of fury, and knocks him to his feet.

  The last thing I see is the gun skidding from his grip, and Presley beneath him, his hands wrapped around her throat. Then… the world goes black.

  27

  Presley

  People talk about out of body experiences, and when you hear it you think of someone gaining otherworldly strength. Accomplishing something they wouldn't in another given moment. And after today, I can say with absolute certainty that I have experienced a true out of body experience.

  Fear does things to people. Everyone reacts differently, in their own way, using their own defense mechanisms when they're scared. It's the body's natural reaction to "fight or flight."

  I've spent the past year of my life running scared. Letting that fear control me, change me, turn me into someone I didn't even recognize. This man, this evil vile man, used that fear as a weapon to control my every move.

  I've been running scared ever since.

  And the fear I felt when he pointed the gun at the one person I loved truly more than I love myself, I snapped. I no longer gave a shit about myself. All I could see was Sebastian.

  Everything happened so quickly I barely blinked and the shots rang out. Sebastian fell next to Rory, both of them in a bloodied heap on the floor of the chapel. It robs my lungs of air. My head pounds from the force of hitting the corner of the podium, but I push past it. Sebastian rises to his feet, and sways when he fully stands. The blood drips from his shoulder at an alarming rate, and I realize that I have to be the one to save Sebastian, not the other way around.

  This is the only chance I’ll have to save the man that I love.

  I charge forward, knocking Eric from his feet with strength I didn’t even know I possessed until this moment. I don’t even feel the impact of my hit, but together we fall. He wrestles me to my back, and his hands wrap tightly around my throat. I can’t breathe. The void, lifeless eyes that I used to cower in fear from staring back and oddly, I no longer feel afraid, even as he tries to stop my breathing.

  I reach up, and dig my nails into his eyes. He screams, letting go of my neck momentarily, enough time for me to knee him as hard as I can in the nuts. When he doubles over in agony, clutching himself, I scramble away from him, diving for the gun.

  The cool bite of the metal against my fingertips kicks my heart into overdrive. I grip the gun so tightly my knuckles turn white as I turn around to face him, pointing the gun directly between his eyes. My hand shakes, violently, but I know better than to drop the gun. If I do, we’re all dead.

  Eric rises to his feet in pain, but gives me a dark, menacing smile. One meant to demean me. The same one he used each and every time his fist struck my face. A fucked up sense of foreboding wraps around the room like a blanket of despair.

  "Ah love, you're not going to hurt me. So, why don't you put the gun down?" He takes a step towards me and I pull the cock back.

  "Don't move, Eric. I will shoot you if you move another fucking inch." The tears streaming down my cheeks blur my vision, but I never move the gun. I point it at his head and leave my finger on the trigger, ready to pull it.

  Did I want him to die?

  I thought so. Every night I laid in bed so scared that even the smallest noise would send me into a full blown panic attack. I've thought about this day for a year. What would happen if he ever found me?

  Did I want to hurt him for what he's done to me?

  I thought so.

  Until now I'm standing in front of him with his life in my hands. I didn't want to have his death on my conscience, I didn't want any of this. But I was left with no choice.

  "Please stop, Eric, I don't want to do this, please don’t make me do this." I'm crying, the tears hot and heavy stain my cheeks. I was begging the same man who tried to kill me, to leave me be so I wouldn't be forced to pull the trigger.

  "You’re fucking pathetic, Ella. Oh, wait, I mean Presley that’s the name you’re going by now, right? You have always been so pathetic. It’s the one thing I've always loved about you. So easy to bend, so fucking easy to manipulate. You thought you could run? You’ll never escape darling. I’ll always be here, hiding, waiting to pounce when you least expect it. You’ll never be safe, and you’re a fool to ever think you can run."

  His words pierce me, slicing me into pieces.

  When he charges for me, I don't even give myself a moment to breathe. I pull the trigger. Over, and over. I pull the trigger until he falls. One shot after another.

  The shots ring out in the chapel, a symphony of despair only meant for the broken hearted. And once it's over, the gun falls from my shaking hands at my feet, and I sink to the floor and crawl to Sebastian, pulling him into my arms. I glance at Rory who's on his side, unmoving.

  Oh God, Rory. I feel in Sebastian's pocket for his phone and pull it out. His eyes never open, and all I can do is sob. I tremble as I dial nine one one. When she comes on the phone, I just scream, "I need help, we need help!"

  I can't lose him, I can't live a life where Sebastian doesn't exist. I don't exist without him.

  "Please Sebastian, please," I cry, clutching his handsome head in my hands. Blood pools around us both from his shoulder, and I press my fingers to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding with pressure.

  "We're at St. Augustine Catholic School. The chapel, there's been a shooting and two students are injured. Please hurry, please," I beg. I hear the operator's soothing voice through the speaker but it doesn't reach me. I can't see past the absolute fear that Sebastian is going to die in my arms, and the fact that I can't save them both.

  I’m sobbing so hard, it’s hard to breathe, but I press harder against the wound on his shoulder, praying to whoever, to God, to anyone who will listen, to save him. I sob over Sebastian's unmoving body for what feels like hours, but in reality is probably only minutes moving so slowly it's surreal. The doors burst open and police fly through, guns drawn, all pointed towards us until they realize it’s over. It’s all over. The damage is done. Uniformed EMS run through the door behind a stretcher on wheels, and then Sebastian is wrenched from my arms.

  Suddenly time moves faster. The second he's no longer in my arms, I can't keep up with the people flying in and out of the room. I can't focus my eyes on anything, on anyone.

  "He's coding! Paddles!" Someone yells in the foyer, directly where they’ve brought both of them.

  "Sebastian," I scream, running towards the door. “Sebastian!” I cry over and over, an officer grabs me by the waist, holding me back.

  “Ma’am, you can’t go through there, I’m sorry.”

  I fight against his hold, thrashing, trying to break free and go to Sebastian. All my rationality has left, the only thing in my heart pure fear, pulling me under.

  "He can’t die. He can’t!" The tears pour as the officer holds me, letting me sob, until finally Alec, Rhys, and Ezra enter through the side door, almost wrenching it from the frame.

  “Pres!” Alec says as he runs towards me, and pulls me into his arms. He holds me while the tears fall, as Rhys talks to the officer and Ezra looks so tortured, my heart breaks even more inside my chest.

  The moment feels unreal. It can't possibly be happening, and yet it is. Ezra joins Alec and I, wrapping his arms around us both. Together we stand, heartbroken and hollow, but more united than ever.

  The wait
ing room of the hospital is the worst place to be when you're skating on the edge of life and death. It's sterile, unwelcoming, cold to the touch. The last place you want to be as you await to find out if the one you love makes it through.

  Rhys, Ezra, Alec, and I sit in the hard chairs. Stoic, unmoving, and numb to the blinding fluorescent lights above us. Sebastian's mom came and went, only staying for a moment after having his father removed from the premises with a restraining order in hand, where the ink still wasn't dry. Their fight was ugly, and embarrassing, and it seemed like neither of them were as concerned with Sebastian as they were with saying vile, hateful things to the other.

  Sebastian and Rory both have been in surgery for hours, and we still haven't been updated.

  All I can hear in my head is the paramedic screaming, "He's coding." Over and over on a never-ending loop. The words penetrate my heart deeper and deeper each time I replay them.

  I can't let my mind wander to whether or not Sebastian will make it. Because he will. He was too strong and too resilient to leave me, leave us.

  His friends sit on each side of me, Alec with his head bowed into his hands, and Rhys staring at the double doors without blinking, as if he could open them the longer that he stared. Ezra running his hands down his face, trying to hold on for his brothers. We’re coping the only way we can.

  I watch the second hand of the clock tick.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  My body felt numb in the worst way. I didn't want to face what had happened and what I had done. I watched as they zipped his body in a body bag. Afterwards, a detective questioned me for an hour. I told her everything, start to finish. And the look in her eye told me that she understood. I killed my abuser, and it was only after he shot two people I loved and would have shot me. My head needed two stitches, and my eye was swollen shut from his hand, but I was alive. I was breathing.

  And he would have killed me, without a doubt. It helped that I had saved hundreds of photos to my cloud account as evidence of his abuse. She said I would be called if she had any further questions, and if she did, I'd answer whatever it took to paint the picture of a United States Senator being the world’s most insane psychopath. He was evil.

  Shortly after Alec has fallen asleep from exhaustion, and Rhys has taken to pacing back and forth from one side of the waiting room to the other because he can’t sit still any longer, the door opens and an older doctor wearing a surgeon's cap and blue anesthetic scrubs walks through.

  The look on his face says everything. I don't want to hear the words that will come from his lips. I couldn’t hear them. I refused.

  “I’m sorry…” he starts but it’s all that I hear.

  He was gone.

  Epilogue

  Presley

  "As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me… Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord, Forever."

  Death is suffocating. More than just the agonizing despair you feel losing the person that you love. Having to shake hands with people you barely know, offering condolences for something they will never understand. The void you feel in the depth of your broken heart knowing that no amount of time will ever truly heal it. The days to come that are filled with heartache, and pain that swallows you whole.

  I’m standing in a wave of black. The graveyard surrounding me is quiet. A stillness that can only be felt around death. I wasn’t ready for this, and I didn’t think I ever would be, but death… stops for no one. I couldn’t pray it away, or beg for more time. It had found me, and there was no stopping it.

  I swallow raggedly, willing the tears back down whenever the priest begins to speak, “Today, we’re here to celebrate life. A life taken far too young, far too soon. Although it is hard to understand, we must always trust in his plan. We must remember who he was, and the mark that he left on all of the lives here today.”

  A soft sob comes from somewhere in the crowd, and tears wet my cheeks, unable to hold them back any longer. My heart hurts. The black hat on my head feels obnoxiously large and ostentatious, but I don’t care about my appearance any longer.

  “Rory was kind, compassionate, and a true leader among his peers. Everyone who knew him, loved him. When he walked into a room, he was infectious.”

  Sebastian’s hand slides into my own, clutching it tightly to my left. To the right, Alec’s hand holds mine. Ezra and Rhys on each side of them. Rhys holds on tightly to Valentina as she sobs. Heart wrenching cries, that I feel in my bones. I wanted to take her heartache away. I wanted to take the pain away from everyone that had become a pillar of strength in my life when I had none left to give.

  Rory’s death has gutted us all in our own ways, but Alec… He’s destroyed.

  I couldn’t understand what had happened, only offered the only strength that I had to give.

  His cheeks are stained with tears and he looks so hollow, so broken that it rips what’s left of my heart to shreds. These boys had become family to me, just as they had Sebastian and to see them all so broken killed a part of me.

  Just as quickly as it happened, it was over. The service was just as brutal as I imagined it to be. Saying goodbye was the hardest thing I had done in my life. Someone who selflessly gave his life to protect me even though he barely knew me. That’s just who he was.

  We linger around the grave site, off to the side as Alec stands by Rory’s casket, saying his own private goodbye.

  “I love you, Pres,” Sebastian whispers, pulling me into his body. Neither of us cared any longer of the blowback we would receive from our hidden relationship. I was no longer a teacher at St. Augustine. This weekend I would be removing all of the things from my cabin, and moving into an apartment nearby in the city. It wasn’t even the hardest decision I had to make, the fact that Rory was killed, and Sebastian was almost killed made it easy to know that I didn’t want to step foot back onto this campus. The memories were too much. I couldn’t close my eyes at night without reliving what had happened. All I wanted was to put distance between me and the school. If there is anything that I’ve learned in the past few months, it’s that life is short. It was too short to be taken for granted. To turn love away, to hide behind your fears. I knew that now, more than ever. And I knew that Sebastian was my future.

  Given the circumstances, and the fact that Sebastian was legally an adult, St. Augustine let me leave quietly, without a stirrup. They didn’t want attention on their school any more than what they already had. A student dying, and another coming close was enough.

  I found a small but perfect apartment for Hope and I. Sebastian was dead set on spending every night with me, but not officially leaving campus since there was only around five months left of his senior year. And even though I was haunted by what happened, I was… okay. I was learning to breathe again without fear. It wasn’t going to be easy, and it was ever going to be simple, but I was rebuilding my life with the pieces left behind.

  Ezra walks up to us and shakes his head, “I just can’t believe he’s gone.” His voice is barely above a whisper. Death had us all tightly in his grasp. We were all in painful disbelief.

  I nod. “I know, me either, Ez.”

  Sebastian’s arm tightens around me instinctively.

  “Rhys just took Valentina home, she’s a mess. She could hardly stand,” Ezra says. His eyes are dim, void, lifeless. He’s struggling even harder with the news he’s gotten in the last week.

  While we were all desperate to move on from what had happened, it was far from over. It wasn't the end, it was only the beginning and we knew it, but together, we would face it. Each day we'd face the sun again, leaning on each other for strength and support. I would never let fear control my life again. Instead, I'd take it and use it as a weapon. I was powerful. I was brave. I was strong in the midst of a storm. Fear brought me through the storm and I learned to raise my chin higher. I was no long
er a victim, but a survivor. I survived more than most people see in a lifetime and I had the scars to prove it. I wore them proudly.

  After all, he was worth every consequence, and every risk.

  Our vow to each other would never be tarnished.

  One month later

  Sebastian

  "You cheated!" Presley exclaims, her mouth slack in shock.

  "Did I though? Or are you just a sore loser?" I grin.

  Her eyes are wide, and my favorite frustrated scowl sits upon her perfect lips, and I want to lean across the coffee table and kiss her until she's breathless. That was the thing about Presley, she had the ability to disarm you without even trying.

  "Sebastian Pierce, you are not going to beat me by cheating!" she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. The motion pushes her perfect tits up against the V of her T-shirt, causing my mouth to water.

  "Prove it, babe."

  "You're impossible. I'm not playing scrabble with you again."

  This had become our new normal. Board games, movies, a glass of wine on Saturdays. Saturdays had quickly become my favorite day of the week. Presley got a new job at the local university as a teaching aid, and decided to go back to school for her master’s and in the past month we’ve settled into something comfortable. I was still three months away from graduating, so I didn't have much choice but to stay in the dorm with the boys. But, at the same time Ezra needed us now more than ever, so it worked out. I spent some nights, and most weekends at Presley's downtown apartment.

  It was strange at first, sharing a drawer with someone, even more so a girl who I fucking loved. All of her frilly lace stuff mixed with mine, that damn cat who I've come to love a small, very small, amount.