Page 39 of Reckless Dare

The conversation was going in circles. She knew she couldn’t get through to him on text messages. She had to talk to him directly. She couldn’t put it off anymore. Ignoring her tormentor wasn’t working.

Ava: Where are you? I would like to talk to you.

The text came in a moment later.

Tormentor: If you want to talk to me, find me.

Ava stared at the message for a long moment, debating if her going to talk to him would make this any better. She waited to see if he would send a follow up message but nothing.

She let out a shuddering breath, re-thinking through her options. She could drop everything at that point and once again hope that he would not mess with her again. But that would give no guarantee he wouldn’t sabotage her assignments or worse.

No. I have to talk to him.

Before she could completely lose her courage, she started walking. Maybe he would stop if she didn’t hide from him and requested him in person. The more she avoided him, his meddling with her got worse. Maybe if she showed she wasn’t intimidated by him, he would leave her alone.

She took a deep breath and held her chin high even though every ounce of her wanted to turn back and run back to her room.

“Excuse me,” she asked a random student going his way. “Where can I find the student council president?”

The guy frowned. “At this time, he is either at rugby practice or in the main hall with the rest of the student council.”

The main hall and the rugby stadium were in two opposite directions of the campus. She decided to check the main hall first. Since he had been answering her texts, there were higher chances that he wasn’t in the middle of the game practice.

It was only a ten minute walk to the main hall.

When she reached the place, she went to the back entrance like the first time and stopped at the ID scan area knowing she wouldn’t be allowed inside. She saw a group of students exiting at the time.

“Excuse me. I’m looking for… Abhi.”

The girls in the group raised their eyebrows.

“Why?” one of them asked.

Ava’s cheeks heated because all of them were watching her as though she was one of Abhiram Simha’s fangirls and possibly stalking him.

“He… wanted to advise me on some of the courses.”

One of the girls frowned. “Abhi is a business major. Same as me. I don’t recall seeing you in any of our classes or in the junior batch.”

Ava’s cheeks heated all the more. “I'm in second year medicine, but we have a few common courses.”

One of the guys in the group finally took pity and replied. “Abhi left the student council meeting early because of a phone call. He must be getting ready to go to rugby practice now.”

“Thank you.”

Ava hurried out of the main hall.

It was a good thirty minute walk to the rugby stadium. She could have waited and taken one of the shuttles, but she broke into a run.

By the time she reached the rugby stadium, she was panting. Not wanting to stop, she ran up the flight of stairs where the team locker rooms were located. She went in the direction of the Vipers team.

“I’m looking for Abhi,” she said to one of the guys exiting the locker rooms area in the Vipers jersey. “Is he in there?”

The guy looked surprised. “Yeah, he’s in there. But you can’t—”

Before the guy could finish, “Thank you,” she said hurriedly before rushing into the locker room.

As soon as she stepped in, she caught sight of her tormentor’s familiar tall figure standing by the lockers. What shocked her was that he was shirtless.

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