Page 5 of Forbidden Valentine

“I heard someone close, so I sent the text… I tried to get away from him. I tried, but my heels aren’t easy to get off and I can’t run in these… he wouldn’t let go of me… I screamed and… he raped me… I just wanted him to stop, but he wouldn’t. I... was trying to get him off me and I grabbed something. I hit him with it once and he started choking me. I panicked when I couldn’t breathe and just kept hitting him until I could breathe again…”

“Shit. Okay… I want you to do me a favor, okay?” he asks. “I want you to stay right here. Do not move. I am going to get my truck, and I will be right back, okay?”

“Okay,” I whimper.

“I mean it, Mila. You stay right here,” he repeats, and I nod.

He disappears into the darkness, and I do what he says. I don’t move an inch, and I just stare at Charlie’s body. I am afraid he will get up and hurt me again, so I stay as quiet as possible, too. A few minutes later, a red truck backs down the alleyway and stops in front of me. The professor jumps out and comes over to me. “Are you hurt at all?” he asks as he fixes my dress. “You are covered in blood, my love. Is any of it yours?”

“N-No,” I stammer. I feel out of my goddamn mind right now.

“Okay. Can you help me lift his body?” he asks.

“Shouldn’t we call the police?” I ask.

“Mila, his father is an extremely wealthy man…”

“They’ll blame me,” I say, and he nods. “I’ll go to jail.”

“You’d be charged at a minimum,” he says. “Charlie Jensen raped a girl last year. When she spoke up, his dad got her expelled from school. We are past the point of the cops, okay?”

“I don’t want to go to jail,” I say, dropping my head. “I just wanted him to stop hurting me…”

“Mila, honey,” he says as he lifts my chin. “You have done nothing wrong, and you will not go to jail. I promise, okay?”

“Okay,” I say when I allow myself to actually see him. He is calm and collected. He’s not bullshitting me. “Let’s pick him up then.”

“Good girl,” he smiles. “You get his feet.”

Together, we pick up Charlie and toss him onto a tarp that is laid out. When the tailgate is closed, He lays out a blanket in the front seat of his truck. He picks me up and sits me in his truck before laying another blanket over me so he can buckle the seatbelt without getting blood on it.

“Professor…”

“Gunner,” he corrects me. “I am not your professor right now, Mila.”

“You’ve done this before,” I say confidently. He stares out the front window and we drive in silence for a while.

“Yes,” he says after a beat.

“Why are you okay telling me that?” I ask.

“Because you are an accomplice and we both know that bastard had it coming,” he says bluntly. “Want me to be straight up with you?”

“Please,” I say.

“I kill and dispose of people like him. Rapists, pedophiles, wife beaters, and people who hurt or kill innocent people,” he says. “I shave their heads, pull their teeth, cut them up, and feed them to my pigs.”

“I… don’t know if I should laugh, cry, or throw myself out of the truck,” I admit. “You’re… You teach human sexuality, Gunner. We talked about clits today.”

“Yeah,” he laughs. “Everyone has secrets, Mila.”

“Do the cops know?” I ask.

“Mmmm. Yeah,” he says. “The media calls me the…”

“St. Valentine Butcher,” I say.

“Mhmm,” he says. “I used to just cut them up and spread them out. Now, I have the pigs. A neighbor got sick, and I took them on… so now they clean up my messes.”

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