Teacher

by Fiona Cole

  Teacher

  Fiona Cole

  Copyright © 2020 by Fiona Cole

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Designer: Najla Qamber, Qamber Designs

  Interior Design: Indie Girl Promotions

  Editing: Kelly Allenby, Readers Together

  Proofreading: Janice Owen, JO’s Book Addiction Proofreading

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Playlist

  Take On the World - You Me At Six

  Rescue - Lauren Daigle

  Freaking Me Out - Ava Max

  Smile - Mikky Ekko

  Take Care - Beach House

  I Want to Know What Love Is - Foreigner

  All Too Well - Taylor Swift

  Coming Up For Air - Signals In Smoke

  Neptune - Sleeping At Last

  I Wanna Get Better - Bleachers

  Don’t Give Up On Me - Andy Grammar

  Someone You Loved - Lewis Capaldi

  Angel by the Wings - Sia

  I’ll Be There - Walk Off the Earth

  Remembrance - Tommee Profitt ft. Fleurie

  Is There Somewhere - Halsey

  Hush Hush Baby - Lxandra

  To Die For - Sam Smith

  Lay Your Head On Me - Major Lazer ft. Marcus Mumford

  Better Days - OneRepublic

  I Found You - Cash Cash & Any Grammar

  To you, the reader.

  Thank you for loving this series.

  Contents

  Playlist

  Prologue

  1. Hanna

  2. Daniel

  3. Hanna

  4. Hanna

  5. Daniel

  6. Hanna

  7. Hanna

  8. Daniel

  9. Hanna

  10. Daniel

  11. Daniel

  12. Hanna

  13. Daniel

  14. Hanna

  15. Hanna

  16. Daniel

  17. Hanna

  18. Hanna

  19. Daniel

  20. Hanna

  21. Daniel

  22. Hanna

  23. Daniel

  24. Hanna

  25. Daniel

  26. Daniel

  27. Hanna

  28. Hanna

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Fiona Cole

  Prologue

  Hanna

  “When we get out of here, I’m going to take ballet. Fuck everyone saying I’m too old.”

  “Sofia … we’re not getting out of here.”

  “Nonsense. What are you going to do when we get out?”

  “Sof—”

  “Humor me. Please.”

  The pleading and exhaustion she tried to mask with her usual positivity gutted me. Everything gutted me. I wasn’t sure how when I didn’t think I had anything left to give.

  It’d all been taken. Again, and again, and again.

  I wasn’t even sure how long we’d been here. If I had to guess, I’d say a few months, but we were kept in windowless rooms, given drugs that made time both speed up and stretch on endlessly. I didn’t even know where we were anymore; we’d moved so many times. All I knew was that it was hot, making the flimsy shirt cling to my sweat-soaked skin.

  Otherwise, each place was the same. Same dirt-stained mattress. Same smell of piss and hopelessness. Same windowless room.

  This time it wasn’t a room with a door, but a set of dividers with a curtain. I preferred the room with the closed door. At least then, it masked the sounds of the horrors going on around us.

  The grunts, the cries, the disgusting sounds of skin hitting skin.

  A tremor wracked my body, cramping my stomach. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, not that I could have kept anything down past the nausea. Part of me craved the drugs they constantly pumped into our bodies. Craved the nothingness. Craved the escape from what was being done to my body. Craved the absence of pain.

  The other part of me feared what happened in the darkness when I was unaware.

  “Please, Hanna.” Sofia’s sluggish voice reminded me she asked me a question. What did I want to do when we escaped the men who took us—the men who sold our bodies like cattle?

  Stupid tears burned my eyes because I knew what Sofia didn’t. We weren’t getting out of here unless it was through death—which, as the days stretched on, didn’t sound horrible.

  But I answered anyway. Because Sofia was my everything, and for her, I’d pretend.

  “I don’t know what I’d do. I didn’t know before all this.”

  Before we snuck out of our hotel on vacation in Florida and used fake IDs to get in a club. Before I pushed us to make the stupidest mistake of our lives. Before we were broken down to pieces of meat.

  “There’s lots of things you loved,” she argued, her words slurring.

  Metal clanked against the headboard as I tried to shift to my side to face her. My arm stretched at an awkward angle from the handcuff, but it wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to. Sofia laid on her side facing me too, and even though I hadn’t seen my reflection in months, I knew what I looked like, looking at her.

  My twin.

  Her cheeks sunk under sharp cheekbones, and dark circles made her look gaunt. Almost like the zombies we’d dressed up as for last Halloween. Her once vibrant green eyes were lethargic and dull, even under the glassy reflection, letting me know she was still high. The only difference was her stringy, almost black hair falling around her shoulders. Before this, I’d been a rioting teenager, resentful to not have anything of my own, so I’d cut my hair and dyed it bright pink. Otherwise, we were the same, and it hurt to look at her.

  Her full lips, dry and cracked, did their best to tip into a smile. “You love math. Do math.”

  “Math is for nerds,” I answered in rote. Maybe saying the same thing I did before this would help make the game a little more real.

  “Then be a nerd,” she slurred, her eyes drooping. “Let’s be who we are supposed to be and fuck everyone else.” Her shaking hand brushed my hair back before it fell limply between us. “When we get out of here, we’re going to deserve whatever life we want for ourselves. So, take it. Take it with me. Promise. We’ll do it together.”

  As if the passionate demand had sapped the last of her energy, her eyes slid closed.

  “Promise,” I whispered.

  How could I deny her anything? It was my fault we were in this mess, so it was the least I could do to promise her the moon and stars, even if it was just pretending to believe it.

  “I’m sorry, Sofia.”

  “Shut up, Han-Han,” she murmured, her eyes still closed. “We’ll get out of here. Erik is probably tearing the world down, looking for us.”

  Maybe. But our captors were like ghosts, moving too quick to be caught, not even real to the outside world.

  “He’s going to be so mad we snuck out, and I can’t wait to see his angry face, his eyebrows pulled so low they’ll be right above his lips.” Another slow breath rattled in her chest like it hurt to breathe. I almost thought she’d fallen asleep when she spoke again. “But then I’ll dance away because I’ll be a damn ballerina.”

  She huffed a laugh, another smile trying to break free.

  Just as quick, it s
lipped away, and she laid still.

  “I love you, Sofia,” I whispered after a moment.

  I waited to hear it back—waited for her words to wash over me with a protective layer, holding in what was left of the old me. I waited and waited, watching my sister sleep. Except…something was off. We were inches apart, and I couldn’t feel the huff of her breath on my skin. Her body laid too still. Her chest not rising and falling over heavy breaths like it had before.

  “Sofia?”

  Too many drugs. It must have slowed everything down. I just needed to wake her up, keep her focused on me. With a trembling hand, I gripped her shoulder and shook her. Her head lolled, and I shook harder.

  “Sofia,” I whisper-yelled, not wanting to draw attention to us. “Sofia, please.”

  Nothing.

  I shook her harder, my body trembling at the way her arm flopped when she fell to her back.

  “No, no, no. Please, no. Please. No. No. No. Please, Sofia. Please, wake up. Please.”

  Fire squeezed my lungs and burned up the back of my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t focus on my sister, my best friend, with the tears clouding my vision. Stupid, useless tears.

  I shook her violently, shouting her name, begging her to wake up, begging her not to leave me. I didn’t care who came in. I didn’t care about anything but seeing her eyes open and making me promise we had a future together.

  Tremors wracked my body, and I clung to her. Pulling her tightly to my chest, I screamed. Screamed until I hoped they’d come in and let me go with her. Screamed until my throat was raw. Screamed until I had nothing left.

  The sounds expelled in grief were excruciating, and mine would haunt me forever.

  1

  Hanna

  “Hey, Hanna.” My eyes shot up to the woman hanging on my door frame, her red hair swaying like a pendulum. “We’re heading to grab drinks after work. Wanna come?”

  You should say yes, the voice that sounded a lot like Sofia scolded in my head.

  “Ummm…”

  I floundered. Part of me wanted to. Part of me knew I should get out and go get drinks with my coworkers like any other normal twenty-six-year-old on a Friday night. Part of me knew I should be like Sofia, who would have had no problem joining everyone else.

  The other part of me had a barre class, and a book waiting for me at home.

  “Sean’s going to be there.” Scarlett’s smile turned a little devious, and she waggled her brows. “Angela said she noticed the way he looked at you.”

  Instead of the flutter of butterflies in my stomach having a cute boy crushing on me should create, my chest squeezed too tight, and I fought the need to curl my shoulders in, sinking deeper into my office chair.

  Sean was cute. Like, really cute. And if I closed my eyes and focused, I could sense the slightest tickle in my stomach, but fear made it hard to feel.

  What would I do if I actually talked to Sean outside of work? What if he did like me and wanted to touch me like any couple would want?

  Imagining his hand, reaching to brush my hair back, had a shudder working its way up my spine.

  I couldn’t.

  “Oh. Well.” I breathed a laugh and smiled, hoping she took it for flattery and not nerves. “I would love to, but I already have plans.”

  I hated the disappointment dimming her smile.

  “Okay. Next time,” she said before heading out.

  It was nice of her to say because we both knew there wouldn’t be a next time. I always turned down drinks or any other outing that wasn’t work-related.

  Very few people knew what had happened to me, so everyone assumed I was introverted—unapproachable. Maybe even a few assumed I was snotty or entitled because I was the boss’s sister.

  The truth was, I didn’t like putting myself out there with anyone other than the friends and family I already had. Socializing wasn’t my top skill, and my words came out jumbled and awkward a lot of the time. That’s why I stayed behind the computer crunching numbers, letting other people handle the clients.

  Scarlett’s words repeated in my head, and the easy smiles Sean gave when passing me in the hallway took on a new meaning. Had he been flirting? Had he wanted me to stop and talk, and I’d totally missed the cues?

  “Ugh,” I grunted, flopping back in my chair.

  I should have said yes.

  Then I imagined standing too close. Maybe he’d rest his hand on my back to guide me to the bar. Maybe he’d leave it there and…

  And I’d panic.

  Intimacy had been the one thing therapy didn’t quite mend. Just thinking about it had my shoulders pulling tight and added building pressure on my chest. The one that built and built until I wanted to scream.

  I’d done my time in therapy, faced my issues, and conquered my fears. I didn’t have nightmares anymore—not many at least. I was able to function in society and make friends, even if it was only on the surface level. My mind didn’t fear intimacy—my mind had done the work to heal. But my body? My body quaked at the thought, and I hated it. I hated that it was one thing therapy couldn’t seem to fix.

  Shaking off the regret, I grabbed the file from my desk and headed upstairs. I pushed open the door to my brother’s office and found him and his girlfriend, Alexandra, wrapped like a pretzel on his office chair.

  “Gross,” I said, announcing my presence.

  Alex blushed like she always did, and Erik gave me a mock death glare for interrupting.

  “I just came to drop these off,” I said a little winded.

  “You know, if you let me move your office up here, you wouldn’t have to worry about those stairs.”

  “I’m fine among my people. They’re my algebros.”

  “Oh my god,” said a deep voice behind me. Ian, the Bergamo to Bergamo and Brandt, walked up and bumped his shoulder to mine. Or his arm since he was almost a foot taller than me. “Little Brandt, that may be one of your worst puns yet.”

  Ian always gave me crap about my math puns like any pseudo big brother would. He’d been part of our family since I could remember, and I’d had a crush on him longer than I wanted to admit. Or, I used to have a crush on him. Thankfully, we’d been family long enough to move on from said crush and act like it never happened.

  “I thought it was awesome.” Alex snickered and moved off Erik’s lap to lean against the desk.

  I smiled my appreciation at her support as I dropped the files on Erik’s desk. “These are the numbers for the London office.”

  He flipped open the folder and glanced over the first page.

  Ian flopped down in the chair next to me and sighed. “When are we celebrating Alex’s big twenty-first birthday?”

  “You guys don’t need to do that,” Alex said. She dropped her head and let her dark hair fall, hiding her face. Even after two years of being with Erik, she still hated having things given to her. Which blew my mind since all Erik did was shower her with everything she’d missed growing up. “It’s not even for another month.”

  “For the woman who thawed Erik’s heart,” Ian said with a wink. “It’s got to be epic.”

  “She’s graduating at the end of summer, too,” I added.

  “Someone’s a show-off,” Ian joked. “Graduating a whole year and a half early.”

  Erik smiled at Alexandra, and her cheeks blushed. Just from a look. “I forced her to. She said she wouldn’t marry me until she was done with school, so we needed to get this shit on the road.”

  “You’re such a pain,” she reprimanded with a huge smile.

  “Only for you.”

  Their love was hard to watch. It hurt. Which made me feel guilty for not wanting to be around it too much. Erik deserved happiness. He’d been too serious for too long, shutting himself off to a future with anyone until he found Alex. I wanted that for him.

  I just wanted it for me too, and I knew the chances of having it were slim to none. Watching them together stung like rubbing salt in a wound.

  “Speak
ing of parties,” Erik said, turning his attention back to me. “We need to finalize the plans for the gala.”

  The charity event was fast approaching but coming together smoothly. We were pretty efficient after so many years of hosting it. Each year bigger than the last, bringing in more money to help rehabilitate survivors of sex-trafficking. Almost all the money went to Haven, the all-in-one home to help those rescued through every step of the process, from therapy to drug rehab. Erik took a small portion to help fund his side business of tracking down traffickers and ending their role in the sex trade.

  I took the most responsibility for planning the party. I’d never been able to share my past at the event but did my part by making sure the most money as possible was raised each year. I wasn’t as brave as the other men and women who stood up each year to tell their story. Sofia would have been a crusader, standing by Erik’s side as his partner in picking off the bad guys. She would’ve stood at the front of the line to share her story so no one would ever have to endure it.

  I preferred behind the curtain work.

  “Okay. I just can’t do it tonight. I have a barre class.”

  Erik’s eyes flicked to mine with an all too knowing look. He knew I took the ballet workout class because Sofia couldn’t. It was my way of living for her when she couldn’t.

  “Well,” Alex said, slapping her hands together. “That means now you can take me to dinner.”

  Erik gripped her hips. “Only if I can have you for dessert.”

  “Ew.” My face screwed up. “That is my cue to leave.”