Chapter 23: The stairway
"You should stay away from all their club members; they are all dangerous. The fact that one of them is my fiancé can never make me a permanent member," Lin Jing warned her sister seriously. "As you said, they are weird so you must stay away."
Ruoruo nodded and pressed her lips tightly together to prevent announcing her thoughts word for word to her sister as she remembered her sister's reaction to such discussions.
"I could drop you off tomorrow," Lin Jing told her sister. "I feel too sleepy to go anywhere this night and it is too late."
Ruoruo nodded.
********
That painfully scared scream Lu Tian heard that night haunted his dreams. He wanted so badly to reach forward to her.
A songwriter he once listened to asked why he could not run fast in his dream and he had himself wondering why he could not go close to her in his dream.
He was always worried and made advances but once she screams, he becomes so petrified he cannot move no matter how he tried to move.
The woman who always appears in his dreams turns his dreams into nightmares and his night's rest into workout sessions. He groaned as he sat down on his bed and rubbed his eyes.
He was tired of meeting therapists about his problems and he feigned his healing when he got into the elementary school to ease his father's worries.
He made friends and spoke to the girls. He even invited them to his house for his birthday party and he let them meet his father.
It was not sufficient for him to quit his therapy because his therapist began warning him to not get too close to the girls it was as though the therapist was echoing his father's words.
It was difficult for him to get to a balance point and it took a while for him to persuade his father that everything was balanced and that was when he stopped going to his therapist every week.
It looked like he would need to see a therapist again. His insomnia has returned with a full force that seemed to hit a hammer on his head rhythmically.
He stood up from the bed after a night's rest that lasted thirty minutes with so much restlessness that it could barely be called a night's rest.
He rubbed his face as though washing it before shrugging his shoulder and stood with so much coldness in his eyes. He has sworn never to forgive the woman who steps into his life and succeeds in causing a disruption.
**************
Ruoruo froze when she saw Lu Tian walking out of Mr. Shen's office followed by Mr. Shen. She turned and walked away as fast as she could without looking back.
She went to the stairway knowing he will never take that route. She leaned on the wall and took deep breaths. Why would her nightmare appear before her? All the people who caused her to get beaten in the past were nowhere to be found.
She was not scared of them anymore but this man was everywhere. She groaned angrily will she have to rethink it all and give up on all she worked hard on because she was scared of him?
If she was asked now about the person behind the incident that almost claimed her life, she would point at him in her mind although she was not sure if she could point at him physically.
He succeeded in adding to the list of people she feared in her life. He was not the person she feared most which were why he could not be the reason she would give up.
The door to the stairway opened and she was taken aback as she moved away from the door toward the stairs and lost her footing.
She knew how to avoid falling to the ground but before she could grip the handrail, she was caught by the wrist and pulled against a hard softness.
She swallowed and took deep breaths of one expensive cologne. She pushed the person away before caring to see the person's face.
"Thank you for saving," she appreciated biting back the urge to add, 'I could save myself just fine.'
"Are you okay?" a hand went to her wrist and stopped her escape out of the place that made her feel claustrophobic.
That was not her fiancé's voice but the voice of his very good friend, the man she was trying hard to avoid to save her neck or prevent her early death.
She tried to wriggle his grip around her wrist and she struggled with him. She met his inky eyes and she narrowed her eyes when she saw noticed a hint of worry amid the coldness.
"Are you okay?" he asked sounding each word firmly and separately.
"I am fine, please let go," she replied to him sharply and tried to escape again. She was shaking visibly despite how hard she tried to stop.
"You pretended that day, right?" he hissed. His voice this time was very different and foreign. She met his gaze. She has not known him for long but she knew he was someone who hardly showed his emotions.
"I . . . please let go," she told him knowing there would be no good coming out of her trying to persuade him with the anger in his voice and his eyes.
She studied human behavior to make her task as a therapist easier and she knew the anger was raw and she could feel the danger.
A thousand bugs brawled from her neck down to her tailbone at the thought of the thousands of hurtful things he could do to her in this place, people hardly come here for goodness' sake.
"You are just as pretentious as a snake," he snarled hitting her back against the wall. "You made me into a demon before my friends."
"I thought you do not care about what anyone says against you," she dared to ask. She could not hurt him in the name of self-defense. She could get killed for doing so.
Her words made him tighten his grip on her wrist but he moved away from her shaky form against the wall. He looked down at where he held her.
"Since you don't, you should not treat me this way, please," she begged as tears filled her eyes.
"You must think I caused what happened to you, right?"
"No, not at all," she replied firmly shaking her head vigorously while avoiding his gaze. She wondered if he had some underlying mental illness she might have let loose. It might not be that extreme. Perhaps he was a wounded animal trying hard to protect its domain.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone