Chapter 125 SOMEONE AS DEPRAVED AS WHO?
MERRIELYNN.
I stood frozen, my entire world crashing down around me.
The images on the massive screens made it difficult to breathe.
I couldn’t think. And my legs were shaking to the point that I could barely stand.
Cormac said he would delete them.
He was supposed to have deleted them. He promised.
But as the realization hit me, my stomach twisted violently—he never actually showed me that he deleted them. And like a fool, I had just believed him.
“Oh no,” Emorie breathed beside me, her voice barely audible over the growing murmurs in the room.
Tobias’ face contorted in horror. “What the hell is this?” His head turned toward me. “Mere—”
I couldn’t answer. My throat had closed up.
Every pair of eyes in the room was on me and they were judging and whispering. Parents, staff, students and guests. Everyone who applauded me moments ago, now thought the worst of me.
I needed to get out of the hall. I needed to disappear.
As I took a step forward, my vision blurred and I almost slipped.
“Mere!” I could hear the panic in Emorie’s voice as she and Tobias held me steady. “Breathe, babe. Just breathe.”
I couldn’t. My hands were shaking uncontrollably. My heart pounded so hard it hurt. The familiar, suffocating feeling of panic clawed its way up my throat.
“Hey, hey, look at me,” Tobias said, stepping in front of me and he held my shoulders. “We’ve got you. Just focus on us, okay?”
But I wasn’t okay. The air felt too thick to breathe and I was so ashamed that I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.
Some students were pointing their fingers in my direction, some girls were laughing and the boys were shaking their heads.
How could Cormac do this to me?
Breathing heavily, my eyes searched the crowd for the headmaster. I soon found him standing near the podium, his shoulder stiff and his expression dark as he engaged in a heated conversation with another faculty member.
Even from where I stood, I could hear the sharp bite in his tone.
“This is an absolute disgrace,” he spat, his gaze shifting to me, filled with glaring disapproval. “How the hell did this happen?”
“We don’t know,” the staff member murmured anxiously. “It seems to have been remotely projected—”
“I don’t care how it happened,” the headmaster cut him off furiously. “This is an institution of prestige, and now, this—” he motioned toward the screens, still flashing the manipulated photos, “—is the highlight of the evening.”
My stomach twisted painfully. More and more people turned to stare at me.
“Is that her?”
“Of course, it is. Look at her.”
“Goddess, with a teacher? How shameless.”
I suddenly felt nauseous, so I broke away from my friends and turned, pushing through the crowd, ignoring the way people recoiled as I passed.
Their whispers only grew louder as I ran through the exit. I barely noticed Emorie and Tobias calling after me. All I knew was that I needed to get out of there.
Running, my feet carried me away from the hall, out of the suffocating space where my entire reputation had just been tarnished, and into the cold night.
I stopped running when I got outside. My breathing was erratic and my hands were shaking so violently that I had to clutch them into fists.
My tears were flowing freely at this point and all I could feel was regret.
How had I let this happen? How did I let myself fall for someone as depraved as him?
I squeezed my eyes shut, my body trembling. I had trusted Cormac. I had loved him. And this—this humiliation—was what I got in return.
I felt sick and I thought about walking… Just walking away from all of this when someone approached me.
“Mere?”
I brought my head up at the sound of the voice, my eyes landing on Valtor standing a few feet away.
He looked… worried.
“What are you doing out here?” He asked, but his eyes were scanning me.
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. What could I even say? That I had just been completely humiliated? That I had been an idiot for trusting his friend in the first place?
Valtor sighed, running a hand through his hair before stepping closer. “Come on,” he said, his voice gentler than I’d ever heard it. “Let me take you out of here.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to be here right now.” He nodded toward the hall. “Not with them looking at you like that.”
I swallowed. I wanted to tell him that I could handle this, but I wasn’t sure I could. I wasn’t sure I could even walk without collapsing.
Valtor must have seen the hesitation on my face because he sighed again and stepped even closer. “Just for a while,” he said. “You don’t have to explain anything. Just… let’s go.”
Tired, I simply nodded, agreeing to go with him.
The moment I slid into the car, my mind was still hazy, still too overwhelmed to fully process what I was doing. I let out a shaky breath, trying to steady myself.
But then my gaze lifted to the driver’s seat, and my stomach dropped.
Juniper.
She turned slightly, just enough for me to see the wicked smirk on her lips.
My lips parted in horror when I realized what was going on.
I reached for the door handle and tried to open it. “No—”
But before I could get it open, Valtor shoved me back into the seat and slammed the door shut behind me.
“Drive,” he ordered as he got in too.
“No! Let me out!” I yelled. “I swear,Valtor, if you don’t let me out right now, I’ll scream.”
When I saw that they were ignoring me, I decided to scream at the top of my lungs before they could take me away.
“Help! Somebody—”
Valtor’s hand against my face came so fast that I barely saw it coming. My head whipped to the side as my head slammed against the glass window.The impact made my vision blur, a sharp ringing filling my ears.
The last thing I remembered was Juniper laughing softly under her breath before everything went black.