"she was the type of person who'd explain how she was going to stab you in the front before she actually shoved the knife in... and you'd let her.
she'd probably even pass the knife to you so you can shove it in your own chest...and you would."
tom...
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r u m o r s c i r c l e d Hogwarts like never before between Evelyn's display of ruthlessness at dinner and then what had come after.
A Slytherin girl, up late from her own tryst around the castle, had caught Evelyn in the bathroom. Huddled against the wall, her face drained of color, the girl described in detail how Evelyn had shaken and curled into herself. She had looked up at the girl with a look of utter helplessness. Nobody had seen Evelyn vulnerable, and everyone craved to rip this information apart.
The whispers had circulated, Malfoy the one to finally relay what had everyone so busy talking about. And Tom knew what the girl had witnessed. Knew precisely what Evelyn had been fighting against. He had relived it, too, lying in the safety of his bed; he watched the memory repeat over and over again. The child she had been and the way the knife had gutted. The way the flesh of childskin split so easily under the blade. She was caught because he had wounded her like no other had before.
His followers had started to speculate about what had happened. Only Avery's look at him had spurred him into shutting them up. He looked away from the boy's thankful expression, the care he saw in his eyes. Tom suspected Alastair Avery had only followed him now because of their shared interest in Evelyn.
Little did the boy know that it had been Tom to bring her into this state. He had overpowered her the night before, and he had been secretly reveling in it. He had shown her something so horrific, so buried in her subconscious mind, that she had been on her knees. He knew it was the cruelest part of him that had surfaced, who was exhilarated by the thought of her suffering.
And then there was that part of his ragged soul that felt horrible. Felt something he had never experienced before. Guilt at his actions. Guilt of harming the girl he had come to care for. He had never lived through something so barbaric. Never felt someone else's helplessness like he had Evelyn's. The scar he had seen burned into his brain. The way it had traveled down her body was a gruesome reminder of what it was for her to be weak.
Her father, with a smile on his face, had done that. His precious blood spilled across the table. He remembered the memory in which the same man had warned a young girl about what would happen when she was tortured, not if what would happen to her if she had screamed. Tom hadn't seen how long the memory lasted, but he knew in his heart it had not stopped just because Evelyn had thrown him out of her head.
Tom felt a bloodlust so great that he was worried that if he stayed sitting at the Slytherin breakfast table, an innocent person would be the victim of his wrath.
"I'm going to go look for Evelyn," Tom growled as he stood from his seat. His followers followed his movements like trained dogs. "If anyone talks about her, punish them."
All of them nodded in unison without hesitation. Tom knew they would have done so without his order. They loved Evelyn as real friends do. Tom had never felt that from them before, not that he wanted that from them. But, he didn't understand it, their devotion to her. How did they care about her, even when she had stopped bringing them into dark hallways to let them have their way with her? He knew how he felt about her, but did any of them actually spend the time he had with her?
