The bath was exactly what she needed, Jane had invited her to her house and Evelyn had decided to stay with her until the police had given her a positive news about the intruder.
Evelyn sank into the water and let the heat work into her shoulders, the candlelight low enough that the washroom felt sealed off from everything outside it. The herbs she'd dropped in had steeped into the steam, and she breathed it in slowly, eyes closed, letting the day unspool.
It didn't take long for her mind to drift to him.
She hadn't meant to think about the professor. But the soft interactions kept coming back, the careful way he'd touched her, like he was paying attention, like she was something worth being careful with. She turned the memory over and let herself sit with it, the warmth of the water making it easier to stop pretending she hadn't noticed him the way she had.
In the quiet, she let the fantasy build. His voice, the way it settled in a room. The way he'd looked at her.
"Do you think of me when you're alone like this?"
She exhaled. Her fingers moved through the water.
The fantasy deepened at its own pace, unhurried, shaped by her own wanting. She didn't rush it. She let herself have it, the imagined warmth of his hands, the weight of his attention,
When it broke, it broke gently, and she lay still in the cooling water, breathing.
Then the floor came up to meet her.
One moment she was in the tub, the next she was on cold tile, the transition so wrong and abrupt that her mind didn't catch up fast enough to make sense of it. The water was gone. The candles were gone. The room was different, darker, and someone was there.
Hands were not warm, not careful. Cold and certain, already touching her like they had the right.
She couldn't move. That was the worst part, not the hands, not the dark, but the way her body simply refused her. She felt everything with horrible clarity and could do nothing, couldn't pull away, couldn't make a sound, just lay there while the shape above her moved with a deliberateness that turned her stomach.
This isn't real. This can't be.
But it was. She could feel the floor beneath her, the cold seeping into her spine, the weight of the figure between her legs. Her mind kept trying to place it, kept reaching for some explanation, some framework that would make this make sense, and found nothing.
"Eve!!" It was Jane's voice.
Then water hit her face.
She gasped, and the bathtub came back around her, She had been submerged in the water somehow. the candles still burning, the herbs still steeping, the water gone lukewarm against her skin. She sat upright and gripped the edge of the tub with both hands and just breathed, waiting for her heartbeat to settle. Jane peeked into the washroom and snickered but the sight of Evelyn's drained face she quickly came to her side and cupped her face. "Hey are you okay?" She asked ocncenred. Evelyn could barely speak and she shook her head sideways. "I- i had that dream again. Someone was trying to.... " her eyes wielded up with tears, she was choking. Jane's hands curled up around her and she patted her back trying calm her down. "It is fine no one is here you are safe here." She said rocking her side to side. "You are just thinking too much about yesterday. I am sure they will catch the culprit soon." She tired to make her feel calm but their was this eerie feeling that Jane too had noticed but she didn't want to tell Evelyn that now.