But no, I thought as I put on my coat, grabbed my wallet and keys, and beelined it for the elevator—it had been well before that. Well before I'd even realized it was happening. My jealousy over Spencer salivating over her had been mere days since her moving in. My desire to be around her all the time had only intensified from there, and if I was entirely honest with myself, I'd been thinking about her before she'd even gotten roped into living with me.
My infatuation with Gemma Daise had been there a much longer time. And I was a moron for not having seen it. Maybe if I had realized it sooner, I would have handled this whole debacle differently. I wouldn't have thought so much about getting out of my mother's schemes and worried more about getting into somethingrealwith Gemma. If that had been my focus, this whole night wouldn't have happened.
I drove in silence, ruminating over my follies and thinking of ways to do better. I accepted that Gemma might need time from me, and there wasn't anything I could do about that. But I could care for her in other ways. I could make sure she never worried about where she would live to the point that she signed some phony lease, and I could, at the very least, make some things right.
As I was thinking about her damn sheep and the very real possibility that she was going to "acquire" more animals at some point—thus necessitating more room that I should plan for now—a text came through on my phone. My eyebrows shot up in surprise when I realized it was from Gemma.
She had shared her location. And the rest was gibberish.
My pulse skyrocketed, and a deep sense of foreboding ran through my body with a chill. That wasn't right. None of this was right. My instincts had been screaming at me all night, and this only solidified what I'd been feeling. Something was off. Gemma was not safe.
I stepped on the gas.
Chapter thirty-one
Gemma
Rule #30: Please, no strangers in the house.
Iswam in and out of consciousness, grappling with my own mind for control. The first time I came to, I was still in the bathroom, slumped on the floor and watching the handle jiggle as Dain mumbled something on the other side. I faded back to nothing, but my fear managed to take control again. I snapped back to awareness, and this time, Dain had gotten the door open, and he had his arms around me, struggling to lift my dead weight.
He puffed in my ear, and his sweat-slick skin slid against mine. "I wish you'd finished your beer," he grunted, pulling at me. Dimly, I thanked all the cheese I'd been eating lately for making my ass too big for him to heft around. "I didn't want to poisonyou, so I put just enough in there." He seemed to be talking to himself at that point.
I sank back into the darkness, hoping that Dain didn't have what it took to heft a body around, but then when I blearily opened my eyes again, to my dismay, I found myself laid out on his couch with his sweating, mottled face over mine. "Gemma," he crooned. With a shaking finger, he caressed my face. "It's okay. You're okay. You won't remember this part. We'll be friends. Lovers. We don't have to be alone anymore."
Fuck, I thought, fighting the effects of whatever date rape drug he had slipped me. I couldn't talk, and my eyes were barely open. I pushed at him, but he easily pressed my arm back down into the couch.
Fumbling fingers worked at my high-waisted jeans, struggling to undo the buttons until he finally had all four undone and tugged at them. This was where I rather hoped I would lose consciousness again. I knew what he planned to do. I did not want to be cognizant of it.Please, God,I begged.Let me forget. Don't make me remember this. Don't make me live through this.
Dain managed to get my pants down with a lot of huffing and a persistent cough that told me he was likely a smoker. And then I was lying on his couch in my underwear, exposed and unable to move, my heart beating sluggishly and my soul screaming for help. I'd texted Knox, but I had no idea if he would even get the text. And if he did, would he know to come? I'd told him I needed space. Maybe he would think I was just extending an olive branch and letting him know where I was staying because he'd asked.
Dain fumbled for my baby blue sweater, and a tear leaked out of the corner of my eye. Even if Knox magically decided to come to this location, it would take him hours. This was happening whether I wanted it to or not. My worst nightmare, the greatest fear of every woman, was happening to me now. It was always inthe back of our minds as women, that for the audacity of daring to exist, there was the chance that we would be overpowered by and taken advantage of by a man. It had always been a lurking demon in the recesses of my mind, but to have it happen now… it was too horrifying to allow myself to fully feel.
I closed my eyes again and tried to release myself to that darkness. I didn't want to be here for this.
Dain managed to get my shirt off, but then he left me, and through a fog of drug-induced confusion, I heard him mumble something about needing a smoke. The sound of a lighter clicking preceded the strong odor of a cigarette. He was smoking and justwatching me. I lay there on the couch in my bra and underwear, completely exposed to him, and he was smoking a cigarette, probably prepping himself for the thing he'd been wanting for some time. And I couldn't release myself into unconsciousness or even move. Or wait… could I?
I wiggled my fingers. I couldn't pass out again because I was waking up. Whatever Dain had given me, like he'd said, it wasn't much. While he smoked, I tested the strength of my limbs. I was coming back. I could do this. I could escape. I just had to make Dain think I was unconscious.
I relaxed my body and sharpened my mind, imagining my escape route from the couch, through the wide entranceway, to the foyer, and out the front door. All I had to do was scream bloody murder and one of the neighbors were bound to hear me. But first, to even make it to the door, I had to stall Dain. The only possibility that lodged in my brain wasn't a great one. It had the potential to be fucking painful, but I didn't know of a better way to overpower him.
Like he was in on my own plan, Dain approached me, his footsteps measured and the drag of his cigarette hissing through the air. "Baby, you are so beautiful," he crooned.
I swallowed a wave of vomit. As soon as I sensed him leaning over me, and the warm, bitter cloud of cigarette smoke surrounded me, I acted. Whether my body was ready or not, I had to move now. I opened my eyes, and getting the barest glimpse of where his face and cigarette were, I smashed my hand into his face, pressing the lit butt against his cheek. Searing pain sliced through my hand, and I screamed at the same moment he did. But it worked. Dain stumbled back, tripping on the glass coffee table and tumbling over backward like a heavy bowling pin.
I ran for it. My limbs were heavy, like they'd been weighed down with bags of sand, and the ground moved with an odd sort of liquidity like I was trying to make my way across the surface of a bowl of jello. The foyer teetered into focus, and I tripped sideways, my arm slamming into the wall and my shaky legs knocking over an old milk pail that held umbrellas and… canes? Whose house was this? It occurred to me then that this wasn't actually Dain's house, and it sure as hell wasn't Emma's.
Putting aside those questions, I lurched for the door, but a meaty arm hooked around my middle, and then I went flying. My feet left the ground, and my breath squeezed from my lungs as the force of Dain yanking me backward sent me crashing into the stairwell wall. I knocked into a potted plant, and my vision rattled, swirling and jumping and banging around in my head with a cacophony of confusion. Pain exploded along my left arm and back, and I fell heavily to the tiled floor.
A wheezing, seething Dain grabbed me by my hair and yanked me away from the wall so I lay flat on the tile floor. "Youbitch," he snarled. He had a bright red, weeping burn mark on his cheek, and his lip bled freely.
I did the only thing I had left. I was close enough to the door, so maybe someone would hear me. I screamed. I screamed for all I was worth, and unlike the nightmares I'd had in the past,where I tried to scream and nothing came out, I about pierced my own eardrums with the decibels I managed to release. Dain smashed his hand against my mouth, muffling the scream and cutting off my airway. I fought him, scrabbling at his arms and kicking, trying to find purchase, hoping to make contact with some fleshy part of him and force him to let me go.
"No," he grunted, getting hold of my wrists and pinning me to the ground, "you… don't. This isn't fun. This isn't how it's supposed to b—agh!" I reached over and bit the arm that held my wrist up by my head. I bit hard. I bit so deep, I felt blood run between my teeth and over my tongue, and even when he tried to jerk away, I held on, digging in and crunching down on something decidedlynotfleshy.
He screamed, shrill and horrified as I scrambled up and leaned into the bite. He beat the side of my head, and I bit harder. He kicked me and I dug in, squelching and cutting through his muscle and tissue, determined to make my teeth meet and rip a bloody chunk from his doughy arm. It was like this one thing, this one gory act of defiance was all I had in me, and my brain had latched onto it just as firmly as my jaw had Dain's arm. He was hurting me. Hitting me. Pulling my hair and slapping my face, and I didn't feel any of it.
Suddenly, the front door burst open. My brain registered that fact, and I released Dain with a gasp of desperation. Someone was here. Someone had heard me. Or someone had heard the racket. Either way, I had a chance. I collapsed back with a weak, "Help me."
