“Deac’, I don’t feel so good,” I mumble, clutching his arm for balance when I find him. “Can you take me home?”
“Sure thing, Cleo. Let’s get you out of here,” he says, leading me through the throng of sweaty bodies.
The world spins around me as Deacon guides me to his car, parked next to mine.
“No, you’ve been drinking,” I tell him.
“Call my father,” I tell him, willing to take his wrath, then wrap ourselves around a pole or kill someone.
“Just let me lie down for a bit,” I tell him, my legs feeling like lead weights.
“Want to lie down in the back until your father gets here? Your car’s too small for that,” he suggests, opening the hatch. Grateful for the offer, I nod weakly, letting him help me into the trunk. As soon as I lie down, my body feels impossibly heavy and unresponsive.
“Deacon, I can’t feel my body,” I try to say. The words come out garbled and distorted as panic creeps in. Instead of offering comfort, Deacon climbs in beside me, closing the hatch and plunging us into darkness.
“You’re alright,” he murmurs, brushing my hair back from my face. His touch should have been reassuring, it only heightens my unease.
“Did you call my dad?” I ask him, my eyes flutter closed, and he says something I can’t make out.
He leans down and presses his lips against mine, ignoring my feeble attempt to turn away. “Deacon, did you call—” My words are cut off by him gripping my chin forcefully; he invades my mouth with his tongue, his kisses growing more eager and desperate.
“Deacon, what are… no,” I slur, as I try to push him off me.
Ignoring my protests, he lifts my butt up and rips down my leggings and tears open my cami, leaving me vulnerable and exposed. My mind races, searching for an escape, while my body refuses to obey.
The tension in the air is palpable, a dangerous energy that makes my skin crawl. Deacon’s voice is barely recognizable, his words slurred and filled with a malicious intent that I never thought him capable of. The sense of betrayal cuts deep, leaving me feeling cold and hollow inside.
“Deacon,” I whisper weakly. My vision blurs as fear creeps in while I wait to wake up from this nightmare. It has to be a nightmare. Deacon would never. Once again, my eyes flutter shut, though my mind screams for me to wake.
“Stop, Deacon,” I manage to say when I hear the unmistakable sound of his zipper. The dark haze encircling my mind is suffocating, like a vice grip around my consciousness.
“Don’t be such a prude,” Deacon growls, his voice cruel and unfamiliar. “Two years, Cleo, and we still haven’t fucked. So Lydia gave you a little something to help you relax.”
Deacon pulls my underwear down.
He starts moving my limbs like I am a puppet and he is the puppeteer, and the next second, bright light sears my eyes repeatedly as I fight to remain conscious.
“You better keep your fucking word,” I think I hear, I can’t be sure when the flash goes off again. The ceiling swirls when I see a phone before another flash that blinds me.
I struggle to keep my eyes open, to fight against the darkness that threatens to engulf me. Each flash from the phone is like a physical assault, disorienting and terrifying.
I want to scream, to run, to do anything besides lie here helplessly.
Tears form in my eyes, but my body remains unresponsive to my desperate pleas for it to move, to do anything. My heart pounds in my chest as the gravity of the situation settles upon me, making it even harder to breathe.
“Deacon?” I slur, wanting him to get me out of whatever is going on.
Deacon’s laugh is cruel and mocking, a sound that sends shivers down my spine. “You’re mine,” he slurs, his words dripping with possessiveness. “I’ve waited long enough for this.”
Suddenly, the door of the wagon is ripped open. “What the fuck, man?” I hear a voice say.
“She said no!” someone snarls. My eyelids are now too heavy to open, but whoever it is, his voice carries an authority that sends shivers down my spine. I know that voice from somewhere. I’m sure of it.
My heart races, pounding against my rib cage as if trying to escape the nightmare unfolding around me. I hear the sounds of a scuffle, the grunts and shouts muffled as if coming from underwater.
“Whoa, calm down, man! You can have a go after me,” Deacon retorts. It’s Deacon! My mind tries to zero in on theother voice. It’s a voice of power, of control, and it stirs something within me, a flicker of hope in the darkness.
The sound of a struggle intensifies, the thuds and crashes reverberating through the wagon. An aura so strong vibrates through the air, threatening to choke me with the sheer violence behind it, and I’m powerless to intervene.
