“Breathe for me, sweet girl. Breathe.”
Melissa appears beside Bastian, her eyes dark, her jaw clamped closed. She wipes hair out of my face, bites her lip.
There’s a tug around my throat, an uncomfortable chafing as Bastian drags the collar around.
His eyes narrow. “Where’s the key, Parker? Where’s the fucking key?”
My drugged mind fractures.
The collar around my neck tightens as I yank it so hard it burns, and suddenly I’m nothereanymore.
I’m seventeen years old, and Uncle Lenny is dragging me by a leash made of his belt.
“Bitch needs training,” he says, but it’s Ezra’s voice and Lenny’s voice, merging into one.
But it’s not about training. It’s about breaking. Just like Ezra tried to break me. Just like Kai’s been breaking me. Just like Bastian will break me.
“No!” I thrash in Bastian’s arms. “Please, I’ll be good! I won’t stay out late again, I promise! Please, I promise!”
“Haven, girl, you’re safe,” comes another voice from a different time. Firm, sincere...almost like he cares. “Look at me?—”
But I can’t see Bastian anymore. All I see is Uncle Lenny’s face, twisted with the same sick smile Ezra wore.
“You know when it’s time to come home,” I rasp, my eyes rolling back. “Don’t make me come looking for you again, bitch.”
“What the fuck is wrong with her?” Melissa yells.
A lifetime of trauma finally caught up with me. And Idon’t know where I end and the trauma begins.
Every man who’s touched me is here.
In my head. On my skin.
I’m everyone’s and no one’s and nothing and everything and?—
“Get the fuck out of my way, Parker!” Bastian, harsh and cruel as Lenny.
“But what?—”
“She’s having a psychotic break! Nowmove!”
Then I’m bundled against Bastian’s chest, and the world is bobbing up and down. He’s so warm that I curl against him, put my cheek on his heart, and listen to it beating urgently, desperately…for me?
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Like Kai’s fists on Ezra’s face. Like the music that made me lose my mind. Like Uncle Lenny’s footsteps coming down the hall to my room at night. I’m being carried away from one predator…in the arms of another.
And I’m too broken to care anymore.
Everyone saw the collar. The bowl.
Me on my knees.
Tomorrow it’ll be all over campus. Proof the scholarship girl was never one of them.
Never will be.
Always a joke, a lesser-than, afraud.
Kai fought for me, but it’s too late.
The damage is done.
