Stop.
I think my hands are in my hair. I think I’m moving, backing up and shaking my head.
I don’t want to remember it.
“No,” I hear my distant voice. “No, no, no—”
I don’t want to go back there.
There’s a bright white void where the memory should be, and I realize as I pull the roots of my hair that it’s the light over my head as I stare from the ground, someone on top of me, an iron tang on the air as scarlet blood sprays—
I don’t want to remember it.
Get out.
Get out.
Hands press to my cheeks again. I flinch and jerk as I remember that I’m not there. I’m still in my room. They aren’t anywhere near me. I’m safe.
My stalker stands in front of me just as she did those years ago, except then, she was patting my cheeks and hauling me offthe ground. She was there.She was there.She saw them. She saw me. She saved me—
And they just threatened her, too.
“I… What—”
The sound of my text message ringer makes both of us jump. My stalker leans over to peer at the screen with me, and we both collectively sigh.
KADE
2AM check-in
Everything okay?
She braces two trembling fingers beneath my jaw and forces me to look at her before I can comprehend Kade’s texts.
I want see her face.
I want to see the rage swimming in her eyes.
“I’ll find them,” she whispers. “They don’t get to come back.”
She pulls the voice changer mask down, plants a lingering kiss on my lips through the fabric, and I’m left in shock when she vanishes through the front door seconds later.
Reality breaks over me the second the latch clicks.
What the fuck just happened?
SIX YEARS EARLIER
BONNIE
There’sa flicker of daylight seeping through the red curtains to my right. I squint as it invades my dark cubby, and a groan leaves me.
My fucking head isthrobbing.
God, what day is it? What time is it?
And what the hell happened last night?
