“No, I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m not… All this time, it was you. You were in my room. You were touching me—oh my god,you fucking touched me.”
My stomach bottoms out at the realization.
“Bonnie,please.”
“No, you don’t get to beg,” I say, my rage starting to break. “You don’t get to make excuses.”
I can hardly breathe for the racing thoughts, for every memory pouring out, every realization that it wasn’t just some stranger.
It was her.
God, it washer.
“It was you at the club,” I say. “You in my hotel rooms. You at the studio, sending me messages, pretending you knew nothing about the phone calls, the texts, the… You made mereliveall of that shit,” I register.
Her chest sinks. “Bonnie, I couldn’t… How was I supposed to tell you?” she asks. “Whenwas I supposed to tell you?”
“I don’t know, maybe when the first call came in?” I say, recalling how terrified I was… how I wondered if my stalker was just as scared. “I needed you. You were the only person who was there that night. There was something… if I had known—”
“You would have hated me anyway,” she says.
My chest begins to fall, except then I remember another incident that had me just as scared.
“You sent me that girl’sfingernails,” I say, jerking the gun at her face again.
Gemma’s eyes narrow as if that single sentence took her from pleading to rage. Her arms drop to her waist, feet shifting.
“If you only knewhalfof the shit I’ve done to keep you safe, Bonnie Miller,” she says in a slow, dangerous voice. “Every time someone tried to get to you, the things I’ve done even recently with your assailants… Yeah, I sent you her fingernails. Shedruggedyou. She drugged you and tried to get you to leave with her while you couldn’t even fucking walk straight enough to get out of the goddamn bar,” she goes on, voice rising. “She could have been kidnapping you for all I knew.Iwas the one who carried you out of there.Iwas the one who got you safely back on your bus. That woman is lucky I didn’t cut her fucking throat like all the others.”
I pause at the claim, my throat dry. I’m wracking my brain trying to remember more than glimpses of that night. Yet, just like so many nights that year, I can’t.
Wait.
“Others?” I ask hesitantly.
Her lashes lift, our eyes meet, and I cave at the look in them.
“Never mind, I don’t want to know,” I manage. “That girl didn’t drug me. You’re lying. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Gemma gawks. “Youknowshe did,” she argues. “I sent you her fingernails in the hopes it would scare you enough that you’d think twice, maybe even stop, that you’d be so terrified of what I might do next that you’d—”
“That I’dwhat?” I say through repressed tears. “That I’d leave the tour? Stop finding joy in—”
“The bottom of a fucking bottle,” Gemma practically growls.
My mouth snaps closed, nostrils flaring. “You don’t get to throw that in my fucking face,” I snap.
“No, right now, I don’t want to throw anything in your face because wehave to go,” she says, grabbing my bag. “You can scream. Yell. Shout. Hit me. Hate me. I don’t care. As long as you do it out of this room.”
“No,” I argue.
“Bonnie, we will do this the hard way if we need to,” she warns.
“Really? What, are you going to chloroform me? Pick me up? Carry me out of here? Tell people I passed out?”
Gemma’s brow lifts, and I realize that’s exactly what she would do.
My expression falters, eyes squinting. “Seriously?!Who are you right now?”
