“Fucking figures he would talk to you,” she mumbles as she opens them and grabs out some of my spiked bracelets. “Asshole. Just like Rad. I swear they were spawned from the same rotting garbage heap—Where is your stun gun? Pepper spray?”
That’s the second time she’s mentioned Rad in the last minute, and I catch it.
“Bottom drawer under the mirror—What the fuck does this have to do with Rad?” I ask, confused. “Why do you keep saying his name?”
Her wide eyes soften into what I can only describe as panic and fear, and I like it even less than her previous expression.
“You don’t…Shit.”
“I don’t what?” I ask as my heart begins to throb against my eardrums. “What else don’t I know?”
She pauses as if she doesn’t want to tell me. The seconds she’s silent curdles my insides.
I tighten my fist around the gun and lift it once again in her direction.
“Tell me what Rad has to do with all of this,” I warn past the lump back in my throat.
Tell me why there’s sudden dread in the pit of my stomach.
Tell me why the picture in my head is getting clearer, why the voice is starting to sound like his.
Her tongue swipes over her lips, and she sets the phone and the spike bracelets on the shelf. “Rad was there that night. On Halloween,” she says slowly, eyes meeting mine. “He was in the blue gamer mask. He’s friends with Trevor, Lance, and Patrick. He’s one of the four who…”
Say it.
Just say it.
She hesitates. I swallow as the images begin seeping in, the sound of his voice, the blond of his hair… And as tears prick the corners of my eyes, I cock the gun back because I don’t know what the hell else to do.
Gemma flinches, hands raising at her sides again.
“Say it,” I hiss through clenched teeth, my heart firing rapidly. “Say what he did to me.”
The video of Trevor finally getting his knife properly into the lock is nothing more than a blur by Gemma’s head. There’s only Gemma and I in this room, in this universe. Only us and the few words I need her to say out loud.
Saying it aloud makes it real.
Speaking it gives me back a fraction of the power I lost.
Because if I know…
“Bonnie, Rad raped you.”
The front door rips open.
I don’t have time to take in the information, to discern the chill cracking down my spine. I don’t have a second to even out my rising blood pressure or think straight.
Rad…
A cry hiccups in my throat. My knees give as if the weight suddenly became too much. Gemma rushes across the space. Her arm loops under my ass just in time to help me stay upright instead of crashing on the ground, her other hand going across my mouth.
“Knock, knock… Anyone home?”
There’s a knot in the pit of my stomach that feels like it’s going to rip me in half. His voice triggers and sharpens memories I’ve buried, memories I blocked against myself.
Just like the other night, I can see myself lying on the floor of the nightclub again. The faces of my attackers are clearing, the haze that had always been there now dissipating.
“We’ll make you feel good—”
