The memory washes over me—the click of the lock, the smell of stale beer, the sudden, suffocating lack of air.
“He held me down,” I whisper. “He pinned my wrists. He was… heavy. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. He was trying to… to force me.”
Declan makes a sound low in his throat—a rough, strangled noise of pure rage.
“Is he here?” Declan demands, the words sharp and immediate. “Is he on this campus?”
“No,” I say, looking up. “He’s gone. I transferred. He stayed.”
The tension in Declan’s shoulders doesn’t drop, but the murderous light in his eyes shifts from immediate threat to cold, retro-active fury.
“I screamed,” I get out. “Someone heard me. But for a minute… I was a thing. Just a thing he thought he owned.”
Declan reaches out, hand hovering near my face, trembling slightly.
“Talia,” he says, low and rough.
He brushes the tear from my cheek with his thumb. The touch is so gentle it makes me want to sob.
“I’m telling you because… sometimes when you get angry, even when it’s not at me—my body remembers being trapped. It remembers his hands.”
He closes his eyes like the words hit him like a punch.
“I would never—”
“I know,” I whisper. “I know you wouldn’t. But my body doesn’t always know.”
He exhales shakily and drops his head back against the seat. Then—slowly—he shifts, turning to face me fully. His eyes are wet. Wrecked.
“Thank you,” he murmurs. “For trusting me with that.”
He lets the silence settle. Not to fill it, not to rush it. Just sits there, present, warm, steady.
“You’re not him,” I say softly.
His throat works. His hand curls into a fist so tight the tendons stand out.
“My father,” he says finally. “He’s the one you should be afraid of.”
The air shifts.
“What do you mean?”
He swallows hard, eyes fixed on the dashboard like he can’t bear to look at me while he says it.
“It wasn’t an accident,” he says. “My mother.”
My stomach drops. “Declan—”
“She was sick,” he says, voice flat, hollow. “Cancer. For two years. And the whole time… he didn’t care about her. He cared about the inconvenience. He controlled her doctors, her visitors, her medicine. He made her small.”
He looks at his hands.
“He locked her down until she didn't have a voice left. Even at the end, it was about his image. His control. He squeezed the life out of her long before the sickness did.”
The grief in his voice is a blade. One he’s held alone for years.
“And the trust fund?” I ask gently.
