The cut on my lip reopens with the impact of his assault and blood rushes from the wound. Unshed tears well in my eyes, causing my vision to blur as pain radiates throughout my entire body.
I raise my arms to protect myself, but my bound hands are rendered useless when Guy pulls them above my head with a bruising grip. I squeeze my eyes shut, turning my face away from him when he leans down, close enough that I feel his lips brush against my ear.
“I’ve spent two fucking years tracking you down, following your every move to get you back,” he growls, hardly panting from the chase I just gave him. His large hand grips my jaw so hard I fear it may crack, and he forces my head to turn backtoward him. I keep my eyes closed but fight the urge to dry heave when I feel the wetness of his tongue licking the blood from my chin. He then bites my split lip, causing an uncontrolled cry from deep in my chest to escape. “You’ve turned into quite the mouthy, feral little bitch since you escaped me, Collins.” His smile is slow to return, fully laced with venom, “I love a good chase, but youwillpay dearly for the little claws you seem to have grown, and I can’t wait to finally hear your screams as I pull them out. One. By. One.”
My jaw remains clamped shut, refusing to answer him when his weight disappears from on top of me. I crack my eyes open to see him now standing over me, his feet planted on either side of my knees. Even in the dark, I can make out the red that paints his lips from my blood; it sends a chill up my spine.
My head is still spinning from the blows he dealt earlier, but I try my best to scoot away from him. He only laughs at my attempt as he bends down to grab my bare ankles. I kick my feet, throwing as much of my weight into each attempted strike as I can. I manage to land one good blow to his thigh, but it does minimal damage. All it seems to do is piss him off, because before I can blink, his shoe meets my stomach and all the wind is knocked from my lungs. Nausea immediately bubbles up, and I want to curl myself up and around my pain. My lips part in a silent scream.
“That‘s going to look so pretty when it bruises,” Guy groans, taking advantage of my weakened state to lift my shirt high enough to see the welt his shoe no doubt left behind on my skin. Nausea rushes in and black starts to spot my vision as the adrenaline that once kept me in the present starts rapidly declining, and I can feel myself shutting down.
Seemingly satisfied with what he sees, Guy drops my shirt, grimacing at the fact that it clearly doesn’t belong to me and grabs my ankles once more.
“I think it’s time we check on your little boyfriend, huh? See if the little fucker is going to pull through. I’d hate to have him miss what I have planned for you,” he croons, and the tone of his voice is absolutely sickening.
I don’t have the energy to fight him anymore, but as he drags me through the woods, it doesn’t stop me from digging my nails into the dirt in an attempt to slow him down. One of them bends back to the quick, and the pain is so sudden and sharp that it makes me feel like I’m going to puke. Sucking in a shaky breath through my nose, I let the first tear fall. Theonlytear. Just one.
Not for me.
Not for my pain.
But for Riley.
For everything that’s happened to him because of me.
For everything that could happen to him if he somehow survives this.
I don’t know whether to pray for his death so he doesn’t have to suffer next to me, or for him to live so that I may selfishly never know a day that exists without him in it.
The whole way back to a warehouse-like building, I fight, and kick, and squirm, and do everything I can to make it difficult for Guy to drag me back. All that effort amounts to nothing as my body is inevitably pulled over the threshold of the place that will surely be my grave. Even as disoriented as I am, I still catch wind that Rileywillmake it. The sense of dread I feel for him fades into the ether as the physical world is sucked away from me and replaced with a quiet state of nothingness.
I am nobody.
I feel nothing.
The silence that greets me in the void is holy.
And memories are nothing more than a theoretical concept.
I fade in and out of consciousness, my brain doing its best to outsmart my body. With every hit, every cut, every singlefucking time I’m choked or the chains that keep me bound to this dirty bed are tightened, I lock myself deep inside the chasm of dissociation. I keep Guy blocked out and my mouth shut.
He’s tried so many times in the past to get me to scream, like it’s something he can just magically make me do with my permanently damaged vocal cords. He’s never succeeded, and I’ve never tried. But being a wealthy businessman somehow wipes the wordsnoandfailurefrom his vocabulary.
No matter what he did or said, I never reacted. Every time he opened his mouth to talk, I tucked myself into my dark mental corner. Every time, I became that nine year old girl again. Hiding in her big brother’s closet with his Walkman playing on max volume, humming alongThe Prettiest Starwhile I awaited my rescue.
Chapter 3
Riley
“…EVEN IF WE SURVIVE THIS.”
Apain-filled groan fills my ears at the same time a throbbing, searing heat rips through my body, and through my foggy brain, I register that the sound belongs to me. I’m not sure what horrible act I committed in life to be welcomed into the gates of hell like this, but I guess I have no choice but to accept my fate.
My body shivers uncontrollably, and my shoulder pulsates with a relentless pain.
Then it hits me.
I’m not dead.
