But I've already made my move. Water crashes down with brutal force—drenching her from scalp to heel. Her flimsy pyjamas cling toher. She gasps, slips, scrambling backward across the tile. Her hair is a tangled mess, chest heaving with shock.
She's quaking, teeth chattering, arms wrapped around herself as if they could hold her shattered pieces together.
"Need to wash the stink of him off you," I mutter with icy disdain. "Next time you wanna act like a woman looking for a fuck, I'll give you one. Permission or not. You’ve been warned."
She curls tighter, a tangled mess of limbs and humiliation, trying to vanish into the drain. But nothing swallows guilt in this house.
I turn and walk out, each step a drumming reminder of my power. At the door, I pause—long enough for her to understand I could have unleashed more. And next time? I just might.
I leave her there—cold, trembling, drenched to the bone.
Chapter 7
You Do Not Deserve This
Summer
Iwake on the sofa, spine digging into metal springs, every bone aching like it’s been borrowed and returned broken. My clothes are dry, but my skin still remembers the water—icy and unforgiving.
I had stripped out of the soaked pajamas on the bathroom floor and threw on whatever I could find—a hoodie that smells like mothballs and old perfume, joggers from the bottom of a drawer. My hair’s still damp, curling against my jaw in cold tendrils. The towel lies crumpled beside the sink, half-frozen, like it gave up too.
Last night won’t stop replaying in my head. The rush of dancing with Benny, the thrill of being wanted, even if it was by a stranger. But then—Jacob. The way the air shifted when he pinned me to the wall, how the fear tangled with something I shouldn’t have felt. How close I came to wanting his mouth on mine. I keep wondering what it would feel like if he did kiss me—how desperate, how starved it would be. He’s been there for so long, watching, invading, haunting every inch of space I own. And now I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to give in—to let a man that obsessed, that dangerous, have me.
He put me under the shower, made sure I was drenched, shivering. Then he told me if I ever showed interest in another man, he’d fuck me anyway. He said it like a promise,not a threat.
The twist in my stomach isn’t fear—it’s something worse, something I can’t justify. I hate him. I tell myself that over and over. But the truth is, every time he pushes me, something inside me answers back.
I drag myself off the sofa and fold the comforter neatly. The house is quiet.Tooquiet. No boots on gravel. No keys in the lock. No footsteps upstairs. He’s gone, or he’s watching. He does that sometimes—lurks in doorways, blends into shadows. Waits until I forget he exists before reminding meexactlywho I belong to.
There’s a buzzing behind my eyes, like my brain’s been scrubbed with steel wool. The flickering bathroom light pulses in the hallway mirror—on, off, on again. Everything feels used. My body. The house. Even the morning.
I go to the kitchen and fill the coffee machine. I flick it on, gripping the counter, fingers curling into the wood like maybe I can anchor myself before I float too far away. The world tilts. My stomach turns. I need breakfast. I need something stupid and normal. But nothing is normal anymore. Not since he made me his.
I move to the eggs.
Tap. Crack. Spill.
One splits wrong. Yolk dribbles across the counter. I grab the hem of the hoodie and smear it up without thinking. It stains. Sinks. The mess never really disappears—it just changes color. Toast burns. I scrape it. Coffee’s cold. I drink it anyway.
I sit at the table and cry. Not loud—the kind of crying that comes without sound. The kind that leaks. My face stays blank. My body still. But my insides are hollowing out with every slow blink.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The clock counts out my sentence. I think about running. I always do. Ever since that first day—the way Papa wouldn’t look at me, the way the door clicked shut and I realized that no one was going to stop him. Not the law. Not the town. Not my mother.
“Jacob is the law,” I remind myself.
If I run, who’ll stop Jackson’s men? No one. He made that perfectly clear. And he’d rather kill me himself than let them tear me apart.
Rosefield doesn’t forgive. It erases. People here disappear, but townsfolk know better than to ask questions. Like the mechanic’s shop—what’s left of it—and the guy who owned it. Dead. Apparently, it was suicide, but who dies of a gunshot wound next to a running vehicle with the door open? This town is corrupt through and through, and Jacob is the one pulling all the strings and ticking all the boxes.
I wipe the mug until its surface gleams, rinse the plate, fold the dishcloth over the sink’s edge in a gesture so small it hardly matters—one less thing for Jacob to notice, one less excuse for him to tilt my chin, whisper I’m slipping, then carve the reminder into my flesh.
I peel back the curtain enough to see the drive. Empty. The sky looms low, swollen with grey uncertainty.
A stray tear escapes from my eye, rolling down my cheek. I wipe it away before it has chance to fall and catch the scent of the manky hoodie. I need to change.
I climb the staircase, make my way down the hall and stand before my wardrobe, hands trembling, and pull out the lilac dress he told me I’m only to wear inside his house. Soft. Short. Too much flesh he’d said—ironically precise, like a spotlight trained on my bruises, my shame on display.
