His footsteps pound the pavement behind me. He shouts, “Ember! Get your fucking ass back here!”
If he thinks I’m good at listening to instructions, he’s in for a rude awakening. I only speed up, desperately praying to escape him. If he gets his hands on me again, he won’t make the mistake of leaving me conscious and my feet unbound twice. I don’t know if I’ll get another chance. I don’t—
A car swoops by me, swiveling violently on the road.Drunk driver. The shitty Toyota veers in my direction, tires squeaking.
I freeze, cold washing over me. My limbs are frozen. My entire body aches with pain. My life—whatever meager life I live—flashes before my eyes, followed byher.I can see her so clearly, a bullet in her head, Dagon standing above her body. Sharing a private joke with himself at my expense.
A strong weight slams into me, but it’s not the metal of the car. It’sMax. His force sends both of us hurtling onto a patch of soggy, wilted grass nearby. The car screeches to a stop mere inches away from us.The driver, a boy with glazed eyes and lips parted in shock, stares at me for ten seconds. Then, he shifts gears, and zooms away.
Max flips me onto my back and bares his teeth at me. “You fucking—”
I do the only thing I can right now to distract him; I spit in his face. He recoils with a scowl, and I try to wriggle out from beneath him, but he doesn’t allow it. He straddles me, full force of his weight pinning my hips to the grass. Dampness from the rain-sprinkled ground seeps into my dress.
Max glares down at me with rage-filled eyes. “Are you stupid?” he shouts.
I laugh. “To get captured by a novice like you? Probably.”
He blinks. “You’recallingmeanovice?”
“Sorry, was that too big a word for you? How aboutidiot?Are you familiar with that one?” I don’t know where my attitude comes from. It got beaten out of me years ago—I learned that silence is safer than speech, proving the old Epictetus teaching true.
So why the hell am I talking rightnow?It’s certainly not because I’m comfortable around this stranger—I’mnot.
I guess near-death experiences have a way of loosening my lips.
“Ember,” Max breathes out. His eyes scan my face, and his eyebrows draw together. “What the fuckhappened to you?”
“Would you like that list alphabetically or numerically?”
My issues are probably miles long. At the top? Chronic stress. Second down? PTSD like a motherfucker. Third? Headaches that threaten to kill me from pain alone.
Max goes still, worry flashing across his eyes. He really seems to think he knows me, and since I have a gaping hole in my memories, it’s possible he does. I don’t know if we were friends orenemies—I’m leaning towards friends, considering the way he speaks to me and looks at me. Were we romantically involved?
Doubt it.I remember the day my hymen broke, and it happenedafterthe event that left me with crippling headaches and amnesia.
“Ember,” he repeats, quieter. “It’s me.”
Judging by his tone, we were definitely something to each other. His eyes are vaguely familiar, though I can’t place them, and I’m not interested in trying. But he seems to want me to remember him—maybe enough to make him stupid.
I can work with that.
I make an effort to soften my features and widen my eyes. I try to mimic the expression of adoration that women wear on TV.
“Max?” I breathe.
Elation fills his gaze. He leans forward. “It’s me,” he repeats quietly.
As soon as he’s close enough, I smash my forehead into his nose. He recoils with a shout of pain, which turns to a groan of sheer fury. Blood sprays on the grass from his hopefully-broken nose. His hips lift just enough for me to swiftly slide out from under him, but before I can get to my feet, his hand wraps around my ankle and yanks me beneath him, this time face-down. His hand presses down between my shoulder blade, and then…
I feel his erection pressing into my ass. Everything inside me freezes. Fear stuns me into place, but there’s something else.
He’s big.
Hugesort of big.
ER trip for apunctured lungsort of big.
“Bad fucking choice,” he hisses into my ear. “We’re going to have to work on your attitude.”
