“Why do you think that?” Evie asked.
Emily shrugged, glancing back towards Olivia. She watched her for a long time before turning back to us. “The look in her eyes is one I recognized. Now starts the spiral.” She inhaled deeply and straightened. “I don’t think this is depression, not like what I had. I think it’s PTSD. I think, now that she has the freedom, that she might start doing things that’ll either erase what happened to her or force herself to forget it all together.”
“Rae doesn’t remember it,” Evelyn pointed out.
“Rae doesn’t remember it because her mind suppressed the memories. I think Olivia remembers it all, and I think that she’s going to do her best to make sure she never has to think about it again.”
Evelyn leaned back. “Well, we can’t let her do that. Drink her problems away, that’s not how we solve this.”
“It doesn’t matter what you do, Evie, she’s going to spiral. All you guys can do is control the spiral. Guide it in a way that doesn’t absolutely destroy her.”
Evelyn laughed, but it was cold and detached. “This isn’t one of your poems, Em. This isn’t some poetic ‘shattered glass’ and ‘collapsing galaxies’ mantra, this is deeper than that.”
“And she is a writer,” Emily stated, her eyes hardening. “She has never looked at the world the same way as you have. Ever, no matter how similar it seems, her mind doesn’t work like that. I am not talking in poetic proses, Evelyn. I am telling you she will spiral. You can take the wine and the guns and every sharp thingaway from her hands, but she will find a way despite that. Lock her in padded room, and she will still find a way to self-destruct. Whether it be outward or inward.
“My advice to you, leave it to something you can actually see, because I promise you that if you allow her to retreat deeper into her head then she already is, she might never come back out. You can control the wine. You can control the percentage of alcohol in that wine, what you can’t control are the thoughts that are still shredding her mind right now.
“I think the reason she hasn’t talked more than those few words,” Emily went on, my eyes shooting up, “is because she is still in that room. She’s still waiting for the next man to walk down those stairs and tear her to shreds. You guys, all of us, we have to figure out a way to bring her out of that room. Wine may be the key. We just can’t let it get out of hand.”
“She spoke?” I asked, my heart pounding against my ribs. “What did she say?”
Evelyn and Emily continued to glare at each other for a few seconds longer before Evelyn finally found my eyes. “She told us her name was Olivia Kingsmen,” she said, my shoulders falling in shock. “The next thing she said was a while later when she asked me why we didn’t notice there was something wrong with Wade.”
I would forever punish myself for not looking deeper into him. I should have dug so deep, I scraped against his bones. It was a mistake I would never make again.
My brows pulled together as I turned back to Olivia, that mouse curled on the shoulder the bullet had ripped through. She had called herself Olivia Kingsmen?
That had to mean something.
That had to be important.
It had a nice ring to it. Olivia Kingsmen, my…
I swallowed, working my jaw against the word that had cometo mind. Because it was ‘mine’ or ‘Claim’ or ‘owned’. It was something else. Something that never had any meaning until I met her.
I shook the thoughts away and stood. “I’m going to take her to bed and then go see where Jack and Rae are in their progress. You two stay with her. Don’t leave her side.”
I didn’t wait for a reply before heading to the living room. If she needed to spiral, then she could spiral. She could spiral within the confines of my own chest, where she was safe to explode if need be. Whatever she needed to do, she had the freedom to do it, and I would be right behind her. Seen or unseen, I didn’t care. She would always have me, even if she never saw me again.
26
Olivia
October 14th, 2022
My body jerked, my eyes flashing open, heart racing, the panic settling in.
I could feel his hands on me. I could feel his cock inside of me. Hear his heavy breathing.
The face of them all merging into one monster taking from me pieces I would never get back.
Over and over and over—
“Everett,” I said on a breath, and then inhaled sharply and shoved myself to a panicked sit, my mind working far too slow to register where I was, how I had gotten here.
It was dark.
Everything was so dark except for the city lights streaming in through my bedroom window.
