I took his cold shoulder personally.
I take the refreshing water in my cupped hands and drench my blazing cheeks. But I’m not ready to leave. I’ll be ready to leave when I forget.
The tight hallway is empty when I exit the restroom. Good. He doesn’t need to watch over me if that’s the reason for him being here.
I find Lydia and drag her away from the guy she’s been chatting with and haul her to the dance floor. She doesn’t seem to mind though as we funnel through the crowd. She laughs and we dance. With my hands in the air, I close my eyes, even though the room spins in circles.
I twirl landing into the chest of a man, my hands resting there for support. He’s nice to look at, cute with a good sense of style from what I can tell behind my cloudy vision. But his eyes hold an illness about them.
My head continues to spiral as I realize I’m still in the arms of the stranger.
He doesn’t say anything as he runs his hands down my body. In my mind I’m smiling up at him, but there’s no way to be sure, because my face seems to tingle.
My gaze lazily falls on Lydia who’s dancing with some man, too. There’s a firm squeeze to my ass which sets me off. The filthy, unwanted, unpermitted kind of touching is loathing. But isn’t this what I was looking for tonight? To let loose. Let myself be free.
The man tilts his head, gesturing for me to follow. Without giving me a chance to respond, or to create a conscious decision for myself, he tugs me forward keeping an aggressive arm around my waist.
Stairs come into view and I’m fairly certain if he wasn’t holding onto me, I’d trip. My legs are like Jello at this point, and my head is so foggy I almost forget where I am.
At the top, he whispers, “This way.” His hot, slimy breath falls against my neck.
He leads me to a private room with a bed and red velvet walls. There is zero boldness left inside of me as every alarm bell blares. But I feel like a ragdoll being controlled, paralyzed within my own body. At my first chance, I wobble for the door and tug it open as best I could, but it’s locked.
Dammit. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
A voice echoes inside my mind.“Little Rabbit.”
I clamp my eyes shut, erasing him from my thoughts. “Open the door,” I demand, hardly able to string a proper sentence together. Hell, it’s a struggle to get out a small word. “I want to leave,” I slur.
In visceral panic my hands claw at the door and when I feel the guy’s presence loom over me, that numbness I wanted to use to forget, rears its ugly head.
No. No. No.
His touch is soft at first as he takes my disabled body in his arms, pulling me against him, but then his touch turns harsh. His fingers dig into my skin beneath my dress.
My feet dangle off the bed as he shoves me on my back, and my head lolls to the side. He plants demanding kisses on my neck and on my shoulders, feeling me up in places that bring back those horrible vivid memories.
I had fought then. I had fought back the first time, the second, and even the third, but by the time the fourth one came, my body had given up and the fight in me died. There was no use. Maybe it was the same for this too. But even with my will screaming inside me, Ican’tmove. My limbs are trapped like prisoners.
His entire body looms over top of mine now as he runs his hand up my leg, under my dress. A tear falls down my cheek.
Giving up seems like the only choice anymore. So here I am, giving up.
Sounds of any kind are muffled but I’m sure of the loud bang that echoes off the walls just now. The door splinters in half from being forced open and the man who was viciously trapping me underneath him is gone.
There’s movement. A body. Two bodies. And one of them is… Hush. He’s throwing punch after punch to my attacker’s face as he straddles him.
My throat is raw and dry as I try to call his name. Try to call out for him to stop before he kills the bastard.
With every single fiber of my being I can muster, I manage to yell to him and just like that, Hush pauses midair with his arm cocked and ready to land another blow.
Still holding position, he turns my way, with his chest heaving but he stands with the darkest shadows of rage I’ve ever seen.
In a blink, he’s cupping my face leaning over me. There’s a swirling scent of metal from his bleeding knuckles.
He’s saying something but it’s muffled like I’m underwater. Then I’m being lifted from the bed and into a set of warm arms.
Hush carries me down the steps I was previously forced up, and then into the crowd, to the front exit.
