"How? There's no way out of it, he's made that clear."
"Don't underestimate what we're capable of doing. This isn't over until it's over, and I assure you, we will come out on top. I willburnthe world down for you, Cora." I say the words to convince her, even though they're partially for me, too. I'm not lying—there isn't anything Silver, Alec, or I wouldn’t do for her, but I would be lying if I said it was going to be easy.
For the first time in my life, I'm terrified of the unknown, especially when I have a feeling one of us won't make it out of this thing alive.
33
CORA
My entire body aches, starting at my head and going all the way down to my toes. Even my mind is riddled with tormented memories of my past and what lies ahead of me in my future.
But lying here, my face resting against Miller's chest, it's a comfort no pain reliever could ever bring.
If only I could stay here forever.
"Have you heard from the hospital? About London?" I ask him, the question haunting me even in my dreams.
"No. I called a few hours ago, and there wasn't an update."
I pull my lip between my teeth and tug at it.
Miller reaches up and frees it from my hold. "She's going to be okay."
"You don't know that."
"I don't, but we have to hope, okay?"
It's strange how the tables have turned—I used to be the obnoxiously bubbly and optimistic one, and here is he, the murderous stalker who is telling me not to lose faith.
I should probably be concerned about the stalking and the murder, but nothing seems to surprise me anymore. It's as if my mind has grown numb to the terrors of the world and they've just become...normal.
Most guys don't put in an effort, at least Miller is thorough, even if that means breaking into my house, stealing my things, and stalking me.
Some would call it a crime; I call it romance.
Or maybe I really have gone and lost my mind.
"Do you want to unload some of the things you keep in there?" Miller presses his finger to my forehead. "I'll lock it up in here for safekeeping." He brings that same finger to his temple.
I draw in a breath through my nose and bring that memory to the surface, fragments of it jarring my thoughts like flash photography in a dark room. My hair tangled, sand on my knees, my bikini tattered and barely hanging on.
"It was uh, my dad's friend." My heart stutters at the admission of saying it out loud. "I was sixteen."
Miller plants his hand along my jaw, his touch calming me more than he'll ever know.
"He was twenty-four." The smell of the beach comes washing over me and suddenly, I feel dirty, like there aren't enough showers to rid me of the filth I felt on that day. "I'd known him my whole life. He'd come to visit here and there, play a game of poker with my dad and his friends. I'd bring them all beer or chips, you know, whatever little dumb errands they'd send me on." I force a smile and continue. "But that summer, he had made comments about meblossoming...and I was just a kid, a stupid girl. I didn't hate the attention, not at first."
Miller doesn't let go as I tell this story for the first time in my entire life. Not even the therapists my parents forced me to go to knew of what happened.
"We had all gone to the beach, and my parents left early so he offered to stay and watch me and drive me home. I didn't think anything of it. I should have known it was foolish to stay with him. Even my parents didn't blink an eye and told us to have fun. My mom gave me twenty bucks to spend on the boardwalk and told me not to eat too much ice cream. I was mortified. How dare my mother treat me like a child. But if there was some way to turn back time, I'd go back to that moment and beg her to take me home, not to leave me there with him."
"Cora..."
I keep on with the story because if I stop now, there's no way I'll ever start again. "He was drinking, and as the sun started to set, I knew he had too much. I had my driver's permit, so I said I could drive us home. I didn't want to get in the car with him behind the wheel." I shake my head. "But that wasn't the worst of what could have happened...because before we even left the beach, he pinned me to the ground underneath the lifeguard tower and stole my innocence."
Miller wipes the tears that fall down my cheek.
"I cried on the way home, and I remember wishing that we'd crash, or the police would pull him over. I pictured myself running to the cops and telling them what he had done, but nothing happened. No wreck. No cops. Nothing. And when we got home, he laughed at my parents and said that I fell down and scuffed my hands and knees, that's why I looked the way I did and why I was crying. Neither of them even questioned it, they fully went along with his every word and even scolded me for being so clumsy. I remember locking myself in my room but never really feeling safe. I don't think I left my bed for days. I told my parents I was sick, that maybe I got the flu or something from all the people at the beach that day."
