I swallow down my scream.
He ruined me.
The urge to cry for help overwhelms me, but fear locks up my throat, leaving me mute and trembling.
Austin’s smile twists cruelly as he places a fingertip beneath my chin and forces my eyes up to meet the arctic chill of his pale blue gaze.
“Wha… wha… what do you want?” I stumble over the words.
Dammit. I’m stronger than this.
Don’t show him your fear. Don’t give him what he wants.
Austin’s fingers shift until he’s cupping my jaw, but the hold isn’t gentle. It’s possessive. Controlling. Bile rises in my throat.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he says. “Have you been thinking about me, too? About our night together?”
Tears well in my eyes.
“I’ve been thinking about that night a lot lately. Especially since you’ve needed near constant reminders about our little …” he pauses until my eyes flicker to his, fingers digging painfully into my skin, “arrangement.”
His breath ghosts over my cheek as he leans in to whisper near my ear, “I’d hate to resort to more extreme measures to keep this pretty little mouth shut, Cece. So tell me, are you behaving yourself? Or should we revisit our night together? You know, for old times’ sake.”
Tears blur my vision, but I blink them back, refusing to show any more weakness in front of this monster than I already have.
His finger trails from my chin down my throat in a perverse caress.
Revulsion and nausea roil inside me.
“I’m doing what you asked,” I choke out in a ragged whisper. “I’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t said a word since …” I trail off, unable to get the words out, but he knows what I mean. He knows I haven’t said a word about the assault since the morning after it happened. Not since I realized no one was going to believe me. Not the school. Not my friends.
And if they don’t believe me, why bother going to the police?
Austin knew before he ever laid a hand on me that he’d get away with it. But it took me losing everything to come to that same realization.
Statistics for rape victims are deplorable in the United States. Richland is no exception.
One in every six women in the U.S. has been a victim of sexual assault. I’m not special here. Just a member of a club I wish I’d never been a part of.
Suncrest U did a study a while back that found less than six percent of reported rapes in the United States lead to an arrest. Less than one percent lead to a conviction. And only half a percent of those convictions result in jail time.
And that’s not even including the over sixty percent of rapes that aren’t even reported. Ones like mine.
It shouldn’t surprise me that Austin and his friends got away with what they did to me. I’m just another statistic. A silent, forgotten number that society couldn’t care less about.
Austin clicks his tongue, straightening as his smile sharpens with cruelty. “Keep it that way. Your boy is sniffing around my business. Get him to stop or—” He lets the threat hang in the air between us.
“I broke things off,” I tell him, hating the way that admission tastes on my tongue. My heart squeezes. Just thinking about Gabriel, about the look on his face when he told me he loved me, it twists something inside of me.
I look down at my chest, searching for the blood I know should be pouring out of my heart. It feels like someone’s stabbed a blade deep in my chest. There’s nothing there. But the pain isreal. This ache. Austin found a way to take yet another thing from me.
He tilts his head, a curious glimmer in his eyes. “Trouble in paradise? Lover boy unable to—” He makes a crude motion with his hips, grinding into me. “—satisfy you?”
“Get off of me,” I shriek. Bracing both hands against Austin’s chest, I push with all my might.
He doesn’t even sway.
My breath seizes in my lungs. He’s too close. He’s going to … no. He can’t. He—Urgh!
