Page 90 of Resist

“Be quiet, Vee,” she shouts at me.

“The gun’s empty, Samantha.” Uncle James straightens up, the crazy look in his eyes gone some.

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” The hatred in her voice makes my hair stand on end.

“James? Where are you, Jamesey-James?” The singsong voice coming down the hallway makes him freeze. He looks at the open door and then back to Samantha.

“Remember what I said,” he threatens.

“And remember what I said. You touch her, I’ll kill you.”

I jolt up in bed. Startled. Confused. It takes a moment for me to recognize my surroundings. The pale blue of the room and the artwork dotting the walls. The dark wood of the massive bed and the down comforter around me.

And of course the man snoring oh so softly beside me.

I’m sitting in his massive bed, in the place that has brought me more solace and hope than I’ve had in a long time, suddenly dealing with the crushing weight of my past.

Of the past I finally remember in totality.

Of the nights after that when Samantha and I slept with a gun under the pillow and a chair braced against the bedroom door. Of the nights when she told me she had to stay up to do homework but would slide into bed beside me, hiding her muffled cries in the pillow so as not to wake me. Cries I thought were because she missed our mother but now realize it was for so much more. The bags under her eyes from sleepless nights when she sat awake in bed like she was waiting for something and the sudden red lines I’d find on the tops of her thighs she said were from helping out with the horses but now know were from cutting herself.

I hiccup a sob and then fight back the bile that rises in my throat.

But within seconds I’m moving off the bed and running as quietly as possible to the extravagant bathroom to empty the nonexistent contents of my stomach.

Not because I was molested by my uncle James. He never touched me after that night. But because I know the reason he didn’t was because he used my sister instead.

The blinding guilt hits me stronger than the worst panic attack I’ve ever had.

I have to get out of here.

I need air and time to think and space to move, and . . . I just need to get out of here.

Forcing myself not to look at Ryker sleeping on the bed or to think about the absolute reverence he showed me last night in every way possible, I gather my things and bolt from the penthouse.

And I don’t feel like I can really breathe again for hours. I switch from train to train as snapshots from our evening flicker and fade in my mind. Pleasure I’ve never felt—haven’t let myself feel—and finally did. And then the guilt over why I deserve to feel it when Sam never could hits.

I ignore my phone, which rings repeatedly as Ryker calls, I’m sure trying to comprehend why the bed beside him was empty without any explanation when he woke up. The guilt starts again. Over leaving him like that. Over all of the mishmash of emotions I feel toward him when I shouldn’t, and then it circles back to Samantha.

Over.

And.

Over.

Not until my feet sink into the sand and the lights and sounds of Atlantic City are at my back do I feel like I can take my first deep breath of air.

I sit on the beach for hours. To the first place Samantha and I ended up when we finally ran away. To where we slept in our car for the first few weeks as we waited indefinitely for the knock on the window by a cop telling us we had to go back.

But nobody cared.

Nobody looked for us.

“I have something to tell you, Vaughny.”

I looked over to my sister. She was tired, her face gaunt, but the always-constant, assessing eyes were somewhat calmer. “I told Grandma, and she didn’t believe me.”

“Told her what?”