When I jab my elbow into Vaughn’s still recovering ribs, I push off my feet with the speed of a bullet shattering through glass. My first thoughts are to charge for the shadowed figure that had me chasing ghosts down darkened corridors, but my astute brain is overruling my heart. I need to protect myself and Asher. I can’t do that without a weapon.
I’m halfway across the makeshift hospital room Asher had set up for Vaughn, sprinting to snatch up the gun Asher dropped when he was jabbed with a nerve agent, when my ankle is pulled out from beneath me.
As my chin skids across the wooden floor, a memory drifts me from the present to the past. . .
“Shh, Little Mouse. You’re okay. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”
This voice doesn’t sound like the one I hear in my dreams every night. It’s too deep and manly.
When I attempt to rise to a half-seated position, someone splays their hand across my chest to push me back down. I turned thirteen two months ago, so the touch fills me with panic—they’re touching my breasts.
“Asher? Is that you?” I swivel my tongue around my mouth, hoping a bit of moisture will make my words less groggy. I’m so dizzy, my woozy head is messing with my voice. I don’t recall ever sounding like this.
A voice inside me screams when a hushed tone drones through my ears, “Hold her arms above her head.”
I groggily slant my head side to side when my arms are raised. They must be moving my limbs because they feel heavier than concrete. And my head—god. It hurts so much.
“Vaughn?”
The hands pinning mine above my head feel tiny and cold. They’re so small, they can’t belong to an adult. I’m sure I could fight them off if I weren’t so tired. I just want to sleep, but the little voice in my head is begging me not to drift off just yet. It’s Asher’s birthday, and I want to give him more than just a present. I want to give him my first kiss. . . and perhaps more—if he wants me.
My breathing shallows when a second set of hands scrape the skin high on my thighs. These are callused and large—much larger than hands belonging to a sixteen-year-old.
“No!” I think that’s what I shout, but I can’t be sure. My eyelids are drooping as rapidly as my heart rate. I feel seconds from passing out.
Just before I try again to tell the person this isn’t what I want, the voice I expected earlier roars through the room. “What the fuck are you doing?! Get off her!”
A cool breeze wafts over my skin, goosebumps racing to the surface. I hear a commotion like people are fighting. . . and a faint chuckle. The laughter is odd. You wouldn’t expect anyone to be amused with how thick the air is with tension. It’s suffocating me as much as my panic is suffocating my heart.
I fight through the darkness swallowing me whole. Asher is here now, so everything will be okay. It takes me blinking several times in a row before the film coating my eyes clears enough to survey the room. I’m in the bedroom my Uncle Nestibuilt for me. It’s an exact replica of the room my mother vanished to whenever she wanted peace. It even has her paints and easels in one corner.
“No!”
I’m certain this command comes out because Uncle Nesti momentarily weakens his hold on Asher’s neck to glance back at me. He has Asher pinned to a wall outside of my room. It doesn’t appear to have been an easy struggle. Asher has bloody knuckles, and Uncle Nesti has blood gushing down his face from a cut above his brow. When Asher spots my bloodshot eyes and white face, he whacks into Uncle Nestiwith everything he has. He doesn’t care that he’s a good six inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter.
Uncle Nesti is huge; that’s why we call him “Bear.” He’s just as big and just as hairy.
My head lolls to the side when uncle Nestigestures to someone behind me. I’m filled with relief when I spot Vaughn standing just to the side of my bed. He’ll help calm Uncle Nestidown. He’ll tell him Asher would never hurt me. He loves Asher like a brother. He won’t let anything happen to him.
Through blurred vision and a thumping head, I watch the scene unfold. Vaughn follows uncle Nesti’s silent prompts as if this isn’t the first time they’ve done something like this. After pulling a flat, rectangular container off my bedside table, he walks it over to Uncle Nesti.
The chances of me vomiting are already high, but they grow exponentially when Vaughn cracks open the silver tin during his short walk.I’ve never used the products I see inside, but I’ve been around drugs my whole life, so I know what they are, and I’m confident the dose they’re loading into a syringe will be fatal if administered entirely.
“No! He wasn’t going to hurt me. He’d never hurt me.”
My dad would kill Asher if he knew what I had planned to give him tonight, but he didn’t do anything wrong. If anyone should be punished, it should be me.
I gain an immense amount of strength when the needle filled with murky drugs is stabbed into a vein in Asher’s neck. After slapping my feet onto the floor, I drag them across the wooden floorboards. They’re so heavy, I’m surprised by the speed I get. I shouldn’t be. Nothing can stop me when I’m protecting the ones I love.
“Leave him alone!” My words are as slow and drawn out—as bent as the little foot popping out to trip me.
I stumble past Asher and my uncle, my speed picking up since my feet have finally left the ground. I see the railing coming; I stretch out my arms with the hope it will stop me, but nothing slows the inevitable.
In a last-ditch attempt to save myself, I fall to my knees. The stiff cotton nightie I’m wearing reduces my speed, but my body is falling forward at a rate too fast to slow the motion of my head. It smacks into the banister with an almighty crack, splinting the wood into dangerous shards that dig into my body when I fall through the railing.
As the ground closes in on me, I suck in one final breath. I hit the ground with a thud a mere second before blackness engulfs me. . .
The shock from my memory doesn’t have a chance to be registered. I have a gun in my hand, a dead lover in front of me, and the man responsible for his death firing at me. I’ve never discharged a gun, but once again, I’ve been around them all my life. I know how they work.
