“I know you’re awake,” she teases, her breath hot and sticky on the back of my neck. Cold fingers trail down my bare arm. Across my stomach. “Just like I know you want this.”
My mouth turns to ash. Hers turns to metal. Cold, sharp teeth nip at the skin on my neck, my earlobe.
The scared little boy inside seizes my lungs, choking off my air.I told you so,he says, and I know he’s right. Here, the nightmares arealwaysreal, and now the monster is in my bed again, clawing and tugging, devouring. Always devouring.
And her words, her promises, her little so-called seductions… Every one of them feels like a threat, and soon I start to believe her.
Idowant this. Don’t I? Why would she be here otherwise? Why wouldn’t I scream? Tell someone? Run away?
It’s my fault. It’s always been my fault. My idea. My punishment.
When it first started, I used to wonder if she’d wake up after—early in the mornings when she was back in her own bedroom and sobriety finally dawned in her mind—and feel guilty or shameful, dirty and broken.
The way she mademefeel.
But that was always just wishful thinking.
Janelle feelsnothing.
Her lips return to the back of my neck, leaving a trail of red lipstick marks I’ll have to scrub off in the morning with Carly’s exfoliating soap. I squeeze my eyes shut, swallow past the burn of shame rising in my throat. Pray it’s over soon.
But it never is. Not until she says so.
“Let’s get you out of these pants,” she says, her breath wet and sticky on my skin as her fingers tug at the back of my waistband. Instinctively I grab onto the front, holding on like a damn lifeline.
“Hmm. Playing hard to get tonight?” Janelle laughs, still working on the pants. “You know what happens when you don’t cooperate. And it’s wintertime, too. Are you sure you want to play this game with me tonight?”
As if I needed the reminder, the wind howls against the windows, coating them in sleet. An involuntary shudder wracks my body.
Last time I didn’t cooperate, she locked me outside and forced me to sleep in the woodshed wearing nothing but boxer shorts. When her husband Charles came home that morning from a business trip and found me curled up in the corner of the shed, my lips blue, my skin raw and red, I couldn’t even speak—couldn’t even make up an excuse to explain what the hell I was doing out there.
Turned out I didn’t need one—Janelle took care of the explanations. By the time Charles led me inside, she was already pacing the kitchen, clutching an empty bottle of vodka she’d polished off the night before.
She said she’d found it in my closet, looking for clues about my whereabouts when I didn’t come home from some high school party last night. Said we needed to have a family meeting. That she and Charles wanted to help me, but trust goes both ways, and if I kept drinking and sneaking around, they’d have no choice but to put me in foster care.
When all the lecturing was over, Charles sighed and told me to go shower up and sleep it off. Never said another word about it.
But the disappointment in his eyes left a wound that never quite healed.
“Let go,” Janelle warns now. “I’m not in the mood to fight with you tonight.”
I roll onto my back, look up into her dead eyes.
“That’s better.”
“It’s wrong,” I whisper, hoping like hell it reaches into some motherly part of her brain, some moral part,anyfucking part to make her stop. “I’m just a kid.”
“A kid? Is that what you think?” She grins, bright red lips blazing as she slides her hand down the front of my pants and grabs on tight. “I’m afraid you’reallman, my sweet.”
My gut rolls, shame and revulsion mixing into a familiar toxic stew. “No,” I whisper. “Please stop. I just want you to—”
Baz, we’re here! We’re coming!
A strange, disembodied voice cuts off my thoughts, an echo of a memory I’m not even sure I really heard.
“Whatdid you say?” Janelle asks, her tone mocking. “You want something fromme? Something more than what I’ve already given you? A home, an education, financing to keep your brother alive after you had him locked away in that terrible place… Really, Baz. I’ve never met anyone so ungrateful. So—”
“Shh.” I press a finger to her lips and strain to hear it again, to hear anything above the slamming of my heart in my chest, the rise and fall of this vile woman’s breath.
