Page 99 of Shattered In Darkness

I hesitate for just a moment. He grabs my wrist, and squeezes until my fingers go numb. The knife clatters to the floor. I scream, helpless, voice bouncing off the cabin walls. He spins me around, pinning me to the counter. His breathing is harsh behind the mask. His hands clamp down on my arms, firm, unbreakable.

“You can’t hurt me,” he growls. “You can’t hurt anyone. You just run. You just hide. You just lie.” His words slice me open. I fight him anyway, thrashing, kicking, cursing his name. He doesn’t let go. “You want the truth? Here it is.” His face is inches from mine. I can feel the heat of him, the storm in his voice. “You belong to me. Out here, in the dark, there’s nothing but us. Nothing but the mess you made.”

My sobs pour out. “I never wanted this⁠—”

He shakes me. “You did. You love this. You need it. You need someone to chase you, punish you, break you open.”

The cabin is shaking. The storm is furious. The dark crawls inside my mouth, my eyes, my head. He drags me back toward the bedroom. I dig in my heels, but he’s too strong. He throws me down, standing over me, a shadow with a skull for a face.

I scream. I scream for Sophie, for my mother, for God, for anyone. The storm swallows the sound.

He kneels close, voice ragged. “Nobody comes for you but me.”

I sob. My body shakes. Fear, hurt, something deeper. My heart beats so fast I think it might explode. My fingers rip at the mattress. The dark is everywhere. His voice slices through it.

He grips the edge of the bed. The wood shrieks and I scramble back, off the other side, feet hitting the floor, hunting for anything solid to put between us.

A crash. The chair spins, slams into the wall. Loud. Thunder rides the roof. The world is noise, fury, wild energy. The chair splinters against the baseboard.

I flinch, but Brody doesn’t. He wants this. The destruction and the intimidation. “You hide, you scream, but you never fucking speak the truth,” Brody says. “You never answer me.”

I see the lamp topple. He grabs it and hurls it to the floor. Glass explodes, a spray of stars at my feet. Shards sharp as fangs. I stumble away, almost falling.

“You’re insane.”

He never hesitates. He’s a machine wound up tight. Everything is rage. The mask shines bone-white. I can’t see anything behind it.

“You want to call me insane?” His voice is louder. “I lived in hell because of you. I burned for you. I would have killed him, Lola. I would have burned your stepfather down to dust. And you still went with him. You went back.”

Another crash. Plate, bowl, it doesn’t matter. Ceramic ruins the quiet. Sharp things lie scattered on the floor now, just like in my head.

I spit the words. “Like you gave me a fucking choice? You left me! You didn’t even ask. You just vanished.”

I’m shaking. My body doesn’t know fear from fury anymore. His boots scrape closer. I back up, my feet skid on the wreckage. It cuts me, stings. I don’t care. I’d bleed to get away.

“Don’t rewrite history,” he snaps. “I saw you. I saw you with those men through the window. You never even bothered to explain. I waited for you to reach out. I did, but you never did. You are the one who fucking vanished. That’s the last time I saw you before I came back. Getting gang groped and fucked.”

The words hit me. Dirty memories. Rage so hot it could melt the fucking walls. Brody towers over me. His fists are shaking. His chest heaves with something worse than violence.

I can’t breathe.

“That’s not how it was.” I whisper it. “You don’t know. You never knew.”

He doesn’t hear a single word I say. He doesn’t want to. He’s pacing, boots chewing up the floor. The broken lamp, the glass everywhere, the pieces of me all over this filthy room. My lips sting from biting down every scream.

He smashes his hand into the door. The whole thing rattles. “Liar. I saw it. I fucking saw you.”

He isn’t listening. He never listens. He only wants to choke me with his version of the story. The one where I am worse than Marcus, where I am dirty, sick, a traitor.

I fight for air. For dignity. For anything to keep me from just shattering right in front of him.

“Nobody touched me like that.” I’m shaking. “I was drugged. I never wanted them. I never wanted anyone but you.” My brain slips sideways, memory crackling, a house party, too many faces, too many hands. “I was trying to get away. I wanted you. I wanted to call you.”

He ignores it. He takes two steps, grabs my cheeks, squeezes. My eyes water. “You were begging for it, Lola. You spread for them and fucking smiled. Is that what he taught you? Is that what you wanted?”

I want to throw up. I want to spit in his face. I do nothing. I take it, helpless, because I don’t have enough left to fight. Tears burn down my throat. Not just shame. Not just fear. But anger, too. The kind that eats you alive after all the other feelings die.

“That’s what Marcus wanted you to think.” I choke on it, my body stiff, trembling, stupid. “He set it up. He wanted you gone. He wanted to own all of me, but I still wanted you. I just couldn’t get to you. You were already gone. You left.”