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I make it approximately one step before an arm catches me around my middle and hauls me back against a chest that’s as hard as a wall.

“No!” I scream.

Really scream.

Not like the alley, where the cloth swallowed it, because this time there’s nothing over my mouth and the sound tears out of my throat so violently that it hurts, raw and ragged and loud enough that my own ears ring with it.

“LET ME GO!”

“Easy now,” he says.

“No! No, no, NO!”

I thrash against him, heels skidding against the floor. I twist sideways and try to bite whatever part of him I can reach, shoulder or forearm or anything, but he shifts me before I can get my teeth on anything, swinging me half a step so that I’m facing away from him again.

“Stop.”

“HELP!”

“Nobody can hear you.”

The words destroy something in me.

I know they’re true. I’ve lived in houses where nobody came when you screamed. But hearing it from him, in that calm, certain voice—I scream louder anyway.

“HELP ME! SOMEBODY—PLEASE!”

“Kamden.” His arm tightens around my waist—not crushing, but enough to stop my kicking. Enough to tell me he could do worse whenever he wants.

“GET OFF ME!”

“Sweetheart—”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT!” My voice breaks into sobbing on the last word, wet and ugly and completely beyond my control.

I hit him.

Or try to.

One fist connects weakly with his shoulder—my left hand, my wrist still very sore—and it does nothing. Less than nothing. He doesn’t even flinch. He exhales through his nose like a man watching a kitten swat at him.

He catches both my wrists before I can try again and pulls them against my chest, folding them there like he’s tucking in a blanket, containing me easily despite how hard I fight, how hard I wrench and pull and strain against one arm of his while his other keeps its loop around my middle.

It’s humiliating.

Terrifying.

I can’t do anything.

I’m nineteen.

I’m five-ten.

I should be able to do something. I’ve spent years learning to be small and quiet, so nobody would want anything from me, but when push comes to shove, I should still be able to push back. Maybe I should’ve asked Wade to teach me how to fight.

“It’s alright, Kamden,” my captor says.

“No, it’s not,” I hiccup.