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No!
I refused to cower.
I refused to die because of this sadistic motherfucker.
“Little ssssssister.” Its voice came from directly behind me, and I spun, the weight raised.
Its disgusting mouth was mere inches from my face. When it exhaled, its putrid smelling breath assaulted my senses, and I wanted to gag.
This close, I could see that each of its teeth were carved into triangles. It had no tongue, and nothing but darkness stared back at me from the inside of its mouth. If it ate me…
I would become one with the darkness.
I couldn’t allow that to happen. Not again. Dylan had already taken so much from me, and I refused to allow his monster to steal my life as well.
Tears streamed down my face as I roared in rage, ramming the weight against the creature’s face. Its body toppled slightly, bursts of goo erupting from its head and raining down on me.
Still, I didn’t stop hitting. And hitting. And hitting.
The body beneath me changed and contorted until instead of a monster, Dylan himself stared back at me. His face was mottled with dark bruises, and his eyes were almost completely swollen shut. Blood pooled from his lips as he cried, beseeching me with his eyes to show leniency and compassion.
Anger thrummed through my veins, as strong as a sparking wire, and more tears made salty tracks down my face.
“Please.” His voice was a whimper.
“You raped me!” I screamed into his face, bringing the weight back down onto his head. “Over.”Hit. “Over.”Hit. “And over.”Hit. “Again!” I spat at his disfigured face. “You don’t deserve my mercy.” Blood dripped down his cheek, staining the collar of his shirt, and a part of me fixated on that tiny droplet, utterly riveted.
I remembered that night vividly. The way he cornered me after gymnastics, hours after Eric Lang, the owner, had left. The way he held me down and forced himself on me, ignoring my pleas for him to stop.
And then the way he did it again and again, stopping only when…
Only when Beau found out.
That final memory took me by surprise, something I’d apparently forgotten when I arrived in Purgatory. I didn’t focus on that for too long, though, not with the rage scrambling my brain until all coherent thoughts fled.
“I should’ve done this to you the first night you held me down,” I hissed in his face. “I should’ve destroyed you before I allowed you to destroy me.”
More and more tears rushed down my face, cracking my heart open, as I stared at the man who’d abused me for years. His pain filled eyes turned dull and lifeless, and his body hardened beneath mine as he turned to stone. Then he crumbled, becoming nothing but thousands of particles of dust that one gust of wind could remove.
Irrelevant.
Dylan was irrelevant. Nothing. A rapist who didn’t deserve a second more of my time or attention. He would get what was coming to him, and maybe, just maybe, I would be able to heal from all he did to me. All of the abuse that my mother overlooked. All of the pain. All of the fear.
Memory after memory stabbed at my skull. Locked doors at night. Hiding under my blankets. His hand on my thigh, my breast, my pussy. His lips forcing mine open. The fear that if I told someone, no one would believe me.
And then the one person who did believe me. My best friend. The man I’d love fiercely for my entire life.
“You’re okay. Bianaca, drop the weight. You’re okay. You’re okay.” Strong arms banded around me as that familiar voice repeated my name, his hand stroking my hair. But that didn’t make any sense. It was Beau’s voice, and Beau didn’t talk. Not after he witnessed his own step-father murdering his mother. I hadn’t heard him talk in years. “I have you, B. I have you. I’m never letting you go.”
I turned in Beau’s arms, inhaling his familiar pomegranate scent, and sobbed into his shirt.
For the first time since I learned about Purgatory, I fell apart.
And I wasn’t sure there would be enough pieces for anyone to put back together again.
Maybe I was just as irrelevant as Dylan—nothing but dust that would blow away in the wind.
Nothing.
I was nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
