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His dark-blond hair was exactly as I remembered, styled to make him look as perfect as he pretended to be. He had wide features, full lips, and eyes that once were charming but now looked like the Dead Sea.
The hand at my throat tightened, and the nightmare standing there watching in the crowd began to smile.
My shoes scraped against the smooth floor, trying to find something—anything—that might buy me a little time. There was nothing that would stop him, though, and I was pulled into a dark room where the walls vibrated from the music just outside.
It smelled stale in here, like old cigarettes and bad coffee tinged with just a little sweat. My stomach clenched tighter the farther into the darkness he dragged me.
“Oskar, I’m sorry,” I pleaded. “Let’s just go home.”
“You want to go home now?” he said, pushing me up against the wall and grabbing me by the throat. “I told you to stay home earlier, and you didn’t listen. Why do you want to go home now?”
“I just wanted to hang with my friends.”
“If those assholes were your friends, they never would have brought you here to a party like this. To a place that devalues what is mine.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words clawing up my partially closing throat.
“It’s too late for sorry,” he said, and the cold chill of terror crept up my spine. “I told you I didn’t want to share you. I told you, didn’t I?”
I nodded.
“But apparently, I’m not enough for you. Are you so much of an attention whore that you need more than me?”
“No, no—”
“You want more than just my attention?” he said, his eyes so empty as they bored into mine that I wondered how I ever saw any life there at all. “You can have attention then, from people I choose.”
The blood drained from my head, leaving me dizzy and cold.
“Here!” Oskar yelled over his shoulder, and the scuffling of feet cut through the dark.
I started to struggle and fight, kicking and trying to shove him off. Leaning down, he sank his teeth into my shoulder, biting through my clothes. I knew there would be blood. I cried out, stopping mid-struggle.
“I’m doing this because I love you. So you can see how much better I am than anyone else who’s out there. Maybe after you see, you won’t want anyone else but me. Maybe next time you’ll listen when I tell you to stay home.”
“I’ll listen. I’m sorry—”
He threw me by the neck out into the room. I hit my knees, my teeth gnashing together with the fall.
I bounded up but was knocked back down as hands, so many hands, grabbed at me. Someone straddled my waist, pinning me down, and someone else shoved their fingers into my mouth.
“Oh, he’s a pretty one,” a gruff voice said.
“This is going to be fun.”
Panic made me lightheaded as hands started reaching for me again, trying to grope places I did not want to be touched.
“No,” I said. “No!”
Oskar’s laugh filled my ears, ringing like a bell.
I started to cry. Shame and anger dripped down my cheeks.
“Enough!” Oskar roared. “Off him! Off what’s mine!”
All the bodies moved away, and I rolled onto my side, curling in on myself, trying to become so small.
“Get out.”
