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I should report him. I should fight back, but I know the system in this town. Everyone and everything are run by Rip or by the rich families who hire him to do their dirty business. There is no safe place to turn to.
I could run and escape. My mom wouldn’t miss me. Harper wouldn’t care. I remember the look in her eyes last night. She knew what could happen and she let him take me anyways. Had he done that to her? Is that why my friend was so broken? Harper changed drastically when I finally came out of my numbness and we never talked about it. We grew apart instead. Maybe Corey is right. I am the one to blame.
* * *
My phone ringsand is followed by a bang on my front door. I jerk awake, my mind fighting between reality and the past. Bolting upright in bed, I look for the clock. It’s nine in the evening. The sun is gone and only the lamp on my desk illuminates my room. My phone rings again. A number I vaguely recognize pops up. There is more knocking on my door.
“Hello?” I answer the phone. My voice is raspy and hoarse from screaming.
“It's me.” Onyx’s deep voice speaks over the phone. My heart hammers in my chest. “I’m at your door. Let me in?”
I scramble from my bed and walk through my apartment. “I’m coming,” I tell him before hanging up the phone. After glancing through the peephole and making sure he is alone, I unchain the door and undo the deadbolt.
The door opens and those piercing brown eyes, so dark they almost look black, hit mine. A tidal wave of emotion strikes me. He walked away. He left. He lied. I don’t understand why he is here. I don’t want him to see me like this. I move so he can come in and I close the door behind us, relocking it.
Onyx watches me and his throat bobs when he sees what I’m doing. I’ve reverted back to needing as many locks and walls between the world and myself as I can get. The confident girl he left is gone again.
“Star,” he says my name, his hand gently touching the edge of my jaw.
His touch is soft and familiar while he traces my injuries, his eyes blaze. I shrink back slightly, wanting to protect myself. His hand drops. “Why are you here?”
His head cocks to the side, and his eyes trail over me. “I got your text. I was trying to find a way here then I got Gage’s call.” He moves into my space suddenly and I can’t react. His hands are warm as they cradle my bruised face. “Did Corey do this to you?”
With our positions, I can’t look anywhere else but at him. I watch the panic, the understanding, and the anger cross over his face. His face hardens and his nostrils flare. Onyx is pissed. He’s mad for me. The confusing reactions are at war in my heart. I want to tell him to go, that I don’t need him; at the same time, he smells so good and I miss him. I miss him holding me this way.
“I don’t know what to do,” I confess, and a new sob bubbles its way in my chest.
“We’re going to report him, that's what we’re doing.” Onyx shakes his head, the fierceness back in his eyes.
I try to free myself. “No, no. I can’t. You don’t understand.” My chest shudders with sobs, the silence around us is only broken with my cries. The whole ugly story then spills from my lips. My mom, her attack, how Corey has been isolating me and taking over my life. What happened between him and Harper, and how he attacked me and tried to rape me. Then when I fought back, he used his fists and feet to keep me down.
Onyx watches me the entire time. His shoulders cave in with every devastating blow. His jaw clenches so tight, I’m afraid he’ll break teeth. He takes it all and never shies away from the truths. When I’m done, he rises to his feet, his hands gently on my shoulders. Onyx glances around the room before his hands run down my arms.
“He’ll never touch you again.” He leans in and places a soft kiss to my lips. His eyes slam shut; his face contorts as if it pains him to be saying this. “I’ll take care of it, Little Star.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” I whisper in the silence between us, my eyes dropping to the floor. I can feel his heart beating through his shirt.
Onyx takes my hands and I’m forced to look at him again. “Jade, no matter what you think, I will never stop loving you. I will fix this.”
“Stop lying.” My voice turns thick and I shake my head to get rid of his words. I don’t want to hear the lies. I can’t feel anything for him. In the end, he’ll hurt me, I know it. He proved it.
“Star.” He steps in, his hand pressing to the back of my head, he kisses my forehead. “Lock the doors behind me. Go back to bed. Don’t tell anyone you saw me.”
Onyx steps away and walks out my door, away from me. The past few minutes feel imaginary and I start to panic that I made him up. My hands shake and when they do, I realize then Onyx had placed something in them. It's a thick manila envelope. Dashing forward, I relock my door and replace the chain.
Retreating to my room, I tear open the envelope and lay the contents on my bed. There in black and white, with some detailed pictures, are recounts of every illegal thing Rip and Corey have been doing for the past five years. Drugs, robberies, injuries to people who owe money, the death of a basketball star from out of town, the same guy who tried to fight Corey by calling me names, kids from school with broken bones or in comas, and lastly the deaths. I stop shuffling when I come across a picture of Harper. She looks similar to how I did that morning after, only her clothes are ripped and disheveled. The small amount of food I ate threatens to come back up. I’ve been harboring a criminal; my best friend was the monster I never saw coming. Pure evil.
Onyx gave me a ticket to safety, a bargaining chip. He couldn’t stay, but he gave me a way to keep myself safe. I tuck the envelope under my pillow and fall asleep, imagining all the ways I can use the information.
* * *
My phone ringsand I’m pulled from another deep sleep. My hand automatically searches it out, hoping it’s Onyx. One hit of him and I’m already addicted again. Even though he left, he still came. He cared enough to dig up dirt on Corey and give me something to use as leverage. The name on the phone flashes.
Gage.
“Hello.” I answer the phone and look for the time: 6 a.m.
“Jade,” he sighs, “I was hoping you were okay.”
