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I ignore him and focus on my friend. “Iz.”
She lifts her eyes to me, and I see it. Immediately. Without a doubt. This is that asshole’s doing, not what she wants.
“Like hell, you’re moving out,” I say.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Pierce says.
“Youcan stay the fuck out of this,” I snap, turning on him. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It haseverythingto do with me when my girlfriend is living with a fucking predator!”
I storm forward, seething as I tower over him. “Say that again.”
He looks up at me with a cutting smile on his face. “You heard me. They said you were stone-cold sober the night you hit Amber Hubert. Swerved right up onto the shoulder and ran her down like roadkill. And then you fled. Scampered home to Mommy and Daddy to hide like a fucking coward, while that poor girl bled out on the street.”
Rage clouds my vision as I yank him up by the shirt. Isabel shouts something in the background, but all I hear is the blood pounding in my ears. My fist hovers above him, ready to do what it’s had to do so many times over the last few years to keep me alive. But I’m not there. I’m nothim, the statue who solidified into granite to survive. At least, I don’t think I am. I don’t even know what I am anymore.
“Go ahead. Do it,” he taunts. “I’d love to have a reason to call the police.”
I bet you would, you asshole.
With a deep breath, I release his shirt and shove him back onto the couch. He laughs with a cocky air, but I read the fear and uncertainty beneath it. For a second, he was legitimately afraid of me. Part of himdoesthink I’m a violent animal.
“You’re on parole, aren’t you?” he asks in a dark tone.
I can’t breathe as the words hang in the air.
“You better be real careful to follow the rules,” he continues. “Wouldn’t want to see you sent back where you belong.”
I rush from the apartment with no direction in mind. I don’t know where I’m going, just that I can’t be there—that claustrophobic place that isn’t mine, like every other place on this planet.
I have nowhere to go, no one to turn to except a sister who’s too wrapped up in guilt to help me sort through my own trauma. Because she was right. We were naïve. So stupid and clueless about a world that had shit on us enough that we should’ve known better.
And as if living with the pain of each and every scar wasn’t enough, now I have to live with the constant fear of going back. Would Pierce set me up to get me out of the way? Without batting an eye. I’ve spent most of my adult life in the crosshairs of sadistic assholes like Pierce, and there’s only one way they play—dirty. The last four and a half years taught me there’s no limit to humans’ capacity for cruelty.
I push away memories of cold hands and hot breath as I run down the cracked sidewalk. Forcing a steady pace, I do my best to make it look like I’m exercising not fleeing, but I’m not dressed for a casual winter jog. No one is going to believe the guy in jeans and a black hoodie is working out as he speeds past in the dark. Pulling to a halt, I try to ignore the strange looks blasting my way from everyone I pass. One woman tugs her kid closer to her side, and a wave of shame settles deep in my gut. It’s like they can see what a filthy, damaged remnant of humanity I’ve become.
Shaking and nauseous, I make my way to an opening between two buildings and slip inside to hide. I lean against the wall and force in deep breaths to calm the rising panic. It’s not enough, and soon I’m sliding down the worn brick to land on the gravel. Drawing my legs up, I tuck my forehead against my knees and wrap my arms tightly around them. It’s so cold. The air, the ground, everything inside me. I feel the deep February chill bleeding through my clothes and seeping into my skin. How long until hypothermia sets in? It scares me that the thought comes with a flicker of anticipation instead of fear.
“Hey! Sleep it off somewhere else!” a man shouts to my right.
I glance over to see Bill Castle holding a garbage bag in each fist. His eyes widen when he recognizes me, and I push up from the ground.
“The fuck? Haverford?”
I back away. “Sorry. I was just—”
“Go get high somewhere else. Stay away from my store,” he growls.
“No, I…”
The defense freezes on my tongue at his cold look. There’s no point. I know how this ends.
My heart beats rapidly as I manage a nod and move toward the street.
“Fucking murderer,” I hear behind me.
The sting spreads like poison as I force myself forward. I lean against the façade of the neighboring building to recover. Just long enough to catch my breath, to find an iota of strength to keep going.
I thought I could do this. That some magic switch would flip the second I got out and reset my life on the course it should have been. Resetmeinto the person I was supposed to be. Instead, all I got was the same nightmare in a new setting. My entire adult life was spent in a prison cell, raising me on fear and violence, haunted by ghosts and monsters who were as real as they were imagined. I don’t even knowwho or what I am without it, and maybe that’s the worst torture of all: realizing you’ve been molded into a broken vessel beyond repair. Thatthis, right here, is who you are now.
My chest is heavy and aching as I stagger forward again. The demons are swirling now, battering at my heart and lungs, but I don’t cry. I couldn’t if I wanted to. I don’t even know if I have any emotion left except anger and fear. It was as if the more reasons they gave me to cry, the less I could. By the end, I was stone, just a shell that would eat, sleep, and try to fight back.
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but that’s not true. Sometimes what doesn’t kill you makes you believe you’re already dead.
