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My eyes widened as the memories suddenly started rushing back.

He was the one who originally flirted with me at the café. He had been nothing but nice when one of the other customers had hit on me, but I wanted nothing to do with them. They were partners. One guy being a dick, while the other played nice. He wormed his way into my heart, making me think that he was a good guy, but he was anything but.

He was the one in my nightmares.

He was the one who made me wake up screaming only for Cyrus to come to my rescue and console me back to sleep.

He was the one who forced the words from my tongue and took them for his own. He took my voice.

“You took me,” I whispered. “This is all your fault.”

My mind had clearly tried protecting me because of my past trauma and made it so I never recognized him. But now that he was here, I couldn’t stop the memories from rushing back.

“My fault?” He tilted his head. “Nah, baby girl. You just fit the part. You were what we wanted. The customers loved you. I especially loved our nights alone together.”

My stomach twisted as memories I tried forgetting slid into the forefront of my mind.

When he was finally finished breaking my body, he kissed my cheek and left the cold damp room. I made a promise to myself right then and there that no matter how many times he used me, he would never get all of me.

But he did. He took my voice. He took every single part of my being.

“Gotta make this quick, Ainsley. I’m sure your little boyfriend will be back any moment.”

“You were in my dreams,” I said louder that time. “You were in my nightmares. I lost my voice because of you. You were the one who used me every night in that hell. You held me down while they...while they...cut me. You’ve been here this whole time, haven’t you? It was you who followed me to the deli. It was you who stabbed me.”

“I had to make sure it was you. Lost you when you left the hospital. I searched for you for over a year and had almost given up. The security in that center was tight. Imagine my surprise when someone notified me that they thought they had seen you in this shitty little town. Of all places. You gained your weight back and you changed your hair color, but I knew it was you.” A dark shadow passed over his face. “I saw the fucker you’ve been with. You proved what we said was right. You are a little slut. That’s why we cut you.”

“You’re sick in the head. All of you were. None of us deserved that.”

“You deserved every single thing we did to you.” He looked down the length of my body, pressing his arm against my chest, pinning me down. “Let’s see what kind of damage I caused.” He slid a hand up my hip, inching it beneath the hospital gown I was wearing until his fingers grazed over the bandage on my side. He tore it from my skin, the slight pain burning through me. “Hmm... maybe I should have shoved the knife in deeper.” Before I knew what was happening, he shoved his fingers against me, ripping the stiches open.

The pain, God the pain, it was nothing like I had ever felt before. Agony seared through me as his fingers forced the wound apart. Bile rose to my throat, my vision fading in and out.

“Say my name,” he demanded.

“I...” A sob tore through me as the sharp pain burned through every inch of my body.

“Say it,” he growled, shoving two fingers into the wound.

He wanted me to call him Master but I wouldn’t. He had never earned that title. I didn’t call him that then. I wouldn’t call him that now.

“Say. It,” he demanded, his deep green eyes searing into me.

“You can go to hell,” I bit out through clenched teeth.

“What the fuck?”

The new voice in the room forced this sudden strength in me. It called out to the strong woman in me, the one who had been taken when she was twenty and who fought to survive ever since.

Fisting the pen in my hand, I brought my arm forward and slammed it into the bastard’s eye.

He shouted, pulling his fingers from my wound.

A scream tore through me as I stabbed him repeatedly. “You should have killed me when you had the chance!”

Blood splattered my hands, dripping to the ground beneath us as I shoved him back and off the bed.

I fisted the pen in both hands, slamming it down hard into the man’s eye once again.