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Damon’s phone screen lights up as he types a message, the little glow giving me a brief view of his features. He looks tired. And is that a cut on his cheek, next to his scar?

“What happened, Damon?”

His hand flicks up in the air dismissively.

“Just a scratch. It’s nothing.”

I don’t push for more. I don’t have the energy even after the lengthy sleep I have just had.

Silence and darkness stretch on as I try to think of anything other than The Reaping.

I feel alone. Even with Damon inches from me.

“You can blame me. I can take it.” His words surprise me. Like he can see into my mind.

“I don’t.” Lie. I do. And I blame myself.

“Don’t lie to me, Sienna. Anything but that. I can handle your feelings, as dark and as ugly as you think they are. Just don’t fucking blame yourself for this. It wasn’t you. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t want it. You didn’t deserve it. Nothing you did caused it.”

I think back to what we were doing before, how I had let Damon fuck me with the vibrator and butt plug in front of all those people. Howhewas watching.

“You like it like this. I could see it on your face earlier. Come for me as you did then.”

Thrust. Pain.

Oh god, don’t do it. Rough fingers squeezing my clit painfully before circling it. Moan.

“Yes. Moan for me.”

Thrust. Pain.

“Stay with me, Sienna.” Damon's voice pulls me back to the present, and I realize I am crying. Again. Damon doesn’t move to hold me, and I am grateful. I don’t want him to. I don’t want anyone to. I am a grain of sand. Slipping through your fingers. A speck of dust blowing in the wind.

“Hewas watching what we did earlier. In the hall.Hesaid I wanted it.”

“He is turning something beautiful into something shameful. Do you think a female stripper or even a sex worker deserves to be raped?”

No. No, I didn’t. I shake my head.

“He wants to think you want it to justify his actions. But in no world will what he did ever be fucking okay.”

It’s so much harder to deny the blame when looking at yourself. The blonde woman I’d been watching with the sub and her boyfriend—despite what she was doing, I would never say she deserved this. Yet why could I not say the same thing about myself?

A phone ringing startles me from my thoughts when I realize it is my ringtone.

“You have my phone.” Damon passes it to me, and the name on the screen makes my stomach clench with unease—my brother, Liam.

“Yes. I made sure we got it when we left Lady Chatman.”

“Thank you,” I mumble, my throat over this talking thing.

I watch as the call carries on ringing.

“He has been calling nonstop. I think Brad told him something happened, but not all the details. No one besides you, me, and Lady Chatman know. And she won't say anything. This is yours to tell, to whoever and whenever.”

Would I tell my brother what happened? He would just worry, and what good would that do anyone? But I couldn’t talk to him sounding like this. The phone stops ringing, and a message pings. Oneof twenty-two. All saying the same thing.

‘Call me, I am worried.’