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Running his tongue over his lip ring, he arches a brow, still stroking his thumb over the underside of my breast. “So mouthy now.” His eyes drift down my body and he slides his hand up higher, covering my breast. He meets my gaze. “But for all that mouth,” he says softly, “why are you shaking?”

I can smell his breath, his head is dipped down so close to mine. It smells like mint. That night at the party, it was whiskey. On his and mine. I still can’t stomach the smell of alcohol. The anxiety coursing through my veins when I’m around it makes it hard to breathe.

But he’s not drunk right now. And he’s still doing this.

“What do you want?” My voice is too calm, and my nipple hardens under his palm, revulsion rolling through me but I ignore his touch. “Why are you here, Cortland?”

He shakes his head, his eyes searching mine.

“You never used to call me that.” He looks down again, at what I’m wearing, then my hair, bright orange.

A big change from the dark blonde he used to know.

He squeezes my breast in his hand, murmuring under his breath as he does. “You’re so fucking different.”

I feel Storm’s fingers brush against the back of my neck, and I start shaking all over again.

Then he closes them around me, his fingertips digging into the side of my throat.

“But maybe one thing’s the same,” he says quietly as Cortland stares at his friend’s hand on me. “Maybe she still likes to be?—”

“Storm,” Cortland says softly, still staring at my throat. He slides his hand back down my ribs and I hate that I feel relief. His voice drops lower. “That’s enough.”

Storm laughs, a low, raspy sound, but he drops his hand from my neck, and I can breathe a little easier.

But only a little.

Cortland jerks me closer, sliding his fingers around to my back, and my knees feel as if they might give out beneath me. But I push back against him, trying to get away from him.

His breath doesn’t even hitch. It’s not a struggle for him to hold me in place.

“Listen, Remi.” He leans down closer, his eyes darting to my mouth then back up. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you.” My throat gets tight. “I’m not here for you.” He gives me another once over. “Although you look even better than you did then.”

The fear in my skin feels like pins and needles. I shove against it, trying to fight him.

But it’s not a fight.

It’s nothing. My efforts are wasted. That night, paralyzed with fear, I didn’t fight at all, but I realize now, I don’t think it would have mattered.

He’s going to get the last word again. Like when the case was dismissed.

Like when he got away with it. All of them got away with it.

His hand slips higher up my hoodie, his entire palm over my shoulder blade, pulling up the thick material, a light breeze grazing my exposed flesh.

I’m shaking in earnest now, and if my palm wasn’t against his chest, I’m not sure I’d still be standing. As if I need him to hold me up.

The thought makes me hate myself a little more.

“Not so innocent now, huh?” He smirks, and there’s this look in his eyes. Like that night was my fault. “But I don’t think you ever really were.”

I’ve spent a year trying to convince myself otherwise, but he decimates all the work I’ve done in one sentence.

But it wasn’t my fault, I tell myself.

It couldn’t have been.

I was falling for him, and I looked up to him, but he knew I was a virgin. He knew I wasn’t ready. He’d never cared. Never pressured me.

I’d gone outside in the woods with the rest of them, ready for a drunken game of hide-and-seek.

He claimed me to be on their team. He’d taken my hand.

We’d run into the darkness. I had been drinking, and I relished in their attention for a few moments, including at the table when I answered Chase, but I…

I didn’t want that. I didn’t want what happened.

I thought we were playing. I thought it was a fun night before we started college. He was going here, too. We’d start a new adventure together, and he’d stay the shelter from my stepdad that he didn’t even know he was. But I thought wrong.

He broke my heart in a very different way.

He’d grabbed me, and his fucking friends…

“So, this time, you’re not going to fuck shit up for me.” He tilts his head, his lips going to my ear. “And you’re going to keep your pretty little mouth shut about me, huh?”

His short nails scrape down my back, and I’m not breathing, my pulse pounding a painful rhythm in my chest. The trembling in my legs is so violent, I have to lean my weight into him to keep upright.

“And next time you go out in public, why don’t you wear a goddamn bra?

” With those words, reminding me of my stepdad, he lets go of me.

He slips his hand out from under my hoodie, and shoves past me, nearly making me stumble as his shoulder knocks into me again and I lock my legs up to keep from losing my balance.

But it’s Storm that catches me, his arms wrapped around my body.

For a moment, I can’t breathe.

It’s like time stands still.

I smell Storm’s leather scent, and I can practically feel the anger in his body, me so close to him.

“So scared,” he whispers, his breath on my ear. “So fucking brave, going to the cops then, and now…” His nose runs down the length of my jaw and a whimper leaves my mouth. “I think I could still eat you alive, Remi.”

“Let her go,” Cortland says.

For a second, he doesn’t, his mouth close to my own.

I close my eyes tight, fear wrapping like a vise grip around my heart.

“Storm.” Cortland’s voice is low.

After a second, Storm releases me, shoving me forward as my eyes fly open.

I stumble again before I right myself, trying to breathe.

Then I glance at my phone on the ground and have the sudden urge to sink to my knees, my head in my hands as they both leave me here.

I deserve this.

The same voice that’s haunted me since that night.

It’s all I’m good for.

I press the heel of my hands over my eyes, swallow the lump in my throat as I spin around on the sidewalk, chest heaving as I think about how their lives haven’t changed.

How he has the nerve to come here after what he did to me.

Stupid fucking skank should go ahead and off herself.

She ruined THEIR LIVES!!!

I ruined mine too.

I should’ve kept my fucking mouth shut, because I ruined mine too.