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One. Two. Three.

Take a deep breath and push through the door, I thought, as I leaned my body into the glass.

It swung open and I inhaled the scent of city.

There was a McDonalds across from the gym and I was dying for a coffee, but something about pulling my little blue bug up to the window after spending an hour hitting the weights, bike, and treadmill, seemed somehow counterproductive. Even if it was just a coffee.

I did have standards, so I ignored the gold “M” and gave Maddy a long sigh. “You heading home after this?”

“I have to pick up some groceries,” she shrugged. “Raina’s bound to come for a visit. If I don’t have ice cream I’ll never hear the end of it. Then I’m heading home. I have some work to do for my creative writing class.”

Maddy, also known as Madison, was the best workout partner a girl could ask for.

She asked questions that made you work your muscles that much harder, just so you might be too breathless to answer.

She wasn’t exactly blunt—but she was hellishly intuitive.

She saw the things you didn’t want a person to see.

She’s the kind of person who knew, without being told, that something was wrong.

Somehow, someway, the girl just feels it.

And she felt it today.

It was just my luck that she trained her studious eyes on me as soon as I walked into the gym.

She waited, however, until we were on the treadmill to get down to the nitty-gritty questions.

Maddy knew I wasn’t the kind of girl to open up on my own.

I mean, seriously, do I sound like the kind of girl who spills the beans all on her own?

Hell to the no—I most definitely do not!

But, still, she always waited, giving me the chance to spill all my beans before embarking on her delicate inquisition.

Like usual, I didn’t spill. And like usual, she dug in.

Like usual, she didn’t get an answer, because even under duress, which I was under huge emotional duress, I didn’t spill.

Hell, I was struggling enough with all the unanswered questions I had for myself concerning my new roommate.

I was also an expert at ignoring pretty much everything and anything that threatened the new life I’d crafted for myself.

My new roommate, with all his teasing grins, cocky innuendos that were never, and I mean ever going to happen, was doing enough of that without any aid from me.

If you don’t get what I’m dropping, I’ll give it straight. I don’t deal—with anything. Seriously, I’m talking diddly-squat. Nada. Nothing.

I’m the freaking expert at self-alienation under the guise of fortification. I shove everything under the rug. And if it doesn’t fit under the rug, I’m happy enough sweeping it into the cellar and locking the damn door.

I knew enough about what dealing did to a person. So I chose, a rather intelligent decision if I may say so, to never deal.

Dealing hurt. Believe me, I’d know. I’d know better than anyone, so I just kept swimming, shoving all the darkness under the pretty rug of rainbow.

I’m under no illusion that one day the shards of my past will slice through my rug to cut deep into the bottoms of my feet, but as long as I didn’t have to deal with the cuts today, it was another day I’d won.

I couldn’t say I lived an existence of self-pity, mumbles, and grumbles.

I didn’t. I tried not to complain about everything even though sometimes, I really wanted to.

I also never outwardly exposed the restless cogs that turned my pain round and round on an endless wheel of repetition.

I kept my crap bottled tight under lock and key.

Because if no one knew, no one could force me to become what I’d one day been. The victim.

I lived a lonely life. I’d been living that way for a hell of a long time.

I told myself for just as long, that that was how I liked it.

That was until Raina Andrews came bursting in through my every seam, pushing her smiling way into my life with hopes and dreams attached to the glittering rainbow dust that clung to the girl wherever she went. I won’t lie, Raina brightened my life.

It was actually because of her that I had Maddy.

It was also because of Raina that I had Beckett.

Yep, the same Beckett that nearly pulled the string to expose my crazy when he got a little too close up in my business this morning.

I don’t even know why I’d been so freaked.

The guy was cockier than I imagine even Elvis had been, but he was harmless.

I even sensed, deep down, that he was good.

I feel I have to amend; I didn’t actually have Beckett. I’ll never actually have Beckett. A girl can’t have a man like Beckett no matter how awesome said girl is.

Regardless, Beckett was in my life.

He was so in my life, pushing in through the seams I thought I’d tightened after Raina and Maddy slipped inside, that he’s bringing all the pain I thought I buried to the surface. The darker moments I told myself were locked away had come rushing at me this morning.

They came rushing, and they hit me like a freight train.

Memories, emotions, and nightmares had come flooding to the surface. It was all I could do to keep my cool until I barred myself behind the safety of my closed door. And then I cracked. I broke. Shattered. Pain sliced through every seam, tearing me wide open.

Silent sobs tortured me until I’d run myself dry. Dry of tears. Dry of memories. Dry of hope.

The Past

There wasn’t a lot of space between us, and even if there were, there was nowhere for me to go.

Nowhere for me to turn. Nowhere for me to run.

My back pressed flat against the wardrobe.

The once white walls that were now discolored a sickly yellow from years of cigarette smoke pressed in on me, making me feel as though I were drowning slowly. Air. I needed air.

My eyes fluttered to the dated lamp on my nightstand table as he took a step toward me.

I wished it weren’t so dim in here. I wished that when he’d come into my room I’d been doing anything but reading.

If I’d been doing anything else, I might have had the light on.

I might have been wearing jeans—and not these loose shorts.

I might have been safe . . .

“Who are you going to tell?” His voice was low, and worse, there was a taunting edge to the lilt of his question. It made the words sound more like a threat than anything else. “Who do you think will listen?”

“I didn’t say I was going to tell anyone . . .”

“But you’re thinking about it.” The little space that existed between us vanished as he took another step. He towered over me, and I knew—I knew the power his body had over mine. I knew I was no match for him. “I know you, Amara. I know everything about you.”

“I’m not thinking about it.” I insisted, praying to a God who never seemed to listen that he would just leave me alone.

“I just want you to know what will happen if you do.” He said, and I knew the soothing tone wasn’t to give me ease. Oh no, he wasn’t about bringing anyone ease of thought.

“I won’t.” I promised. I hated him more now than I had ever hated him before, and that was saying something. It was saying a lot.

“You’re so pretty, Amara.” He murmured. Lifting his hand, he touched his knuckles to my cheek, trailing a path of ice down my neck and to my collarbone.

“You know you’re mine. You’ve been mine since they gave you to us—and you’ll always be mine.

” His mean eyes flicked over my face as though searching for fight I didn’t have, before landing on my neck.

He always said I had a pretty neck. Pretty and delicate.

Every chance he had, he reminded me of just how delicate I was. Small. Weak. Incapable of fighting off the sick and twisted in the world. At first, I thought he was my savior. My protector. My friend.

And then things changed. Things got weird, and scary.

He became possessive and obsessive. There was never a moment where he didn’t take the chance to remind me that I was his; still in one piece because of him. He never denied the chance to remind me that my virtue was still mine, because he allowed it. He was saving it. He was in control.

Never me.

“I swear, I won’t tell.” I said again.

“I know.” He smiled, and there was a softness to it that wasn’t sincere.

This was the manipulation of the worst kind of predator.

“I did it for you, Amara. I did it for us.” My body turned stiff as horror sliced through my veins.

He didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he didn’t care.

“I’m doing what you asked. I’m waiting for you. But a man has needs . . .”

I blinked as the memory faded into the ice of my guarded heart. I was shaken, but the vision of Maddy’s thoughtful face encouraged me to straighten my spine and fight my weakness.

Weakness. My constant helplessness was why I lifted weights. It was why I had a membership at the gym. It was why I worked so hard, and so often, to strengthen my small, delicate, body.

In an attempt to ignore the heavy burden that was Maddy’s concern, I shifted.

The workout had been great. Killer even.

I was getting stronger. My muscles felt achy and I could feel a much-needed bubble bath with lavender Epsom salts scribbling itself into my agenda for tonight.

But first I had a long day at the Library I worked at with Raina.

I loved the Library. Books and the peaceful quiet of the space were my haven. Nobody tried to spark up frivolous conversation in a Library. I could tell people to shut their traps (politely, of course) without seeming like the anti-social nutcase I might actually be. That’s still up for debate.