Page 85 of Vengeful Melodies

The panic always starts like this—silent. Creeping. But it doesn't explode the way people think it does. Mine doesn't scream. It strangles.

My chest pulses, ribs fluttering. I count the beats.One, two, three—don’t think about it.Four, five—breathe past it.Six—

But the memory’s already there.

It’s always there.

I was sixteen. Group home. Temporary placement, they called it, like that word ever meant something soft. I remember the way the paint peeled in the corners of the ceiling, the damp rot in the bathroom walls, the sounds of other girls crying into pillows they didn’t own.

But the worst memory—the one I buried so deep it only surfaces in nightmares—I never say out loud.

Only one person ever heard it.

And he didn’t believe me.

He told me I was making it up. That I needed attention. That I was always “playing the victim.”

So I learned to shut up. To live around it. To stitch myself together with secrets and silence and fake smiles.

But I remember it.

I remember him.

The Doctor who was supposed to protect us. Who smiled too wide. Who always found a reason to keep me behind when others left for school activities. To ask me to help clean up. To keep me after dinner. The one who promised to help when he took me into his home under false pretenses.

I remember how the door clicked shut behind me one night. How his breath smelled like instant coffee and rotting teeth. How his hand landed too hard on my shoulder and dragged downward until my pants fell below my knees and I was forced to do things I didn't understand.

I said no. I froze. I didn’t move because of fear. I disappeared into my body like I was watching it happen to someone else.

And when I told... nothing changed.

No one helped.

No one wanted to help.

I never could scream loud enough for someone to actually listen. But by then, I’d learned the lesson:

No one comes.

Not really.

Not when it matters.

So I took matters into my own hands, when he took me back the last time. I took my revenge slicing into his muddy brown eye.

hat was the first time I had a full panic attack. The kind that makes your limbs go cold and your vision tunnel. The kind that steals your name out of your own mouth.

Blood coated my skin like war paint and I ran back to the only safety I could ever rely on since my family was dead and J was alone.. I ran to Wren.

I didn’t even know what was happening.

I thought I was dying.

And sometimes, I still do.

Even now, years later, lying next to men who make me feel wanted, who call me love like it’s a prayer—I still flinch when someone touches the wrong place, the wrong way, the wrong moment.

I still freeze when someone closes the door too quickly. And now... the texts. The threats. He’s coming for me, for revenge or to lock me away again..