“Bullshit! You fucking raped me!”
He grabs me by the throat, slamming me back so hard that my skull hits the headboard behind me, and for a second I can’t see.
“Shut your mouth,” he hisses. “You girls are all the fucking same. You taunt a guy and flash your body at us, and the moment we give you what you want, you use the ugliest word you can think of to make yourselves feel better. Well, you’re not pulling that shit with me, Red. I know you. You can’t lie to me. You were making eyes at me all fucking night across the dinner table. So guess what? Now you’re gonna reap what you sow.”
When I came to bed earlier, I’d hoped this wasn’t going to happen. I’d taken precautions in case it did, though. Groping around behind me, I reach under the pillow and find what I’m looking for: the six-inch-long knife that I took from Dad’s chef set. The blade is two inches wide and honed to an unbelievably sharp edge. Dad told me once that it could cut through bone. The second Jonah sees the flash of the steel in the dark, he releases me and leaps back from the bed.
“Whoa ho ho! What the fuck is this?” he says, laughing. “You decided to bring weapons to the party? I gotta say, I never thought you had it in you.”
I thrust the knife at him, baring my teeth. “Get out, Jonah.”
He holds his hands up. “I wish I could, I really do. But I’m super fired up, and I came all the way from California to see you. I’m not leaving until you give me what I came for.”
“I’m not having sex with you. You’re my brother. You’re sick. There’s something very wrong with you.”
He isn’t bothered by my accusations one bit. “Don’t you think,” he says, narrowing his eyes to slits. “That there’s something wrong with you? If this wasn’t what you wanted, then answer me this. Why have you never told anyone that I attacked you?”
The nausea returns. I do my best to swallow it down, to keep it at bay so that I can handle this situation, but my mouth is sweating, and my head’s reeling. “You threatened me,” I whisper. “You told me that you’d kill me if I ever breathed a word of it. You said that Dad wouldn’t love me, because he loved you more, and he’d never believe me over you.”
Jonah rubs at his jaw, smiling broadly. He flashes his perfect teeth at me, and a horrible tightness forms in my chest. That smile is so deceptive. He’s handsome; it makes me sick to admit it, but he’s a very attractive guy. Girls must throw themselves at him all the time. How many of those girls has he assaulted and then threatened with violence to make them keep their mouths shut? I don’t even want to know…
“I guess I did say all of that, didn’t I?” He shrugs. “We both know you’re not going to use that. Put down the knife. Let’s stop fucking around and be honest about what we want here.”
No way I am putting down this knife. “I have been honest. I want you to fucking leave!” I lunge for him, which is my mistake. I’m too distraught to handle what’s going on, and Jonah is utterly calm. In a heartbeat, he has the knife out of my hand and I’m pinned to the mattress, flat on my back. He’s on top of me, his breath reeking of stale red wine, his weight crushing me.
“You’re gonna regret giving me such a hard time, Red,” he snarls. The weapon I’d brought in here to defend myself is now at my throat, the wicked tip pressing into the hollow at the base of my neck. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to bleed out if your carotid is cut, Presley? Hmm?” He shakes me, and my whole life flashes before my eyes. I want to cry out, to beg for help, but who am I going to call? Once Dad’s asleep, he’s dead to the world, and this old house swallows sound. Screaming and shouting will get me nowhere. I have to…I have to think.
Be calm, Presley. Figure this out. What can you do to get out of this?
“It takes seconds,” Jonah says, leering at me. “And while I don’t honestly care if you live or die, I don’t really feel like fucking a corpse tonight.” He shoves away from me. “Stand up.” My entire body is shaking. He gets off me, climbing down from the bed and moving back to give me room. “Stand up, or I’ll actually give you something to fucking scream about.”
I do it. I have no idea how, but I manage. He isn’t bluffing. I can tell from the wild, unhinged look in his eyes. He’s never seemed this crazy before.
“Strip. Take your fucking clothes off. Do it quickly. We don’t have all night.”
I’m trembling like a leaf as I undress. I stand before him, naked, shaking, fearing what comes next.
Jonah’s eyes travel the length of my body, pausing to drink in the sight of me. “Fuck,” he says. “You’ve become a woman since the last time we hung out like this. I gotta say, I preferred you the way you were to be honest. But hell. It was bound to happen, wasn’t it? With a whore of a mother like yours. She had massive tits, too. No wonder she turned Dad’s head. He left my mom before I was even born. Did you know that? Came back here for some bullshit high school reunion and ran into his old high school sweetheart. Decided to abandon all of his responsibilities and start up a whole new life—”
“That’s not what happened, Jonah. Your mom was an alcoholic. She wouldn’t stop drinking when she was pregnant with you, and he couldn’t watch her do it anymore. He didn’t meet my mom again until you were already three!”
“FUCKING LIAR!” He comes at me, grabbing me by the hair. Blinding pain shoots through me as he pushes me to the ground. “You’re just like her, aren’t you? Such a fucking liar. I know she contacted him. Tricked him into leaving my mom. And then she acts like the innocent party, like she’s done nothing wrong. She tries to be nice to me when I have no choice but to come spend the summers with your fucked up little family.”
“You had to come spend the summers with…” I stop myself. I stop fucking talking.
Jonah leans down, spit flying when he says, “Go on. Finish what you were gonna say. I wanna hear her lies come out of your mouth.”
“You had to come to us because she was always in rehab!”
God, what is wrong with me? I should have made something up. I should not have said that, though. It’s the truth. His mom was a train wreck when we were little, and she still is now. Some idiotic desire to defend my mother made me start the sentence, but I should not have finished it.
Jonah is a nightmare given form. “You don’t know my mother. You’ve never even fucking met her. Don’t you fucking talk about her like you know anything.”
I see the madness in his eyes, and I know that I’m lost.
Jonah rips at the belt buckle at his waist, unfastening it and pulling the length of leather from his pants. I try to get away, to scramble across the floor, to put some distance between us, but it’s futile. The room is too small, and I have nowhere to go. My back hits the wall and I know that it’s all over.
He falls on me.
His hands tear my thighs.
“Make as much noise as you like, Red. It really doesn’t matter to me. I slipped something into Dad’s last glass anyway.”
He hits me. The blow sends me reeling, my consciousness slipping away. He hits me again and again, all over my chest, my stomach…everywhere. When he forces himself inside me, my mind goes blank. I disappear into a fog of nothingness.