Because that’s how cases like this work.
Just thinking about how horrible it’s all going to be is enough to make me feel like I’m going to be sick all over Alec’s five-hundred-dollar shoes.
Instead, I cover my mouth with my hand, close my eyes, and take deep breaths in and out through my nose. I can’t fall apart right now. Not in front of Alec, not in the middle of the quad where everyone can see.
“Do you want to call Mom and your dad together?” Alec asks, sympathy in his voice. “We could get a study room in the library and put them on speaker phone.”
I shake my head. I can’t imagine telling my dad and Penny the truth, let alone with Alec sitting right next to me.
“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and force my eyes open. “No thanks,” I say, my mouth so dry I can barely get the words out. “I’m going to wait. I want to know what’s happening first.”
“I don’t think you’ll be charged with anything, but you should get a lawyer just in case,” he says, echoing my thoughts from a moment before. “You can’t be too careful. Mom’s paying for my lawyer, I know she won’t mind—”
“I said I want to wait, okay?” I snap.
His sympathetic expression becomes a frown. “Listen, I’m just trying to help. None of this is even my fault. I don’t have to—”
“I know, I’m sorry,” I say in a softer voice. “I just… It’s a lot to take in. I need some time to think is all.” I can’t afford to piss Alec off, or to give him any reason to think I might not be around for that interview he and his friends are assuming I’ll grant the police.
I need time to think, and to plan how I’m going to keep the courtroom scenario from happening. I can’t end up on the stand.
I just can’t. I won’t live through it. It will blow out the last flame of hope inside me, and I’ll never get that fresh start I’ve been dreaming about. If I go down that road, I’m never coming back again.
I’m going to have to run, but not to some nowhere town in Middle America or the studio apartment in Cape Cod I’ve been daydreaming about. I’ll have to go farther, someplace where no news stations are following the scandal at SU and no one cares that I’m a witness in a felony trial. Somewhere where I can disappear into a new life and none of the bad things from the past can ever find me.
Even before I say goodbye to Alec—promising to call him if I change my mind about the lawyer and want him on the phone when I call Penny to ask for money—I’m already plotting my new escape route. But this time, I won’t be able to take any of the good things with me. I won’t be able to finish my degree with this hanging over my head, the university might even decide to kick me out of school, once they learn the truth. My education is over, and I’m going to be leaving Sterling with nothing but what I can carry in my suitcase, heading out into the world even more alone and friendless than I thought I’d be.
Unless…
I reach where I parked my car, but don’t open the door to get inside. Instead, I pull out my phone and stare at Danny’s number, wondering if maybe I don’t have to leave all of the good things behind, after all.
Maybe I’ve been looking at this the wrong way, and I don’t have to run off and carry this load alone for the rest of my life. Maybe Danny and I can run away together and leave all of the ugliness behind.
I just have to decide how far I’m willing to go to keep the one person who matters by my side.
Chapter Nine
Samantha
Present Day
“The great object of life is sensation—
to feel that we exist, even though in pain.”
-Lord Byron
* * *
I wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone moaning, and for a terrifying moment I have no idea where I am.
I freeze in bed, hands clutching the scratchy wool blanket and pulling it up to my neck, instinctively moving to conceal myself though I know hiding under the covers won’t do any good if someone’s broken in.
The moan comes again, a long, low, miserable sound from the opposite side of the room. I’m about to ask who’s there when my eyes adjust to the darkness and I make out the silhouettes of the other bunk beds filling the space and my mind catches up with my body.
I remember that I’m in the girls’ dorm at the hostel and that the man at the desk said there would be a full house tonight. Twelve girls in the beds and another girl bunking on the floor in the corner—even though that’s technically against the law. But the guy with the beads threaded into his beard on duty tonight said he couldn’t stand to turn a girl out to sleep on the streets. He was willing to risk a fire code violation if we were all willing to make room for one more.
Eight of the girls in the room are on a mission trip to help build homes for the needy and the rest of us came close enough to not having a place to sleep that we could empathize. We even helped move the beds around to give our thirteenth—a tiny girl with dreads who’s on her way to work on a communal farm—room to crash.
Everyone at the hostel has been very nice, and done their best to make Danny and me feel welcome, but even all that niceness can’t banish the memory of that kid’s knife at my throat, or the way it felt to be pressed so tight against a stranger’s body. For a few minutes, I’d been transported back to New Year’s Eve.
I’d relived it all in fast motion, images and sense memories racing through my head so fast the world started to spin. But for the first time, the memories didn’t make me feel scared. I’d been enraged, so furious I’d fought back without thinking about the consequences, and I don’t regret it. I would rather die than be a victim. I’m not going to let anyone hold me down, not ever again.
The moan comes again, higher pitched this time with a plaintive whimper at the end that makes me worry this girl is in serious pain.
“Are you okay?” I hiss into the darkness. “Can I get you anything? Tylenol or something?”
“It’s just Sheila,” an unfamiliar voice answers. “She’ll moan all night, and not remember what she was dreaming about in the morning. I think Percy has some extra earplugs in her bag. I can try to find them for you if you want.”
“No, that’s okay,” I whisper. “I’ve got headphones if I need them.”
“Okay. Good night.”
“Good night,” I say, and do my best to relax into the mattress, but it feels like I’m sleeping on a marble slab. I hadn’t noticed how hard the bed was when I lay down—I was so desperate to close my eyes I could have passed out leaning against a wall—but now I’ve had enough rest to notice how uncomfortable I am.
Since I threw away my phone and haven’t had time to buy a watch, I have no idea what time it is, but I feel refreshed and strangely keyed up. Last night, I’d been freaked out by the taste of that kid’s shirt in my mouth and the sight of Danny unleashing his violent side in a way I haven’t seen in forever, but now the memory of how we took care of the threat to our safety makes me feel proud and…hopeful. Danny and I are a good team. Life threw a lot of shit at us yesterday, but we dealt with it and made the best of every bad situation.