It sounds like something a movie villain would say, but in a sense, he’s right. I know that better than anyone. Be them the sins of a father, or a brother…some of us are destined to live out our lives tainted by the crimes of others. No matter what we do, they haunt us.
Constantly. My phone buzzes, the screen lighting up, and even from here, I know who’s calling. Branden.
Laughing, the man picks it up from the couch and glances at the home screen. His already permanent smirk stretches. “Should I answer it?” he ponders, inclining his head toward me.
He’s baiting me.
But I bite, lurching forward even as I clutch at the edge of my seat with both hands to keep from really moving. “Don’t.”
Am I even worried for myself? No. Maybe Mara instead? Or my fragile freedom. This space. Branden would stop at nothing to drag me back into the cage he’s built around me and lock it shut for good if he suspects for a second that I’m not playing by his rules.
In some ways, this man should answer the call. Once he’s done with me, Branden would burn this place to the ground…
But I wouldn’t wish his wrath on anyone.
“Don’t.”
He chuckles again, stroking the outside of my phone with his thumb. But for all his games, his eyes keep flicking toward the screen, reading the name I’ve programmed in for my brother—Bran <3. The heart is symbolic, but he wouldn’t know that.
He lifts his thumb, letting it hover over the touch screen. When he lowers it, I suck in a breath. Rather than the green answer button, he strikes the red one to dismiss the call instead.
Relief escapes me in a sharp exhale. Branden will just call back, irritated that I didn’t answer, but already bored, the man drops my phone into my bag and shoves it aside.
With little effort, he reclaims my journal and flips it open to a different page. I recognize the various scribbled lines—my latest piece, the rough draft of an essay assignment. The single essay that may or may not decide if I continue school next semester.
“You write about lying a lot, rabbit,” he remarks while scanning my words. “Maybe you really are a fucking reporter? Lies spilled like bated breaths. Suffocation inevitable. Drowning…” Smirking, he looks up, forcing eye contact. “What’s a bunny got to hide from?”
“Why do you care?” I rasp. Internally, I’m more shocked that he could make that kind of assumption from a few words scattered throughout.
He chuckles, seemingly amused by my reaction. “Deceiver. Falsifier.” He’s rattling off my various scribbled titles by heart. “You must have plenty of secrets to tell, rabbit.”
“And you must be really bored to pick on some random girl over a journal.”
“So she bites as well as speaks.” He raises an eyebrow, another wry smile playing over his mouth. “I’m curious, rabbit…” he tells me, leaving the implication dangling so that I’m forced to ask.
“Why?”
He sits back, stroking his chin. “Why you have those sad, fucking bunny eyes.” A newer emotion makes his eyes narrow further—annoyance. “A normal person would have run by now, rabbit. They would have made good on their threat to call the police. Otherwise, they’d be crying. Begging. You haven’t done a fucking one of those things—” His teeth flash, his gaze piercing. “Why is that?”
I clench my jaw shut, but a reply slips out regardless. “I guess you just like terrorizing people—”
“And you haven’t answered my question.” He sits forward again, bracing both of his hands on his knees. Then he lunges.
I don’t even have the chance to react before he’s beside me, his arm thrown over my shoulder, his breath on my throat. Then ice. Cold. Sharpness…
I recognize the feeling, and I go rigid, picturing the size of the blade he must have tracing along the very edge of my windpipe. Nothing too large. A pocket knife? He holds it there teasingly, daring me to pull away.
But I don’t.
I can’t. All I can do is flex my fingers, grasping at the air. It’s all I can ever do.
Suffocate.
But I’m used to my tormentor demanding silence—not this.
“Read.” My book lands open on my lap, the page a scribbled poem. I’d written it months ago, and the pain I’d felt then still leaps off the page, bled into every swirl of ink.
Haunted by darkness, shrouded in guilt. In deception, salvation found…
“No.” Speaking makes the blade press in. Scrape. But more words escape unbidden, impossible to keep in. “Get off me—”
“Read.” His impatience disturbs me more than any threat, mainly by what it reveals. He doesn’t want to scare me. He’s having too much fun provoking me. “In deception, salvation found,” he recites for me, his tone pompous with mock bravado. “From golden bars. Deceptive beauty—”
“Stop.”
He doesn’t.
“From chains formed of secrets linked by fear. Freedom’s price paid with the blood of another.” He chuckles, tapping the knife against my throat. Once, twice. Never hard enough to cut, just enough to sting.
“You’re not afraid of me,” he murmurs near my ear, his voice impossible to ignore. “Not one fucking bit. You’ve seen a much worse monster. I want to meet that monster. I want to know what makes a little rabbit like you so damn hard she doesn’t flinch when a man presses a knife to her throat. I want—” He breaks off, shifting his gaze to the crowd. At the mouth of the section, a slim woman is talking to one of the bouncers. She’s young, her dark hair kept at bay with a glittery butterfly-shaped hairclip, her outfit a modest shirt and jeans that make her seem more out of place than I do. A snippet of what she says reaches us, mutilated by the pounding bass.
“…need to speak to Rafe. It’s important.”
“Shit.” Rafe’s eyes narrow, and he shoves me aside, rising to his feet. “Looks like we’ll have to cut this short, bunny.”
He walks past me, heading for the section’s entrance—but in his grasp is my journal. Its cover glints in the neon lighting as he takes the woman’s arm and melds into the crowd with her.
And I can’t even muster up the energy to chase him.
My hand paws at my throat, following the sting of his knife as his words echo in my brain. I want to meet that monster. I want to know what makes a little rabbit like you so damn hard she doesn’t flinch when a man presses a knife to her throat…
“Hannah!” Mara exclaims from beside me. I jump. It’s as if she appears out of thin air to grab my wrist. I only have enough sense of mind to gather up my belongings and shove them into my bag before she’s dragging me after her through the dance floor and out of the club entirely. As the fresh air displaces most of the noise, I finally realize that she’s been speaking to me this whole time.
“I’m so, so sorry. Those assholes… I knew they came here sometimes, but I wasn’t thinking. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I know! Come to my spoken word tomorrow. It will be a nice, quiet night—”
“You don’t have to apologize.” Again, it’s one of my instincts. I’m the one who spews out the apologies in the end.