She takes a deep, exhausting breath—one that consumes her whole body, and then as she exhales a breath so strong it persuades the winds to pick up again. And then she looks to me like a scared little girl.
I try to squeeze out the thoughts of the girl I used to know. The one wearing pigtails and pretty pink dresses, who would run through the forest and chase after me and our boy crew. She was the princess we all protected. We all failed.
She was the one that got away.
Not anymore.
Now, she’s mine. I have her trapped physically, but I need more.
“So what will it be? Ready to tell the truth and earn more time? Or lie and be punished?” My voice is deep and haunting. She has no idea why I’m pissed—what she did that makes me so willing to hurt her, kill her. She never will. But she knows that I’m serious when I say that I will hurt her if she doesn’t tell the truth.
She nods as she shakes out her hands, but I can see them trembling. She’s trying to psych herself up to speak—to tell the truth.
“I’ll tell you a truth, and for every truth I tell you, I’ll be the one hurting you. I’ll kill you with truths.”
Liesel means every word she says. I have no doubt that she will choose whatever vicious truths she can come up with to hurt me. To cut me down until I beg her to stop.
However, the only things that could hurt me are her lies.
15
Liesel
Langston wants a truth.
There are so many truths to choose from. So many from my past that frighten me, including one that I’m afraid will change the course of my life forever.
I’d rather him rape or torture me than make me tell the truth. I’d do anything to avoid my past.
Langston knows that better than anyone.
As much as I’m all talk, telling him to rape me and get it over with, I don’t want him to hurt me. I’ll do anything to avoid being hurt by Langston, because I remember the boy I used to care about, buried beneath his brawny exterior. Knowing that boy grew up to be a true killer is more than I can stand.
So I’ll try to tell the truth. I’ll try to gain more time. I’ll try to hunt for my freedom and hope that Langston doesn’t kill me.
An idea forms as I sit across the fire. I tremble from a combination of the cold and my fear. If it keeps me safe from Langston, then I’ll do almost anything to make that happen.
Langston is being relatively nice at the moment, but there is nothing he isn’t capable of. The darkness in his heart rivals my own. Everyone may think I got out, that I’m no longer mixed up in the underworld, but they don’t know all the horrible things I’ve done since.
Langston is the same. And right now, I’m his prey.
I won’t let him hurt me.
He’s sitting on a log across from me. He thinks he’s more powerful sitting higher than me, but he just gave me the ammunition to fire back and win.
“The first night I was raped…” I start.
“Telling me about your rapes won’t earn you your freedom, but if you want a free counseling session, be my guest. I’ll enjoy listening to all the ways you were abused. It will give me lots of ideas on how to break you.”
His words are harsh and villainous. I just wish I knew if they were true or not. His words are meant to strike fear into me, but there is nothing physical he could do to me that would make me tremble quite as much as I am now.
“Will you shut up? You want a truth, then let me tell the story.”
“One more thing,” he says.
“You don’t get to add addendums to our deal now.”
He leans forward, closer to the fire, and the flames reflect in his eyes as if the fire is coming from his eyes, not the pit.
I gasp at the evil I see reflected back at me.
“You aren’t in control, huntress. You never were. You are lucky I’m giving you a way out at all. I could just torture the truth out of you and then kill you. That would be easier.”
“You would never kill me,” I call out his lie.
“Things have changed. You aren’t someone I care about anymore. The Liesel I once knew is gone.”
“That she is,” I agree, my voice stronger than I feel.
“If you lie, instead of telling me the truth, if you tell a truth you’ve already told before, I will punish you.”
“You’ll punish me if I’m silent.”
His eyes disappear back into the darkness, but I know my words are true. It doesn’t matter. He’ll hurt me, drive fear into me, all so that he can get power over me. He may say he’s only hurting me to get info, but he’ll enjoy every second of it.
“Continue with your story if you dare, but know what awaits you if you lie.”
I want to move closer before I open my mouth. I want to be able to read all of his expressions. But I dare not move closer. If I move at all, I’ll lose my resolve and won’t tell my story.
No, I won’t let the fear win. I haven’t been afraid of anything in years. I won’t start now.
I stand up. I won’t move closer to Langston, but I’ll stand taller as I speak. I have power. I have strength. And this story is the start of that.
“The night I was raped should have been the worst night of my life,” I start again, wishing the wind would pick up again to drown out my voice. Instead, it’s stopped, ushering in an eerie silence, as if the entire forest is listening to my story, ready to call me a liar if I slip one time.
The quiet pushes my thoughts back to the beginning, back to the moment fear became normal in my life—the moment when I learned how evil men could truly be.
It’s not the story I intended to tell. This part of the story Langston already knows, but it’s what spills. I become consumed, and I can’t do anything but speak what happened…
I finally bought my first bikini, even though I’d asked my mother for one every year for the last three years. I finally saved up enough money to buy one from hours working at the ice cream shop.
I could have just asked Enzo for the money, and he would have gladly given it to me. Enzo doesn’t need to worry about something as simple as money. He doesn’t have to save and scrap. He just has it, an overabundance of it.
He’s not in the pool yet, but I know he normally swims around this time, so I start doing laps myself. I hear a splash and look up to find Enzo swimming towards me.
I watch Enzo’s arms stretch over his head and dip into the water. His muscles lengthen and contract as his legs propel him forward. He could swim laps for hours without stopping to rest. He’s a machine.
Soon, he’ll be mine.
“Enzo,” I shout, excited to see him.
He stops mid-stroke and turns in my direction.
It takes everything in me to not drool or let my mouth hang open at the sight of him shirtless. I’ve watched him swim countless times, and each time I’m shocked by how sculpted he is. How his muscles look like they’ve been chiseled by an artist into his chest—they are too perfect to have been gained from just regular working out. And that happy trail that leads down into his black swim trunks—yummy.
“Do you need something, Liesel?”
I walk up the shallow stairs, so he can see my body, and put my hand on my hip. When I shift my weight, he notices. His eyes heat, wanting to touch my hip.