I took a step back, trying to hold it together. “Sorry to bother you so late at night. I haven’t been in town for a while.”
She looked at me almost apologetically. “I hope you can touch base with her.”
“Thanks,” I said before I spun on my heel and yanked my phone from my pocket, thumbs banging out her number as I stalked back down the walkway.
It rang four times before her sickly sweet voice came on the line, recorded and just as fake as the rest of her. I listened to her message before I was growling the words right after the beep.
“You better have a good explanation. Because I’m fucking done.”
Chapter Two
Alexis
No fear. Just life.
No fear. Just life.
No fear. Just life.
I chanted it over and over beneath my breath and tried to make it true. To pretend terror didn’t saturate my skin with a sickly sweat and that my breaths didn’t come both labored and shallow as I tried not to inhale the vile stench of the darkened alleyway.
I could smell him everywhere, this nauseating odor that reeked of something wicked and corrupt.
I tried to stand my ground. I was there for my sister, and I wasn’t leaving without her. But fear had me fumbling back another step. My back hit the pitted exterior wall, and I gasped when I realized I’d walked myself straight into a corner.
He sneered when he took a step closer.
My gaze darted to my right, my words dripping with a plea. With a promise. “Avril…please…come with me.”
“Go.” He didn’t even glance at her when he issued his command. He just glared down at me with a twisted grin that sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
Maybe it was worse that he was somehow attractive. Had he used that against her? Had he dragged her deeper into this disgusting world with some kind of depraved charm?
I begged my sister with my eyes.
Remember. Remember us. I’ll help you. You don’t have to be afraid.
“Go!” he shouted again. The single word struck in the air like a gavel blow.
Her entire body bowed, curling inward, her expression a pitiful, useless apology as she backed away.
Grief struck me from all sides when she turned and disappeared into the shadows like thin, transparent mist. Frail and weak.
She left me.
I wanted to chase her. To grab her. Shake her. Tell her she didn’t have to live this life. How many times did I have to do it before she’d believe me?
But I couldn’t move. I was pinned to the grimy wall by his salacious stare. He edged closer, and I kept my head to the side and squeezed my eyes closed as if it might hide me.
He pressed his body against mine.
Tears streaked free and revulsion rolled through my being. I inhaled a jagged breath that broke on a sob. “Please.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
I already knew I’d stumbled into a world without compassion. A place void of grace.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that instead of sympathy, he laughed and jammed a knee between my thighs, forcing my legs apart.
I gasped a cry as he fumbled to get under my shirt, his words menacing as he breathed them at my ear. “Told you the next time I saw you, you were gonna regret it, stupid bitch. Did you think I was joking? Think it’s time I teach you a lesson. Girls that keep coming around here, they don’t ever get to leave.”
“No.” I didn’t want to beg, but it was there as panic surged through my veins. Fight. I bit and flailed and fought.
He growled and gripped both my wrists in one hand, and pinned them over my head, as his free hand tore at my shirt. I kicked, but he just pressed me harder against the wall. Coarse, ragged concrete cut into my back.
“Oh my God. No. Stop. Please.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Dark blond stubble lined his sharply angled jaw. It scraped across my face as he spat the words. “Don’t say a goddamned word. Do you understand me? One sound and I end you.”
No fear. Just life.
I screamed.
Chapter Three
Zee
With the back of my fist, I pounded on the metal door. Took me six different calls before I finally figured out where she was. Guess I should’ve realized she wouldn’t be all that hard to find because there she was, in the same goddamned place.
Anger and frustration boiled in my blood, inciting a rage that felt impossible to contain. I shifted on my feet and counted to ten before I was hammering the door again.
It jerked open, the pissed-off, “What,” spouted into the air before she caught sight of me standing there. She stumbled back a step, surprise all over her face. “Zee. What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t going to be back for another week.”
I laughed. But there wasn’t anything friendly about it. “You’re really gonna stand there and ask me what I’m doing here?”
My gaze moved over her shoulder, to the trashed out apartment behind her. Anxiety clutched at my chest. I couldn’t fucking believe she’d bring him to this fucking hellhole.
Not after everything I’d done to make sure they were safe. “Pretty sure you need to start telling me what it is you’re doing here, considering I just dropped by your house. Imagine my surprise when I found out that house isn’t yours anymore.”
The words all flooded out between gritted teeth.
She rolled her eyes. “It was my house. I was free to do with it as I pleased.”
My voice dropped, harsh and hard. “That I bought you.”
She shrugged a shoulder and the strap of the satiny camisole she was wearing slid off. I knew her well enough to know it wasn’t an accident. “I needed the money.”
“You have plenty of money.”
“I spent it.”
I angled my head so I could get in her face. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re telling me it’s gone? You don’t just spend that kind of money, Veronica. What the hell did you do with it?”
She gave me one of those looks she’d mastered, big brown eyes set against a dazzling face, all mixed up with the innocent quiver of her chin. It was the same damned expression that always managed to mold any situation in her favor.
It wasn’t so hard to see the cunning behind it.
“You don’t know what it’s like being here alone while you’re off doing whatever it is you do. It’s not fair. You promised me.”
It’s not fair?
I was about two seconds from shouting every reason this bullshit really wasn’t fair in her face.
“And it’s not like you don’t have the money,” she added like her actions didn’t matter in the least.
“This has nothing to do with the money, Veronica. It’s about the responsibility. About the fact you do things you promised me you wouldn’t do. The fact that you should be thinking about him rather than yourself. Now tell me what you did with it.”
A sinking feeling wrung me tight. Wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s none of your business what I did with it.”