Chapter 35
No scream to escape my throat.
No fight.
I was as hollow as the empty, blackened night sky above me.
The agony that had consumed me moments ago fled into the woods the moment he did. There should be warmth seeping around me as my own blood stained the grass between my legs and dripped steadily from my wrists.
But there was nothing.
Pain slipped away behind the deafening music that finally began to fade from the stadium behind me. Water swirled in my mind, blistering like the black spots that clouded my ability to clearly see everything around me.
Slithering beneath the hollowed emptiness was the snake of fear that he might return. I needed to escape, but there was nothing left in my marrow to carry me away.
As two blurry faces appeared, giggling and drunk, that terror held me frozen in place and temporarily cleared my vision. Sydney’s grin turned to shock, and she latched onto Tera’s arm. They skidded to a stop.
Leave, I wanted to beg. But nothing came from my mouth. My throat remained paralyzed.
“He wasn’t supposed to— He was just supposed to make her—” Sydney shook her head and took a stumbling step back.
He wasn’t supposed to what?
“We have to get out of here,” Tera replied, all giddy triumph they’d both been carrying upon arrival gone.
Yes, please. Go. I wanted to shout and yell at them. I wanted to bark a curse upon them but they disappeared just as Danny had.
And I was left alone once more with Death as my only companion.
Except the Grim Reaper stood a few feet away, his scythe held steady by his side as if he pitied me. If only I could reach out just a little farther, reprieve would be found. But nothing. His face hooded in the mist of the dampening night, mocked the escape that was at my fingertips.
Not a star shone upon my quickly fading consciousness.
Time seemed to both stand still and whir past with no control, deeper into the thundering cocoon that I was quickly falling into. Despite my torn shirt and my pants that were shredded and dangling around my ankles, the frigid night air didn’t raise a shiver in my soul.
There was nothing left.
If only I could close my eyes and disappear to just a few hours ago, where warmth wrapped me tight. Where joy and happiness swirled in sunset eyes of love and desire. If there was only a way to call out for the one person who made me feel as free as a bird gliding in the breeze.
But there was nothing left. No pain. No desire. No freedom.
Only fear that held me trapped within my own mind and kept the scream of agony locked within me.
My mind begged to stretch out my fingers and graze the hem of Death’s robes, but not a muscle moved. The flesh and blood beneath my ragged fingernails caught my eye as I stared at my own body, floating halfway above it. Almost to the Grim Reaper. Almost to my escape.
Black shoes I faintly recognized kicked through Death, and he disappeared into the mist.
Tears slipped down my cheeks, but I felt no warmth from the wet stain as my newest companion ran toward me.
He reached toward me. He shouted my name, begging for me.
The desperation in his voice was unlike anything I’d ever heard.
Laced thick with what sounded like guilt swirling amidst his pleading, Asher crashed to his knees beside me.
His voice shook as he whispered my name again, but the cage I was locked in was too tight.
Too thick to draw me out. I watched his eyes slowly scan me from head to toe, and the horror upon his face deepened with each passing second.
He reached forward with a trembling hand and whispered his touch across smeared lipstick and the bruised handprint Danny had left around my mouth.
Rage seared his body as he let out a howl full of the most excruciating fury. A blur of more footsteps crashed around the corner that kept me hidden from the crowd that must have left the concert a while ago, but no matter how much I wanted to turn toward Asher, to reach toward him, I couldn’t.
Of its own accord, my hand slid from my bare and bruised leg as he ripped his cut-off over his head and draped it over my exposed body. It should have hurt as it brushed over the bruise on my stomach, but I still felt nothing. (21)
He scooped me up and rose from the wet ground. Spinning toward the companions that had joined us, he cradled me tight and stumbled their way. “Help her,” he whimpered, pleading with the rest of the band.
“SOMEONE HELP HER!” he screamed with tears streaking down his own cheeks.
Oh, what I would’ve given to gently wipe them away.
Sirens wailed in the distance as Elysia shoved past Kieron and she covered her mouth with her hands. Silent tears fell down her own face as she tucked herself back into his arms. Nova and Ava stood frozen beside Drake and Jaxon. Clearly no one really knew what to do as the world caved in.
Asher didn’t seem fazed while my blood dripped against his torso as he tucked me tighter against him. It was absolutely still. The sounds of the evening faded away, a rushed and thick silence blanketing the darkness.
The silence was deafening. The music I’d finally begun to hear again had whisked away the moment Danny’s blackened eyes had met mine. The paramedics gently pulled me from Asher’s hold, and no matter how desperately I wanted to fight to stay in his arms, there was nothing left in me to do so.
What should’ve been a bumpy ride to the hospital seemed a hazy memory as I stared at the image of Asher’s gentle smile lying across from me in bed. His hair was a mess, with lazy sleep filling his eyes; he reached over and brushed his touch across my bare shoulder.
A guitar rested in my lap, and his warm breath danced against the back of my neck. His fingers guided mine across the frets as I strummed the strings haphazardly. A distant laugh swirled in tender memories that seemed to come and go way too quickly.
Lying in the hospital bed, nurses and doctors rushing around me, asking me questions, I desperately sought him. But the sharp details of his face were rapidly fading. Were his brows thick and deep, or did he have…?
Asher, I wanted to whisper as the memories that held me to this realm became hazy. Asher had dark hair.
Danny, my mind screamed at me. Danny did this. Danny had blond hair. Asher was kind. Danny was crueler than I thought. Asher had set me free.
Danny had ripped that away. Danny’s shoes he’d been wearing were the same ugly cream color as the tile beneath my hospital bed. The bright, white lights flickering above me were the same white color as his shirt that had to be stained with my blood.
I knew Asher’s chest was marred with my blood.
As the walnut door to my room swung open and a nurse entered, I caught a glimpse of him standing in the hallway.
His brows twitched upward just as his eyes locked onto me before being shut away once more.
The rhythmical beep of the monitor next to my bed was the only sound that finally penetrated the empty waste around me.
The door swung open again, and two male cops held a thrashing Asher back as two more female police officers entered my room. “I need to see her!” he shouted. “Please! I couldn’t stop that fucker and—”
But his desperate pleading faded as the door closed behind the two officers who quietly entered my hospital room.
Asher, I tried to croak out. My hoarse throat fought every sound, grating against my attempt to call for the one person who might help this emptiness go away.
“He can come in after we ask you a few questions, okay?” one officer gently said as she smoothed a strand of brown hair back into the tight bun wound at the nape of her neck.
Wait, had I spoken? Had a sound actually escaped my mouth? I willed myself to nod confirmation because, despite everything, something in me had kept me alive.
“Can you tell us what happened?” She pulled a pen and small notebook from her pocket. “How did you end up outside?”
I stared at the typical hospital wall, trying to see around her.
Asher was just through that door, and I was desperate to catch a glimpse through the foggy glass window.
That’s what I wanted. To hell with answering the questions.
The terror was settling back in, and I wanted Asher.
I needed that warmth and strength he offered me to keep me from crawling deeper into the emptiness that had consumed me just moments ago.
The door handle rattled, and I twisted the bed sheets within my fist. Was it Asher?
Or was it Danny? Had he somehow made it past everyone in the hospital to come haunt me?
“Danny,” I blurted out in horror. But it wasn’t just Danny’s soulless smile that danced in front of my eyes as the walls began creeping toward me.
Sydney and Tera were there too. They’d met him just outside the stadium.
Somehow, during a moment of awareness, I’d watched them take my phone and say something about making sure I disappeared for a while.
That was the only way to make Asher believe I’d ghosted him.
“Asher,” I mindlessly whispered. Leaving him was the last thing I wanted. No, he was my source of strength and power. He was just right inside the stadium. It was loud and warm and free in there. I just needed to shake loose of Danny’s hold on me.
But I couldn’t. The world quickly slipped away once more.
Then there was blood and agony shredding every fiber of my body. There was a lot of blood.
It ran warm down the insides of my thighs as I clawed at the hand pressed tightly over my mouth.
No. “NO!” I screamed. Or I’d tried to. But I couldn’t. Not as Danny stole from me something that was never his to have.
And in that moment, the woman I once was, died. Everything had changed all because of the actions of someone else. Someone who stole something that wasn’t his to take. My body remained on the bed, but my soul left.
“Miss Duval, please.” A gentle feminine voice slipped through the haze of terror swallowing me into darkness. The hooded Grim Reaper dissipated into the distance as the female police officer’s brown eyes and soft face refocused in front of me and the walls snapped away from me.
“Tell me what happened,” she prompted and dragged a chair to the side of my hospital bed.
My gaze slid to the corner of the room where that hooded figure of death reappeared as she settled onto the brown cushion. And I offered him the little amount of feeling that was left in my veins. (22)
As a blissful, empty, and cold numbness settled over me, I loosed my lips and slowly relayed the events to the best of my ability—which wasn’t much since I was passed out for most of it.
Silence draped the room like a heavy, wet blanket that scratched at every open wound once I finished. A steady drum of distant voices floated into the room from the hallway, mixing with the steady beep of the monitor beside my bed.
And I felt nothing.
“Is there anything else we should know before I bring the nurses in for the rape kit?” The officer glanced up from her pad filled with the details I desperately never wanted to live again.
I stared at the blank cream wallpaper in the corner. In every nightmare, not once had I ever considered that this would be the one I was living. “Do I have to do one?” I croaked.
She shook her head and rested her hands in her lap. “No, but if he left behind any DNA—”
“He did,” I inserted quietly. Closing my eyes, I swallowed the bile rising in my throat.
“It’s your choice since we do have a decent amount of evidence already,” she softly added with a deep inhale.
I brought my gaze to hers as a random, new thought settled in my mind. “How long—If I had—If someone else—” I closed my mouth, unable to form the question. I wanted her gone. I just wanted to be left alone where nobody would touch me. Where nobody could hurt me.
“Would you like some water?” she offered, remaining patiently seated. I shook my head and took a deep breath for encouragement. No matter how much I’d had ripped away from me, I had to make sure the one person who had only ever helped me to fly remained unscathed.
“If I had consensual sex last night, oh and I guess this morning, and he…” I bit down on my bottom lip, ramming my eyelids shut.
“I have an IUD and we’ve only been seeing…
It’s just been him, so we didn’t use a condom, and he finished inside me.
Will the rape kit…?” My voice trailed off as I tucked my face tighter into the pillow.
“Yes. Can you tell me who it was?”
I hated how invasive all of this felt. But I knew why they needed it. “Asher. Asher Stone. We—We—We had sex.” I cracked my eyelids open. “No one else, just him.”
She scribbled something more on her notepad.
“It was consensual,” I quickly added again, but whether that was more for me or for her, I wasn’t entirely sure. “At least with Asher it was.” A single wave of sickening pain ripped through my body, and I winced, tucking my cheek tighter into the pillow.
“All right, I’ll send the nurse in and go have a quick chat with him.” She rose from the chair and glanced at her partner, who had remained silent during the entire conversation. Her eyes darted back to mine as she grabbed the door handle. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
The walnut door swung open, and there he was. Asher still remained in the doorway, waiting.
I stared at him.
“Cosette,” Asher called out and collapsed against a cop who stood beside him.
“Oh, we’ll be in touch, but I think you should get an attorney to help with whatever fallout may come,” the policewoman added with a gentle sigh.
“With Asher Stone being a public figure and Danny Vaughn having money, it can complicate things in a way you’d never expect,” she finished. I continued to study Asher.
“I’ll have my lawyer contact her,” Asher stated gruffly as a nurse in lavender scrubs and kind, blue eyes slipped into the room.
Another nurse spoke to him, but I heard nothing as the door shut him out once more.
The world blurred again, and I slipped back into the cage in my mind.
It was silent here. But the pain was gone.
Nothing played within me anymore. Not a single note stirred behind the distant questions the nurse began asking me.
Even the fear that had held me paralyzed seemed to have left when the Grim Reaper carried away the Cosette that Asher loved.