Chapter One
“Meg?” a voice rings out in the hollow room.
My gaze slides from the cream colored wall, distantly taking in the eyes all staring at me.
A dozen youthful faces, or rather, a dozen mindless drones in gray sweats, all seated in a circle of chairs.
“Meg, did you want to share with us today?” I pick at the cuff of my hoodie, readjusting my shoulders.
“Nope,” I raise a brow to Counselor Stevens sitting opposite.
Her preppy collar sitting outside of her green sweater and the suede tassels on her stupid smart shoes irritate me as much as her understanding smile.
She doesn’t understand because regardless of what my admission paperwork says, she doesn’t know shit about me.
She doesn’t know that I never cared for who my real parents were.
They weren’t there for me, and I didn’t give a shit about the reasons why.
She doesn’t know that my adoptive mom, Keren, was secretly pleased I never asked questions.
Although, being a therapist, she no doubt had multiple theories as to my closed mindset.
Before I left for university, we had our routine, our quaint little lives.
A top-floor apartment with a roof terrace.
A schedule for who cooked and who cleaned each day.
I stayed at my best friend’s mansion on weekends while my mom, unable to give up on her quest for love, would go to bars or on dates. It was simple, uncomplicated, perfect.
Until the secrets of my lineage wormed their way out of my past, physically kidnapped me and put me in the warpath of a madman. My entire world was torn apart a year ago, and the consequences continue to plague me. What I wouldn’t give to be ignorant about my parentage again.
Usually, Counselor Stevens would accept my rejection and move on, but apparently, today is my unlucky day.
“Meg,” she sighs, keeping the smile fixed in place.
“You’re coming to the end of your treatment here with us, and you’ve yet to share anything.
Surely there’s something you want to discuss?
Something you could get off your chest before you’re discharged?
I’ve heard you’re returning to uni. How are you feeling about that? ”
Ugh, don’t remind me. Before I came to this rehab clinic, I had to make a choice.
Return to Hollowbrook Academy, where I was once captain of the lacrosse, debate and swimming teams, or go home.
My mom would have accepted me with open arms, but I knew what would happen.
She’d analyze my every sigh and catalogue my every movement.
I’d become her biggest focus, and in the times she wasn’t around, I’d succumb to the loneliness I feel every day in my padded cell.
So, I chose Hollowbrook, and they moved me to a facility in the same area to help me ‘readjust’. I’d hardly describe a chaperoned visit once a week for coffee as helping me do anything, but it’s better than the bitter shit they serve here.
Counselor Stevens is still patiently waiting for a response, and I realize she’s not going to move on without one. I exhale through my nose, tilting my head back against the chair.
“I’m absolutely buzzing with excitement,” I drawl sarcastically.
“I can’t wait to see the people I used to call friends, who haven’t visited, called or messaged me since I came here.
One mention that I’m in this facility, and the rest of the blanks were filled in without any truth behind them.
It doesn’t matter that the residents here are dealing with trauma, PTSD and the likes.
A rehab is a rehab to small-minded people. ”
A murmur passes through the room, a mix of amusement and unease. It’s the most I’ve said in this room, and an entire word-storm fights its way into my throat.
I clamp my teeth down on my tongue, halting any more of the unbridled anger simmering beneath my surface from coming into the light of day.
Not including the many, many messages my twin is leaving with reception, clearly not getting the hint that I’m not ready to talk to her yet, I haven’t heard from any of the old team mates I used to call friends.
It’s not like I haven’t reached out first either, sending several texts to say, ‘Hey, I’m alive.
Please come entertain me.’ Every message is read and then forgotten. Traitorous bitches.
The counselor, unshaken, clasps her hands together in her lap. “That’s an interesting perspective. Would you care to elaborate?” My nostrils flare. Fuck’s sake, hasn’t this session been an hour yet?
“No,” I reply flatly. Her persistent smile stretches a fraction.
“Meg, you’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to be scared. But this is a space for honesty.”
“I am being honest,” I cut in, crossing my arms. “I don’t want to sit in a circle and hold hands and pretend that talking about my feelings is going to change a damn thing. What happened to me happened. No amount of group therapy is going to scrub the blood off my hands.”
The air in the room stiffens. A boy in a beanie to my left tilts his head slightly, watching me intently now with something in his gaze. Interest, maybe. Amusement? I don’t give a shit. Counselor Stevens clears her throat delicately.
“You’re not alone in those feelings, Meg. A lot of people here struggle with—”
“Don’t,” I warn, a quiet threat in my voice.
“Don’t try to lump me in with everyone else.
” I glance around the room, at the shifting eyes and fidgeting hands.
“They don’t know what it’s like to wake up screaming because your nightmares aren’t just dreams. They’re memories.
They don’t know what it’s like to have someone strip away everything you thought was real, twist you into something you don’t even recognize. ”
“That’s all we know,” a scoff sounds. It’s come from him, Beanie Boy, as he leans forward and braces his forearms on his thighs.
His sleeves slide up slightly, revealing the hint of black ink in thin lines.
His voice is like gravel, deep and unused.
“You’re not special here, and you don’t get to dictate who is suffering more. ”
My lips part for a beat of silence, the anger in me slicing open to make way for new emotions. Ones I’ve buried, ones I’ve forgotten. Guilt. Remorse. Shame. I grit my teeth, bringing the blaze of fury back to my pale blue eyes. He doesn’t get to make me weak. No one will have that right ever again.
He’s full-on staring at me now, his cloudy gray eyes dull against the white-blond flicks sticking out from beneath his stupid beanie hat.
If he thinks I’m going to back down, he’s sorely mistaken.
He doesn’t get to belittle my pain and tell me it’s okay, just because others experience it too.
It’s not okay, none of this bullshit life is okay.
“Fuck you,” I mutter.
“Language, please,” Counselor Stevens sighs. The ghost of a smile hitches Beanie Boy’s mouth, and it’s gone in an instant.
The clock ticks to the hour, and I shoot out of my seat, sending it skidding backwards.
I’m so done with these sessions. Although as I leave the therapy room for the last time, I know I’m only swapping out one prison for another.
Hollowbrook Academy is going to be a sea of similar glares and comments, of simple-minded people who can’t understand.
I shove the door open harder than necessary, ignoring the startled glance from an orderly in the hallway.
My facility-required slippers thud against the linoleum as I head for my room, pulse still hammering.
This is why I don’t speak up. Why I don’t ‘contribute’.
All opening up does is allow others to get in, like Beanie Boy and his basic comments that are now swirling around my head. He doesn’t know my suffering.
He wasn’t kidnapped from his school’s lacrosse pitch, hogtied and carted away in a truck of goons with guns.
I didn’t know what was happening until I was thrown to the ground at Fredrick Walter’s feet.
He leered at me, introduced himself as my biological father and stroked my hair back from the bloodied wound on my forehead.
“I’ve waited so long to meet you, Megan.”
I shudder against the voice carving its way through my ears. He’s not here, he’s not even alive anymore. But that doesn’t stop the memories from playing on repeat when I close my eyes.
By the time I reach my room, my hands have balled into fists.
I force them to unclench as I shut the door behind me, sealing myself inside my only real sanctuary in this place.
The glow of my monitor cuts through the dimness, illuminating the single bed against the wall and the locked shutters over the window.
I stall, my back against the door and force myself to breathe. Inhale for three, exhale until my lungs burn until the tension has slipped from my limbs. Only then do I slide into the leather, high backed seat.
The computer setup is the one thing they let me keep, probably figuring gaming was a safer coping mechanism than self-destruction.
Not that there was much of a choice when the boxes arrived at the front desk with no return label.
A gift from a friend who has no business spending his illegally-earned money on me, but I can’t express how thankful I am that he did this time.
I slip on my headphones and open my chat. Static crackles for a second, then a smooth voice fills my ears.
“Took you long enough,” Thiago drawls in his Brazilian accent. The knot in my chest eases just a little.
“Spare me the lecture,” I mutter, booting up our game of Runeborn. “Not in the mood.”
“You’re never in the mood.” There’s a smirk in his voice, but he doesn’t push. He never pries, never asks for details I don’t want to share. He’s just there. The only constant I have left.
A soft shiver trails my spine, the faintest tremor of butterflies curling in my gut, as usual. I don’t know what I did to deserve Thi, but he’s currently all that’s keeping me going.
When I was finally rescued from Harrison, Thiago was the one who carried me to safety, and when I woke in the nearest psych ward, he was still there.
I didn’t talk to him, didn’t trust him, for weeks.
But every day, he kept coming back. We watched every episode of Gossip Girl in silence.
He brought different snacks each time until I caved and actually ate something.
Now I get a weekly care box delivered, crispy M&M’s included.
Shaking my head free of thoughts, I double-click the icon, and the login screen flashes to life. The familiar dark-fantasy landscape unfurls before me. Jagged mountains, shadowed ruins, and the faint glow of torches in the distance.
Thiago’s already online, his character waiting near our usual spot, a crumbling fortress overlooking the valley below.
It’s as close as a virtual representation of him can be.
Tanned skin, dark curls cropped short at the sides and left longer on top, pale blue eyes that almost match the shade of mine.
Even the body shape, far too toned for a cyber hacker, matches him in real life.
“Dare I ask, how was therapy?” he says, but his tone is light and uninterested. It’s just a formality, something to get out of the way before we sink into this world where none of that matters.
“You can ask. Doesn’t mean you’ll get a response.
” I shift in my chair, fingers flying across the keyboard as I join him on-screen.
“Let’s just play.” He doesn’t argue. Instead, his avatar turns, offering me a silent nod before he draws his weapon and charges toward the enemy camp below.
I follow without hesitation, the weight in my chest lifting with every confident stride of my brunette character, every swing of my blade, every flash of magic, every kill we rack up together.
It's the perfect escape. Here, I’m not the girl with nightmares.
I’m not the girl with a ruined life and a past that haunts her like a curse.
Here, I’m just the girl who gets to play games with the boy she’s refusing to let herself fall for, because that’s a slippery slope I know I won’t come back from.
I’ve already got too much to deal with, without trying to protect my fragile heart.