Chapter 33 #2
I want to die.
The night air hits my face, my feet dragging as I’m being carried.
My arms are hooked over shoulders, my weight sagging between two solid bodies.
Aiden smells like cigarette smoke and disgusting cologne.
Erik’s grip digs into my ribs every time I stumble, which is constant, because my legs won’t lock properly.
“Jesus,” someone mutters.
I try to lift my head, but it feels like it’s filled with sand. My mouth tastes really bad, like sweet, sour, and chemical. I know this isn’t just alcohol. I know that with a terrifying, crystal fucking clarity.
A door opens, and warmth envelops me. Then movement again, shuffling, and strained breaths.
My shoes scrape against a wooden floor. I try to speak.
..but nothing comes out. And then they let go.
The couch catches me, but not before my shoulder hits hard enough to hurt.
I don’t have the coordination to brace myself.
My arm slides uselessly off the cushion.
The ceiling swims above me, and the sound of footsteps reaches me.
“What happened?” Adriana asks sleepily, but there's fear in her voice.
“He had too much,” Aiden answers flatly.
Too much.
I want to laugh. It would come out broken if I could. The front door opens again, cold air rushing in briefly before it shuts.
“Jude?” Her hands are on my face. They’re so warm and soft.
My head rolls toward her without meaning to. My eyes are open, I think. But I can’t focus them. Her face is blurry, her hair messy like she was sleeping.
“Jude, wake up.”
There’s a sharp sting across my cheek. The sound registers before the pain does. My head shifts with the impact, but my body doesn’t react. It doesn’t do anything. It’s like I’m trapped inside it, pounding against glass no one else can see.
Another slap.
I want to grab her wrist and tell her I’m aware of her, but my arm doesn’t move. Panic starts to creep in, suffocatingly slow. A tightening in my chest that won’t expand properly.
She’s saying my name again...but her voice is shaking now. She’s worried about me.
I force everything I have into my fingers, finally making them twitch. It’s small, but it’s all I can manage. “Don’t,” I manage, barely audible. I don’t even know if it’s clear. “’M fine.”
I’m not fine.
Everything about my body feels so fucking wrong. Fragments flicker through my head.
Blue eyes. The clink of a belt. Television laughter bleeding through a wall. Hands, lips, bodyweight on top of me. Lips that I never agreed to kiss.
I squeeze my eyes shut hard enough to hurt.
No.
Fuck. Not now.
Adriana’s hands slide down to my shoulders. She’s shaking me. “What did they give you?”
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
My stomach rolls violently. I turn my head just in time, barely, bile burning up my throat. My body convulses weakly against the side of the couch as I vomit onto the floor. Even that feels distant, though.
“I’m 'kay,” I whisper again, because that’s what I’m supposed to say. Because if I admit I’m not, then something real happened tonight.
And I can’t let it be real.
Her hand moves to my hair, pushing it back from my forehead. She’s breathing kind of fast. “I’m here,” she says.
The words hurt, and I try to sit up. But the room slides sideways, blackness instantly creeping into the corners of my vision.
My body gives up entirely, and I fall back against the cushions.
My heart is pounding like it’s trying to escape the cage that is my ribs.
I stare at the ceiling and feel nothing and everything at once.
I hear the ripping of paper towels and realize that she left my side. My eyes focus on her form, cleaning up the vomit on the floor. “I’m sssorry...”
She just rests a hand on my hot cheek. “It’s okay, Jude.”
My entire body tingles, and I sink away from consciousness.
When I wake again, it’s still dark. My skull throbs in slow, painful pulses, each one reminding me I am still inside my body. Unfortunately. I try to move, and something warm shifts against me.
Adriana.
Her head is tucked against my chest, her hair fanned across my shoulder, one arm draped over my ribs. She is still in her pajama shirt. I can smell her shampoo, and it clashes with the memories clawing at the back of my mind.
Blue eyes.
A hand on my throat. Another hand touching me. Touching himself.
The ceiling spinning…
My stomach heaves, and I jerk upright too fast. I nearly black out from it, but Adriana startles awake before I can fall.
“Jude?” Her voice is thick with sleep and panic. She pushes up onto her elbows, scanning my face. “Hey. Hey. You’re awake.” Her hand cups my cheek, and I flinch before I can stop myself. She freezes.
That is when it breaks open. Everything.
The bedroom. The weight. My own body refusing to respond, refusing to fight the way it should have. I taste bile and shame and fucking disgust.
“I didn’t,” I start, but my voice cracks like splintering wood. I swallow and try again. “I didn’t know he was going to do that to me.”
Her eyes soften. “What did Alexei do?”
I shake my head. It feels important that she understands this part. “It wasn’t Alexei.” My throat closes. “There was another man with him...” Blonde hair. Blue eyes. I wince. “I think his name is Henrik. He—they drugged me.”
Adriana sits up fully now. She pulls me with her, one arm around my back to steady me when I sway.
“What happened?” she whispers, though it seems she already knows.
She would. She’s already familiar with the rabid dogs in the fame industry.
They’re the same here in this criminal underworld… just with sharper teeth.
My chest fucking hurts. “They kept giving me drinks.” I press my fingers into my temples, trying to hold my skull together.
“I didn’t even think about it. I should’ve.
But I didn’t. And then I couldn’t stand.
I couldn’t…” My breathing starts to deepen.
“He took me to a bedroom. Alexei just…he just sat in the living room and waited til Henrik was done.”
Adriana makes a broken sound.
“I tried to push him off.” My hands curl into fists in my lap. The fucking useless things. “My body wouldn’t listen. It was like being buried alive inside myself. I could hear my heart. I could hear him breathing. I just…I couldn’t fucking move.”
She goes very still.
“I remember the ceiling,” I say quietly. “And thinking if I focused on the fan, I wouldn’t feel it.”
Tears slide down Adriana’s face, but she doesn’t wipe them away.
She keeps her hands on me. “Jude,” she breathes, and then she is pulling me into her so hard it almost hurts.
The second her arms wrap around me, something in my chest gives way, and I am shaking with violent tremors that I cannot control.
“Oh my god,” she whimpers, laying us down. “That son of a bitch.”
I close my eyes. “I f...feel disgusting.”
Her grip tightens. “You are not.”
“I let it happen. No one saved me. No one ever fucking does.” A sob breaks free.
She makes a choked sound. “You did not let anything happen. They drugged you, Jude. Alexei sold you. I’m so sorry no one could…” she trails off, swallowing past the lump in her throat. “Save you.”
"You never did," I mutter. "You did this to me, too."
She snaps her mouth shut, a look of horror flashing across her expression. Her eyes are red, and her bottom lip trembles.
I cut her deep, but I don't care. I want to insist on taking the blame for this because it feels easier than sitting with the truth that I was fucking powerless.
Powerlessness terrifies me more than pain ever has.
But she is crying, and her tears are falling onto my hands where she is still holding me.
“I should’ve gone with you,” she whispers.
“It wouldn’t have mattered.” The admission tastes bitter. “They wanted me alone. Maybe they would have hurt you for coming with me. I wouldn’t have wanted that.”
She rests her forehead against mine. Our breaths mix. Mine is uneven, while hers is sharp and angry. “I hate them,” she says. “One day, I swear, we're going to kill them.”
I nod. There is a hollow place inside my chest where something used to live. Pride, maybe. Or control. The illusion that I could survive anything, especially as the monster Alexei turned me into. Now, it’s shattered. Not even as a monster myself can I escape the more ruthless ones.
“I couldn’t fight,” I murmur, because that is the part that keeps replaying. “I tried and I c—couldn’t.”
Her fingers slide into my hair, grounding me. This time, I let myself go. We lay like that in the dark, tangled together on the couch. My skin still feels like it does not belong to me. But her heartbeat is steady under my ear, lulling me back under.
“It’s okay,” she whispers into my hair. “I’m not leaving you.”
“I know.” I close my eyes, and I let her hold me. Slowly, the pain recedes, tingling into a deep numbness that will help me survive.