Chapter 13 SAGE
SAGE
“Please, Klay... just take me home.”
My voice cracked on the last word, betraying me more than I wanted it to.
I hated the tremble in it.
The desperation.
I hated giving him even that.
But I was past pride.
I was pleading now, my gaze lifted to his in the hope—no, the need—that he’d see what was written across my face.
How badly I needed to leave.
How wrong this felt.
But he didn’t see.
Or maybe he did.
And didn’t care.
Aaron—one of Klay’s old college friends, the kind of man who wore his cruelty like a badge of honor—stepped closer.
His breath was heavy with stale beer and something sour. The kind of smell that turned your stomach, that couldn’t scrub off no matter how hard you tried.
His grin stretched wide and leering, sharp with mockery. “Aw, come on, Sage,” he drawled, voice low and sticky, like something rotting. “No need to be scared. Things were just getting good.”
Laughter followed his words.
It rippled through the group in jagged waves.
Low. Mean. Predatory.
I wasn’t afraid of spending time with Klay’s friends.
Not at first.
In the beginning, they’d seemed like any group of guys—loud, reckless, stupid.
But it was the drinking.
It was always the drinking that changed them.
The way it blurred the line between conversation and something darker.
When their jokes dug deeper and their smiles twisted.
When they stopped seeing me as Klay’s girlfriend, and started seeing me as something else.
Something to be looked at.
Played with.
Passed around.
Most nights, I forced myself to smile.
I let their jabs roll off my shoulders, pretending they didn’t stick, pretending I didn’t feel them burrow into my skin.
But tonight was different.
Their words were sharper and hungrier.
Their stares made my skin crawl.
And deep in my gut, something primal twisted, cold and certain.
I had to get out.
But Klay wouldn’t move.
He stood, posture as casual as ever, with his one arm slung lazily over the back of his bike, watching me.
Not watching them.
Me.
Like this was a test I was failing.
I swallowed, my throat dry, as panic crawled up the back of my spine, winding itself around my ribs and squeezing tight.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
And all I could think of was my father.
How I promised him to check in. Hours ago.
The guilt crashed through me like a wave breaking over brittle glass.
What if something happened?
What if he was waiting?
Needing me?
He was all I had left.
The only person who loved me without condition.
The only reason I kept trying.
I blinked hard, but it was already too late.
The tears slipped free before I could stop them.
One.
Then another.
Warm tracks sliding down my cheeks as I tried—and failed—to hold it together.
And Klay saw.
His gaze sharpened as it snapped to my face, narrowing.
Displeasure carved harsh lines into his features.
I had embarrassed him.
I had made a scene.
And Klay hated scenes he didn’t control.
“Are you seriously crying right now?” His voice was sharp, cutting through the night like a blade, loud enough for the others to hear.
He wanted them to hear.
He wanted them to watch.
Their laughter swelled, cruel and raucous, carrying on the smoke-thick air.
It coiled around me, tightening like rope.
I could feel their eyes flicking between us.
Watching him discipline me like a child.
Like a dog.
I dropped my gaze to the cracked pavement as the humiliation burned through me, scalding from the inside out.
I wanted to shrink into nothing.
Vanish.
Klay exhaled sharply, as if he was the one burdened by all this, turning his back to me as he made the signal to leave, “Let’s go,” he snapped.
He didn’t wait to see if I followed.
Didn’t offer his hand.
Didn’t look back, he just turned toward his back preparing to leave as the others followed suit.
Their laughter turning into jeers now.
Low comments traded between them as they mounted their bikes, engines roaring to life one by one.
Klay was the last to start his.
He sat there astride it, his posture loose and easy, like he had all the time in the world.
But his eyes were on me.
Waiting.
I stumbled forward, panic swelling so big in my chest I couldn’t contain it.
He was going to leave me here.
Stranded.
Alone.
Miles from home.
He knew I didn’t even have my car because he insisted that I ride with him.
“Klay,” I called out, my voice breaking on his name.
It barely cut through the roar of the engines.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the words choking out of me.
Tears blurred my vision, hot and helpless, as I repeated, “I’m sorry.”
His head tilted, mock-considering.
“I’m sorry you don’t know how to have a good time,” he said, voice bored. “But I do.” His smirk deepened. “And I will.”
And then—then came the words that hollowed me out, “So go run home to your daddy and cry to him about your problems.”
It hit harder than anything they’d said all night.
Because he knew.
He knew what that would do to me.
But he didn’t care.
The engines revved, a wall of sound that rattled my bones.
And then—they started to take off.
Tires screeching and headlights cutting through the night.
One by one, they disappeared into the dark.
But Klay stayed. At least, for a moment.
And then he twisted the throttle, engine growling low.
I took a step forward, reaching out.
“I don’t have a car,” I said, my voice small. Fractured.
Klay tapped the gas.
“Hmm,” he hummed. “How unfortunate.”
Silence stretched between us.
And then— “Get on.” His voice was flat.
Emotionless.
Like I was an afterthought.
I climbed on the back of his bike because I had no other choice.
My hands hovered before I let them settle on his waist.
Loose. Tentative.
Like I might slip off and not care if I did.
The ride home was hell.
He rode too fast. Cutting across lanes. Ignoring lights. Like he wanted to scare me or perhaps, even kill me.
And maybe it was both.
By the time we pulled up in front of my apartment, my hands were numb from gripping the seat too tightly.
He climbed off the bike, and as I shifted to follow suit, his hand shot out, grabbing me roughly by the collar of my jacket.
I choked on a startled gasp as he dragged me forward, pulling me inches from his face and trapping me tightly between himself and the bike. His breath was cold, but his eyes were colder.
Dead.
He stared at me in heavy silence, like he was weighing something.
Me.
My worth.
Then, abruptly, he shoved me backward.
Hard.
My foot twisted beneath me as I collided painfully into the side of the bike. Metal bit into flesh, and a searing heat exploded across the back of my calf.
I gasped sharply, but the pain was already etched deep into my skin.
The exhaust pipe.
Still burning from the ride.
It hit fast—white-hot and sharp.
I sucked in air that felt like broken glass.
Klay didn’t move.
Didn’t flinch.
He just watched.
Silent and expressionless.
Like this was punishment.
Or a lesson.
Finally, he let go and I crumpled.
My knees hit the pavement, scraping raw as my hands fumbled for balance but found nothing but concrete.
His voice was colder than the air, low and lethal, “Don’t ever disrespect me and my friends again.”
And then he was gone.
The engine roared, drowning out everything else.
Until there was nothing.
No sound.
No movement.
Just me.
Slumped on the pavement. Alone.
With my hand pressed against my leg.
The skin was blistered already, starting to peel.
It hurt.
Fuck, it hurt so bad.
But not as much as the truth settling in my chest that I had let this happen.
And I didn’t know how to stop it.
I stared down at my burned leg.
At the tremble in my hands.
And I realized— I wasn’t sure who I was anymore.
And worse? I wasn’t sure I cared.
Because he made me believe this was all I deserved.
***
As a child, I had always known nightmares weren’t real.
No monsters lurked under my bed.
No clawed hands would come reaching from the shadows of my closet.
No sharp-toothed boogeyman waiting to devour me if I left my foot dangling off the mattress for too long.
I knew better.
And that knowledge had kept me calm when the other kids screamed in terror at the dark.
I would lie there, tucked neatly beneath my blanket, listening to the silence, convinced it made me braver.
Safe.
But then I grew up.
And the lines between nightmares and memories blurred into something I couldn’t untangle.
The monsters had names.
And faces.
And hands.
And they didn’t vanish when the morning came.
They stayed, lingering constantly, and they were worse than anything I’d ever imagined hiding in the dark.
I woke with a start, a sharp gasp tearing from my throat like it had been locked in there for days.
My body was heavy— anchored by something invisible, something suffocating.
Weighted with exhaustion I couldn’t sleep off.
For a long moment, I laid there, staring at the ceiling, disoriented, heart racing, my mind trying to unscramble where I was.
Who I was.
I blinked slowly, trying to piece things together and attempting to breathe.
But then—I saw something strange.
Wildflowers.
A small cluster sat neatly on my nightstand.
Vivid against the muted grays of my apartment.
Too bright.
Too alive.
They shouldn’t have been here.
I hadn’t picked them.
I hadn’t brought them in.
My pulse stuttered.
I sat up, slow and stiff, as if moving too fast might shatter the fragile grip I had on reality.
For a second, I told myself it was fine.
Maybe I had left them there.
Maybe I was too tired to remember.
But then I turned my head.
And I saw them.
Everywhere.
Jars. Vases. Cups.
Overflowing with blooms.
Tucked into the spaces between books on the shelf.
Delicate petals spread like tiny, vibrant fingerprints all over my apartment.
I stared.
Frozen.
My heart hammered harder, each beat echoing in my skull.
I was too confused to move and could barely think.
They were beautiful.
And somehow that was what made it worse.
There was something devastating in their beauty.