Chapter 2 #2
Each clang of the drawers echoes in my bones, but it’s nothing compared to the weight of the last one.
The handle is worn, faint scratches carved into the paint where his grip must’ve lingered.
He touches this drawer. A lot. That much is clear.
My pulse hammers as I tug. It’s locked. I rattle it once, twice, teeth clenched.
Nothing. Just a stubborn refusal, like the cabinet itself knows I don’t belong here.
I stay there too long, staring at that single drawer, feeling. What’s inside? I don’t know. And maybe not knowing is worse. Because if the others are empty, then everything Jacob keeps—everything he saves—is here. Behind one locked handle.
I press my palm against the metal. It’s cold. Solid. Unyielding. I hate that I’m shaking. I hate that part of me wants to find the key, to tear it open, just to prove that I’m right about what I already feel in my bones.
I need the key. I need to find what’s inside.
When I finally pull away, my skin feels clammy, my chest tight. Because Jacob isn’t just keeping me in his house. He’s keeping pieces of me somewhere I can’t touch.
I hear movement from the ceiling above and realize he must be out of the shower.
I rush to my feet and leave the room, closing the door carefully to make sure he doesn’t know I’ve trespassed.
I’m devastatingly aware that I hadn’t scoped out the camera feed, because I was too taken aback by the cabinet.
By the time I push open the porch door, my lungs are begging for air. I brace against the railing, gulping it down like water, because if I stay in that house another second, I might suffocate.
The sun is starting to set, leaving an orange haze glaring over the woods and fields. It looks like something from a postcard, somewhere people would find picturesque and they’d want to live. But the truth is, nothing stays clean here. Not for long. Not the streets. Not the hands. Not the girls.
“Don’t dawdle, Summer,” Mama calls from inside. “You need to be getting dressed. It’s getting late.”
I don’t answer. I don’t trust my voice to come out steady.
I step back from the porch rail, legs unsteady. My palms are slick. My heart is a caged thing in my chest. I take one last breath of fresh air and turn to go inside. I enter back into the kitchen and smile toward Mama and Papa.
“I’m going to change now, Mama. I won’t be long.”
I head through to the laundry room to gather my dress.
I hold it up into the sunlight. It’s white.
Long-sleeved. Knee-length. Modest. Most girls my age will be trying on college graduation dresses, but here I am.
Preparing to be shown off in front of the town by a man I detest with every fiber of my being.
I throw the dress over my elbow and turn to leave the room. Then I hear him.
Jacob.
Descending the stairs with the slow, deliberate grace of a man who never needs to rush. Not because he’s lazy, but because the world bends to his pace.
He’s dressed in a black shirt and slacks—clean, immaculate. A sermon of a man carved in onyx and smoke. His badge attached to his waist hoop, boots polished.
And his eyes… God, his eyes.
They slice through the room like razors dipped in venom, pinning me where I stand.
This is what makes it so difficult. How handsome he is.
Sometimes I wonder—in another world, if he wasn’t the monster of a man he is today—whether I could have wanted him. But then the memories flood back in, and my body stiffens cold.
“You’re not dressed.” His voice slithers across the space between us—low, smooth, lethal—each syllable a noose tightening around my throat.
“I’m going now,” I answer. Careful. Not submissive. Not defiant… dead.
He stalks across the room like a hurricane in human skin, bringing with him the scent of cedarwood, smoke, and power, bottled and worn like war paint.
He doesn’t tuck a strand of hair behind my ear—he claims it, fingertips burning against my skin.
Soft. Deceptively gentle. A wolf’s teeth before they puncture.
“You want my help?” he murmurs, his breath scorching my cheek. Not a suggestion. A promise of violation dressed as kindness.
“No,” I choke out. “I won’t be long.”
His fingers brand my waist as he passes. I don’t flinch—I shatter inside.
“So twitchy,” he mutters, his smirk splitting his face. That expression floods my veins with ice, while something traitorous and molten ignites in my core. “Funny,” he adds, leaning closer. “I’ve seen you naked plenty of times.”
My lungs collapse. I’m drowning in the bathroom memory—the creak of the door, the invasion stripping me bare, the way he devoured me with that stare, like it was his birthright.
He turns toward the mirror, runs his hands through his hair—but his eyes aren’t on the strands. They’re on me. Watching. Consuming. Owning. And beneath that raging hunger—a terrifying, unshakable calm. The stillness of a man who knows he’ll never have to hurry.
Never have to chase.
I ascend the stairs at a slow pace. There’s no need to rush.
I have nowhere left to run.