Chapter 21
Blakelyn
The sun is up, but the air hasn’t burned off the heaviness from last night. Everything feels quiet. Too quiet.
I’m back in Gruene’s shirt, curled up on his couch like I never left it, because I didn’t. We slept here. The curtains are open, and the early morning sunlight is dancing over us like a whisper.
But it’s not peaceful… not anymore.
There’s a weight on my chest that no amount of sleep can shake off. The kind that comes from knowing you’ve been found… no matter how far you run, some people will never let you go.
Staring out the window at the slow roll of the river, I try not to think about Tyler’s text. Or how his words crawled under my skin like a sickness I thought I’d already healed from.
I haven’t .
He knows exactly where I am.
Because he’s already been here.
And he knows that Gruene matters to me.
He will try to use that to hurt me. I know he will.
I know him.
Gruene has gone to the shop, and I’ve called in to school again, saying I’m still under the weather, when I finally shuffle back to my cabin next door.
Pulling the door open, I leave it creaking behind me.
The place is quiet. Still carrying the scent of him—cedar, cypress, and oak wood and river and something deeper I can’t name.
I sink down on the couch, pulling my knees to my chest, and see it.
A note. It’s folded in half and sitting in the middle of my coffee table.
My blood freezes.
Why would Gruene leave me a note on my own coffee table when I’ve been at his cabin for the past two days?
My hands are shaking as I reach for it.
The rap on the door has me dropping it to the floor.
It’s harsh. One rap of a knuckle against the wood.
I recognize it instantly.
I know who it is.
Even before I move.
Even before I stand.
Even before I cross the room and try to check the lock.
It’s him.
Tyler.
The door explodes inward, hitting me in the hip. I scream from the pain but still try to throw myself against the broken wood.
It’s too late.
Tyler is standing in the doorway like he owns the ground he walks on and the air I’m breathing
He smiles when he sees me holding my hip. Pain is shooting down my leg and up my side from the force of the impact. “Hey, sweetheart,” he says.
That smile… that fucking smile that I used to think meant love, but only until I realized it always held a knife behind it. My stomach turns and I want to vomit.
I don’t move. I don’t speak. I just… freeze.
He crosses the threshold and grabs a fistful of my hair, yanking it so hard, I see stars, but I don’t scream again. I know he wants me to.
“Miss me?” He leans down into my face and licks the side of my mouth.
I blink, hard, my brain trying to catch up to the moment my nightmares became real. “Leave. Get out, Tyler.” My voice is sandpaper. I want to whimper from the pain in my hip and the force that he’s pulling my hair and the angle of my neck. But I don’t. I won’t. He won’t get the satisfaction.
He chuckles… like it’s a joke… like this is a game and he yanks my head further back. I can’t stop the grunt that escapes.
“Come on, sweetheart. I’m not fucking leaving.
I own you. I own everything about you. You think you can run off in the middle of the night and leave me…
head to some goddamn hick town, start fucking some river rat, and I’m just going to let you go.
You’re mine, you fucking bitch. I told you what would happen if you left me…
if you ever disrespected me like that.” He glances down and sees Gruene’s shirt on me.
His eyes harden and his jaw clenches. He reaches under it and finds me bare beneath it.
I glare at him and he rams his finger inside of me.
I swallow back a scream as he snarls, “You gave what’s mine to that trash and you think you’re going to wear his fucking shirt around me, you whore. ”
My blood runs cold, and bile rises in my throat at the invasion.
He rips the shirt at the neck but is unable to rip it off as he brutally shoves his fingers inside of me again and again.
The pain is excruciating, but I don’t react.
I refuse to give him that. Squeezing my thighs together, I trap his hand, stopping his violent assault, and say, “I’m not yours, Tyler. And I’m not a whore.”
His expression shifts. It gets colder… meaner.
He yanks my hair so hard I can’t stop the wail of pain and my thighs part as I bite down on the inside of my cheek.
Taking advantage, he rams three fingers inside even though I’m dry.
Anguish fills me, and my knees threaten to give out, but I still don’t scream.
Staring up at him, I let all of the hatred I feel fill my eyes and my face.
“I’m about to fuck you… to prove who owns you, Blakelyn.” He snarls.
He’s not. I won’t let him.
He’ll have to kill me.
He will never violate me like that again.
He takes another step toward me, removing his fingers in the process. I take a step back into the living room without meaning to.
He follows. “You really thought you could just run off, shack up with that river rat in this piece of shit town, and pretend none of it ever happened? Like I didn’t happen?” His voice rises. “You are mine, Blakelyn.” He still has my hair, and he yanks it again as he unsnaps his jeans.
“No,” I scream, louder this time. “I’m not yours and you will never touch me again.” I scratch at his face, fighting back, but he’s bigger, stronger, and tall enough to evade me.
Laughing, he frees his cock. I kick at him, catching his shin. He grunts, but only laughs harder.
I see it, the flicker of darkness in his eyes. “You think he’s gonna save you?” he sneers. “You think he gives a shit about you, Blakelyn? He fucked you. I mean, I’ll give him that. I don’t blame him. I can’t even be mad he got his rocks off with you. But you—you…”
I dig my nails into his hands so deep I draw blood.
Breaking through the skin, I don’t stop, I go deeper and deeper, not letting up.
He flinches and releases my hair like I prayed he would do.
I swipe at his face and slam my knee up at the same time.
I connect and he screams as he doubles over, but he lunges for me. “You bitch!”
I manage to evade him and bring my elbow down as hard as I can in the middle of his back.
Bellowing in pain, he falls over but manages to catch himself on the table.
“I don’t need him to save me,” I yell. “I already saved myself. The night I left you.” I kick him in the chin as hard as I can.
His head snaps back and blood pours from the side of his mouth.
Rage fills his face as he says, “You fucking bitch. I’m going to kill you.”
I look at the counter, at my phone sitting near my grocery list. He sees where I’m looking and lunges . Not at me but at the phone.
He manages to grab it and slams it against the counter, then, he drops it to the floor and crushes it with the heel of his boot. It shatters and my heart plummets. “You’re not calling him,” he snarls as blood runs down his face from my scratches and his busted mouth.
Screaming again, I try to run for the door, ignoring the pain in my hip.
He grabs my arm. Hard. His fingers dig into my skin, and I shove him, but he doesn’t let go.
He lashes out and the back of his hand connects with my jaw.
I see stars. But I still fight back. He’s not expecting it.
I’ve never fought back before, but I do.
I hit, bite, shove, kick, and scratch with everything in me.
He stumbles as he tries to evade my rage, pure hatred flashing across his face.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he growls, advancing again.
He expects me to run. I don’t. Planting my feet, I grab a knife from the block on the counter, wrap my fist around it and meet his eyes. “I’m not afraid of you anymore, Tyler.”
He grabs my wrist and twists, trying to get me to drop the knife. My wrist screams, but I don’t. I can’t— feet on gravel, and then, on the wooden steps sounds behind me. A roar that chills my blood fills the room.
Gruene.
I whirl. He’s out of breath. His eyes are wild as they glance over me once. He sees Tyler’s bloody hand on me, the knife I’m holding, and Tyler’s open pants with his cock out. I breathe, “Gruene…”
Tyler releases my hand, recognizing the threat. But he can’t even turn around before Gruene’s hand is around his throat and he’s being slammed straight into the nearest wall.
“Get your fucking hands off her,” Gruene snarls before he starts hitting him. His fists are furious. He’s relentless. His fists slam into Tyler’s face, his ribs, his stomach, and then, his face again. He won’t stop. Tyler is wheezing and limp and Gruene just keeps kitting him.
He’s going to kill him.
The knife I was holding clatters to the floor. I scream, “Gruene… stop… you’re going to kill him… Stop… please… I don’t want you to go to jail.”
Tyler weakly tries to fight back, throwing a punch that barely grazes Gruene’s jaw, but all he can really do is try, unsuccessfully, to ward off Gruene’s rage. He’s fists are full of fury. He doesn’t even hear me as I scream and cry.
The room fills with grunts and broken furniture.
“Gruene!” I cry, running forward. “Stop! Please stop. I don’t want you to kill him. Please stop.” I’m screaming at the top of my lungs and begging him… but he’s past stopping.
He’s snapped.
He throws Tyler clean out of the broken front door and into the dirt.
Tyler stays there, gasping for air. He doesn’t even try to stand.
He’s wheezing, bleeding from his forehead, his eyebrow, his nose, and his mouth.
His eyes are swollen shut. His nose is at a weird angle.
He’s covered in blood, and I don’t know which is his and which is from Gruene’s split knuckles.