Chapter 3
Selena
When I was a little girl, I’d learned early on that to get attention in my household, you had to be dressed pretty and make the adults laugh, and most importantly, you had to shine brighter than everyone else.
Then my younger sister, Cici, came along, and it was harder than ever to get my parents’ eyes on me. But I didn’t resent her. I couldn’t. She needed me, and I needed her. One of the only people in the world who saw me for who I was, in all my messy ugliness, and loved me anyway.
My parents certainly hadn’t held that status. Maybe Winter did; yes, she probably did, but I’d never want to test the theory.
The party went sideways, like everything seemed to go nowadays.
It had started well, drinking with Winter and talking.
But she’d been drinking too slowly, and when her boyfriend, Asher, showed up, I was able to drift away where I could drink more without judgment.
The party was loud and crowded, triggering all the broken parts of me and making me anxious and reckless.
I ignored Winter’s messages as my phone vibrated in my pocket, prompting me to leave it somewhere with my bag, and then everything grew too blurry to make out. I stayed upright, but only just.
Even though I was drunk, I couldn’t stop my eyes from taking things in.
People kissing and grinding on the dance floor.
Huge jocks crowding the space and pushing everyone together with their sheer size.
Rough hands grabbing female flesh, wherever I looked.
I saw it. It stopped the alcohol from drowning out the memories.
I needed more.
Next, I was standing on the rooftop over the pool, staring at the water. It was so clear and blue.
So clean.
I wished I could be that clean. Suddenly, the thought of jumping into that water felt like a baptism for the soul.
I wanted it.
I needed it.
I let myself fall, and everything went black.
The next thing I knew, rough hands grabbed at me, pulling me. The hands dragged me across a rough stone surface and then pressed on my chest. That was new. A hot whisper of breath passed my lips, and then a mouth covered mine.
My lungs expanded, air pushed forcefully inside.
My head spun. The drinks and lack of air sent me floating somewhere dark and cold. Only the mouth on mine was warm. Those hands were burning. I was always so cold.
The mouth disappeared, and I missed it.
I coughed, blinking my eyes open to the sight of a blurry face filling my vision. Everything was swimming.
“Breathe in, slowly, then out,” a deep voice commanded.
I attempted to talk, the words getting stuck inside.
“Do what I say,” the voice continued.
I didn’t argue. My head spun, my vision slowly clearing. I concentrated on breathing and gradually came back to myself.
Then his mouth was on mine again, even though I didn’t need it. He blew air into my lungs, and my head spun all over again. Wasn’t it dangerous to do CPR if someone was breathing okay on their own? Was that an urban legend?
I pushed weakly at his shoulders, but there was no way to actually move him. He was heavy as hell. Besides, I didn’t really want to lose his warmth. I shivered at his touch, my whole body responding to his forcefulness. I couldn’t get away. He was too strong, and I’d always been so weak.
His hands pinned me down, heavy and unmovable.
For a second I was back there—trapped, helpless, waiting for something to happen to me.
No. Not again.
If this moment belonged to anyone, it would belong to me.
So instead, so that I could breathe again, I touched my tongue to his, sliding it along and then delving into his mouth.
He froze, no longer pushing air into my mouth. I moved my lips against him, kissing him slowly with purpose. He was shocked. I could feel his resistance, and in that moment, I was no longer weak. I was in control.
Slowly, his hands rose to frame my face. Someone whistled in the periphery, another world I didn’t care about right now. The alcohol had sent my thoughts slow and sluggish. I couldn’t process everything happening all at once.
I could only feel his mouth on mine. His hands burned my cheeks as he tilted my head farther back, no longer trying to bring me back to life, but instead, devour me.
I devoured him back. It was my choice. No one could take it away from me.
His hand slid down my cheek to my neck and circled it.
The air in my chest seemed to get stuck, and I forgot how to breathe. I turned my head from his kiss, breaking it roughly, and opened my eyes to stare at the bright backyard lights.
“What the hell?” A deep, English-accented voice.
I looked up, and the guy came into focus. He was soaking wet, droplets sticking his long eyelashes together. His dark hair hung around his face, his brow creased with concern.
It took me a second to place him.
The library guy. The asshole.
His hands held me tightly, one still curled around my neck. His body was half sprawled across mine.
People watched us, whispering. I could imagine what they were saying.
I attempted to push him off me.
“Okay, folks, show’s over. Buy a ticket if you want to see the rest,” I called out, callousness coating my embarrassment. Anger followed the embarrassment, like it usually did. Fuck them.
“Take a fucking minute to recover,” the man on top of me demanded, with the tone of someone who was used to being obeyed.
“Don’t tell me what to do. Back off,” I said coolly.
I stood when he loosened his hold and nearly fell immediately.
“Fucking hell, get a grip before you crack your head on the tile,” he scolded.
I stared at him where he knelt on the wet ground, and he stared right back. I glanced down his body. His clothes were all wet. He jumped into the water for me? His soaked T-shirt and jeans would certainly indicate so.
Then there was the rather obvious outline of his dick, jutting out against the wet denim. He was huge, but then, I’d already gotten that impression from the library.
“Worry about yourself, thanks. I’m fine.” I glared pointedly down at his straining hard-on. Wasn’t he embarrassed? Nope, he didn’t seem to be at all. Arrogant asshole.
I turned around, about to stagger gracelessly away, when his cool, mocking voice reached me.
“How about a fucking ‘thank you,’ then? You godless heathen.”
I glanced back over my shoulder, about to respond, when a small scream made me jump.
“Oh my God! What happened?!” Then Winter was there, pulling me into her arms, ignoring my wet clothes soaking through her designer silk.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled, my voice lost in her hair as she hugged my head.
“Ash, take us home, now,” she threw over her shoulder.
And then Asher was there, shrugging out of his jacket to give it to me.
I staggered a little, and Winter’s arm went under mine, supporting me.
Asher took the other side. I glanced back at the guy kneeling on the tiles, soaked to the bone. Watching me go with narrowed eyes.
In the dream, it was always the same. Every night, it came. Plucked straight from a past I spent my days trying to forget. There was only one difference… The cold.
In real life, when they’d held me down, there’d been a roaring fire at one end of the room. The surface under me had been leather, and I remembered the feeling of my own desperately sweating skin sliding against it. Despite my memory of that heat, the nightmare was always cold.
They hold me down, and I am freezing. My skin is solid. They press the hot metal of the brand into my forearm, and this time, there is no smell of burning skin. There is no sizzle on contact, though the pain is there. The heat is not.
I suppose even in my dreams, I cannot deny what I have become.
A person frozen in time, encased in ice, the not-quite dead. Not yet anyway.
It warmed my chilly, dead heart to think that maybe tomorrow, I’d wake up and remedy that little problem. There was always tomorrow to die. The thought gave me comfort like nothing else.
Thank God for that.
I woke with a start in the spare room of Winter and Asher’s off-campus apartment.
My whole body hurt after last night. I was hungover, and worse, I’d passed out with wet hair, and now, my head felt stuffy. I’d caught a cold for being an idiot. Oh well, I’d suffered worse consequences for being stupid before.
I got up and took a shower, my nose dripping like a tap after. Winter and Asher had gone, and my bestie had left me a note by the coffee machine.
Breakfast in the fridge. Eat well, drink coffee, and go back to bed xx
I did just as she instructed, except for the going back to bed part.
I felt too guilty to lie around all day.
My phone had rung about ten times since I’d woken up.
I checked the display, my suspicions confirmed.
My mom was calling nonstop. It had to be important.
I really couldn’t put her off any longer.
I got my stuff and left Winter’s apartment, pulling the door firmly shut behind me.
“Selena, where are you?”
“I’m on campus,” I muttered. I was very close to campus, technically, so it wasn’t really a lie.
My mother sighed. “And I suppose you aren’t hitting the library at this time. I thought you were going to try hard this year.”
“I could be at the library. Why not? It’ll be easier when I live here.” The wait for my new rich stepdad to sort out my campus housing was taking a million years.
My mother was silent for a long moment, and I knew what she was thinking about me. How I was fucked up, ruined, the daughter who was on a collision course with her end, and had no intentions of stopping.
“Look, me and John have talked long and hard about how to handle your… situation. We’ve decided that living on campus isn’t good for you. It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s Hade Harbor, Mom. What’s dangerous about that?” I asked, bitterness twisting my lips into a manic grin. Luckily, she couldn’t see me. Parroting the phrases that people had said to me over the years, the ones that had proven to be patently untrue, gave me a sick sense of satisfaction.
Hade Harbor, a small town too good and pure to be dangerous… except that was bullshit. It was just as dangerous as anywhere else. Evil people lived everywhere. It was a lesson I’d learned the hard way.
But I wanted to live on campus. I wanted to stay as far away from my mom and her new husband as I could.
“Well, you’re too erratic, in that case. I need you under my roof, so I can keep watch over you. You need routine and order—”
“No, I don’t need any of that. I need to be left alone.”
My mother was quiet, and when she finally spoke, I knew there’d be no changing her mind.
“Regardless, we are a new family, and we need to spend time together. You’ll live at home for this year, so we can all settle together.”
I stopped on the sidewalk, panic and rage and all sorts of things washing through me. Like she could try and worry about me now, when it was far too late for all of that.
“I don’t even know where your new house is,” I ground out.
After a few years of struggling to get by, my mother had hit the jackpot and snagged herself another rich husband.
Being a poor widow wasn’t really her vibe, so she’d made sure to rid herself of my father’s ghost as soon as possible.
I hadn’t had to watch, thank God. She’d met John and gone with him to New York, leaving me to lick my wounds and spiraling further into chaos in California.
I’d met the new husband once, and that was after they were married. They’d eloped to Hawaii and gotten married in front of a bunch of strangers. Fine by me. I was over happily-ever-afters for the rest of my days.
“I’ll drop you the location,” my mother said smoothly, like it wasn’t insane that I didn’t even know my mom’s address in town or that she was basically forcing me to live with her and her new family.
“Looking forward to it,” I snapped out, before she hung up.
I sank down on the dirty curb and stared at the shopping cart someone had abandoned in the middle of the street.
So, my mom wanted to play happy family with her new husband and his sons?
Perfect. Just when I’d thought life couldn’t get any worse, she’d found a way to prove me wrong.
Way to go, Mom.