TWO

CHARLOTTE

PANIC BUILDS INSIDE ME, yet my heart rate is decreasing.

I’m fading.

Suddenly, there’s a weight on top of me.

NO, NO, NO!

The room starts to spin.

I’m screaming, but it doesn’t get past my thoughts. My lips won’t move.

I can’t move.

I feel movement above me, on me, in me, shifting and gliding.

I’m not sure how much time has passed.

Seconds. Minutes.

Hours.

It’s becoming too much.

PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!

My eyes snap open, ridding me of the horror taking over my dream.

Sweat trickles over me, travelling down the arch of my back into the white linens below. I want to wipe it away, but it’s everywhere. My forehead, my neck, my chest.

White sheets?

I look around the room, feeling disoriented. The stabbing pain in my head is not a great way to welcome the day. And now that the morning light is high in the sky, it easily cuts through the sheer curtains barely covering the large window and burns my tired eyes.

I snap them closed again to shield me from the harshness, but the searing light creates a red glow behind my closed lids. I groan and tug at the pillow behind my head to slam it over my face, in an attempt to block it out, but it refuses to go away.

A few memories crawl through the smoke in my brain, trying to emerge through the suffocating clouds. They materialize as short clips, like a stop-motion movie, jumping from scene to scene, just as I hear a shuffle several feet away.

I scream, then throw the fluffy object to the floor. Terrified, I painfully lift my sticky eyelids—fused from what I think to be dried tears—and press my body into the foreign surface behind me, giving me a tiny semblance of security.

When I can’t move any farther, my unfocused eyes peer down over my feet and frantically search for the intruder, but find Kaden repositioning himself on a chair in the corner. He groans as he sits up—obviously stiff from his disproportional makeshift bed—and stretches. He lifts his arms above his head. The bottom hem of his shirt follows, exposing a very defined grid of abs settling into his low-hung jeans.

He brings his head back down and runs his hands over his short beard, travelling up through his wavy blonde hair, making it stick up in a disarrayed mess. Then, peering up through his lashes, he looks at me with his sky-blue eyes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” His voice is scratchy and lethargic, and somewhat apologetic. “I thought you’d remember that I stayed here last night.”

“I do—now,” I admit while I use my fingers to wipe the sleep from my eyes.

Once I’m somewhat alert, I look side to side nervously, studying the sterile white walls of the hospital room, remembering the fact that he found me last night, falling apart—the throbbing between my legs, a painful reminder. Embarrassment and horror paint my face a deep shade of red. I know I need to address the elephant in the room, though I can only find words to express my gratitude.

“Thank you for finding me… For everything,” I croak, my voice suddenly tight and scratchy.

Kaden marginally nods his head to accept my thanks.

After he took me away from the party, I continued on autopilot. Eyes glazed. Unfocused. In a disjointed reality that didn’t feel like mine. But I vaguely remember him bringing me here.

Once I entered the examination room, my mind and body became separated, in and out of consciousness. The detachment helped me to not connect the few memories I had or assume the missing pieces. I didn’t want to know what I subconsciously already knew. I never wanted to feel the hurt or the pain. Instead, I became a bystander watching the doctor’s hands examine me—not willing to accept what took place. My mantra became: If I refuse to accept it, I won’t feel it.

So I became numb.

A fragment of last night emerges.

“I thought I asked to be taken home.”

My home. A new, one-bedroom residence in the dorms at UCLA. I originally relocated there shortly after my best friend, Hannah, moved out and in with her new husband.

At the time, the thought of getting a new roommate didn’t appeal to me. I thought that if I could live alone, maybe I could attempt to get through the last couple years of school without the drama having a roommate could bring. Ironically, now I’ve submerged myself in it.

“You did,” Kaden answers. “But there was no way I was taking you home in that condition. Luckily I didn’t, because you passed out shortly after.”

Narrowing his darkened blue eyes, he stares intently into mine, as if he can see deep inside the places I’m hiding from—where I’ve locked my nightmare up tight and refuse to let it out. He wants me to be the first one to speak about what happened, but there’s no way I’ll talk about it with anyone, let alone him. I use the word friend very loosely when referring to Kaden. And most of the time, not in the same sentence. This is not the type of story a person uses to bond with someone while drinking their morning coffee. Or to discuss with someone you generally loathe on a daily basis.

No. Way. In. Hell.

He already heard enough last night, and I don’t need to rehash the disgusting details. But there’s one question that’s been nagging at me, needing to be answered.

“How did you know?”

He doesn’t need me to elaborate. The knowing look on his face tells me he’s been expecting me to ask.

“A few of my old friends from school are getting their doctorate, so they’re still pushing the books. Anyway, they heard a few rumours about something going down at the party you were at and thought I should check it out. When I got there, it didn’t take long for the rumours about you to reach me, and I immediately went up to find you.”

I nod my head, accepting his explanation, then sullenly stare into the space in front of me. My lashes dampen, and I realize I’m beginning to cry. He watches me, the heat of his stare surrounding me. It’s uncomfortable. It’s awkward. He doesn’t know what else to say.

He shifts on the spot, tapping his knee while he considers how to approach me. Then, swallowing his apprehension, he asks, “Are you going to be okay? Do you want to talk about it?” he questions while rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“No,” I snap way too quickly and immediately regret my tone. Penitent, I unwind the tension in my voice, and with a more controlled volume, I continue, “I just want to be alone. I don’t—I don’t want to talk about last night. I just want to forget it ever happened.”

“That’s not a good idea, Chipmunk,” he asserts, using the annoying nickname he gave me shortly after we met—about two years ago—when he was leading an investigation involving my friend, Hannah, and a couple of psychopaths. He said it was because I was tiny and could talk a mile a minute, but I prefer to think it’s because I’m so adorable.

Refusing to give up, he gently presses, “Things like this don’t magically go away. If you won’t talk to me, at least talk to your friends.”

“This isn’t up for discussion.” I shut down his attempt to cross a line in our relationship, one bordering on friendship. I can’t open up to him. And my friends just finished handling their own problems. They don’t need mine to dredge up unwanted memories and drama.

Even if I was ready to work through what happened, I wouldn’t know where to begin to process something like this. This isn’t like in high school when I was pushed and called names. This is so much more. And how can I deal with something I can’t even remember?

“Charlotte, you have to talk about it.” His voice intensifies, frustration evident in his tone. The determined, authoritative side of Kaden Miller, lieutenant of the LAPD, is done with the meek persona of moments ago. “For you, and every other girl he decides he wants to take advantage of. It’s the only way we’re going to catch this guy.” Softening again, he continues, “Is there anything else? Anything you haven’t told me yet?”

I quickly become aware that my tears have replenished their reserves because they immediately spillover. My dam breaks down. It crumbles. It allows my emotions to cascade down into a pool of salty tears at the base of my neck. I lean forward to cradle my face in my hands.

After a deliberate measured exhale, Kaden walks over to the edge of my bed and sits, his hip just below the guardrail. The mattress presses down from the substantial weight of his six-foot muscular frame. He positions himself to face me, then reaches out hesitantly—obviously out of his comfort zone. He curves his large hand around my back and glides it up and down soothingly. I recoil slightly from the contact but settle with each calming stroke.

He’s safe. He would never take advantage of me. I recite these pacifying words to assuage the growing anxiety building in the pit of my stomach. My ability to trust has been stolen from me. I should have been more guarded. Locked tight. I should have built a fortress around my carefully constructed optimism. I’ve spent too much time trying to fight the evils bringing me down, only to have them get past the gate so easily. I’ve always stood up for myself. I wouldn’t let anyone take away my happiness because that belonged to me. Now I realize I was foolishly naïve.

Happiness is only borrowed. It’s on loan until someone decides they want it. And when they do, they take it. They easily swipe it with a quick sleight of hand. And in my case, the deception involved a tiny pill being dropped into my unattended drink. Or at least, that’s what the doctor told me.

When I have no more tears to cry, my body continues to convulse with hiccups. My eyes and nose burn, wetness clings to my lashes, and my lips are swollen from the release. I’m exhausted, and I haven’t even moved from my bed yet.

The overwhelming need to get a shower hits me like a freight train.

Last night, the nurses gave me a light sponge bath to scrub away some of the dirtiness I felt—only to the extent of what I felt comfortable with. But now that I’ve allowed the person who violated me to reenter my thoughts, I realize they only washed away the first few layers of his filth. The rest of it remains buried beneath my skin, where it can’t be rinsed away.

As if reading my mind, Kaden offers, “Do you want me to get the nurse to help you get cleaned up? I can go out to get us some breakfast, so you don’t have to be tortured with hospital food too.”

I opposingly shake my head side to side. “I’m not hungry. You should probably go anyway. Don’t you have to work?”

“I wasn’t planning on going in until after I got you home. I can stay with you—”

“No! I mean, no,” I correct my outburst. “You don’t have to. I do want to get cleaned up, though, but I just want to be alone.” My last few words come out like a whisper, so quiet, I’m not even sure he hears me. But when our eyes become entangled in an intense stare-down—neither one of us willing to back down—I know he can.

After a couple of minutes of consideration, his previous stiff posture loosens, and his shoulders lower in defeat, finally accepting my request.

“The doctor said you should be able to go home late this afternoon. I’ll come back then. But if I find out anything, I’ll call you. And if you need me, you do the same,” he insists, then grudgingly treads over to the door. Once he’s outside, he turns and gives me one last hesitant look. He chews on his lower lip while he reconsiders leaving.

“I’ll be fine,” I reassure him. “I just need to put all of this behind me and move on.” Even as I say the words, they feel heavy on my tongue. They’re weighted with a lie. Because once my trauma becomes fodder for gossip, it’ll be too scandalous to let diminish. They’ll be out for blood. My blood. And when the pool of sharks gets wind of it, the flurry will send ripples for weeks to come.

Luckily, he doesn’t counter my untruth. Resigned to come back later, he walks away, leaving me alone in my room with all my thoughts.

Maybe, in time, things will be better. Maybe I’m worried for nothing.

Yeah. I don’t believe that, either.

If you enjoyed this preview and would like to continue reading, go to https://books2read.com/scorned-1 to purchase the companion novel to the Broken series, Scorned.