Cruel Abandon

by S. Massery

  I grimace, but we don’t move. Any number of things could happen for Liam to lose—all it would take is one distraction.

  He could slit my throat, and I’d be no better than Natalie. I know exactly what I’d look like in the end thanks to her.

  They grapple in the center of the ring, and it appears Liam is going to come out on top.

  “Scream,” Colt says, digging the knife deeper into my skin.

  I’d rather choke on my own vomit.

  The crowd chants the fighters’ names. They tumble, rolling around the floor, until Liam pops up on top. He slams his fist down, into his opponent’s face.

  The knife disappears off my throat, and Colt wrenches my arm back. Pain erupts from my shoulder, and I yelp.

  It does what Colt wants.

  Liam hesitates, and Leroy doesn’t hesitate to flip Liam over his head. He lands heavily on top of Liam, delivering bone-crunching hits.

  I cry out again.

  Colt suddenly drags me backward, out of the room. We get halfway down the hall when something must happen.

  The crowd surges, then hushes.

  “No!” I scream, kicking at him.

  I can’t see.

  Panic fills me, and I batter against Colt. His grip loosens, and I fall on my face. I skitter forward on my hands and knees. I can’t let Liam get hurt.

  RJ bolts toward us, but he’s jerked to a stop. Theo slams him face-first into the wall, holding him there. Colt’s hands grab at me again, lifting me off the ground.

  “Let her go,” Liam demands, coming up behind RJ and Theo. He’s badly bruised, holding his side. His nose might be broken. “You’ve got about two seconds before I help you out.”

  “Your reputation is ruined,” Theo says casually, pressing RJ’s face harder into the wall. “Who’s going to come to Howl when your fights end in thirty seconds and you charge double at the door?”

  RJ struggles. “Double?”

  “Oh, did Colt forget to mention that? Liam was the big draw—of course they were willing to cough up the cash.” Theo grunts.

  Colt stops backing up, and I risk a glance over my shoulder. We’ve reached the end of the hallway.

  The lights cut off, plunging us into darkness.

  A second later, the red emergency lights flicker on, and an alarm wails. Liam is a hell of a lot closer than he was before, but Colt has apparently reached his limit. He gives me a hard shove, and I stumble forward.

  Liam grabs my arms and lowers me to the floor, crouching over me.

  “He’s running,” Theo says.

  “I’ll be right back,” Liam says to me. He rises.

  Panic seizes my chest, and I try to find purchase on his skin. “Don’t—”

  He stops and looks down at me.

  Weird déjà vu hits me, and I flinch.

  His gaze hardens. “Theo will watch over you.”

  I clutch his wrist with both hands. “No, please, don’t—”

  He pauses and kneels next to me.

  Colt might kill him. He has a knife, after all, and Liam would be blindly following him. I can’t lose him. Not now.

  “It’s okay,” Liam says gently, prying my hands loose. “I’m coming back for you.”

  “I’m sorry, Skylar,” RJ babbles over the siren. “I didn’t know. I didn’t—”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Theo snarls. “You okay, Buckley?”

  No. I can’t even focus on myself. I have tunnel vision, only able to see exactly what my attention lands on. There are things I can do to regain control of my body, but they elude me. I bring my hands up to cover my ears, but the rope bites my skin. A whimper slips past my teeth.

  Black spots flicker around my vision, and then the darkness wins.

  It wins, and I lose.

  I always lose.

  26

  Sky

  I’m fourteen years old, wandering through the woods. Exploring, but… cautiously. I told Dr. Penn just last week that the forest behind my house calls to me and frightens me at the same time. How can something so beautiful be so terrifying?

  I love the way the light filters down and the old leaves barely have any crunch. Everything is bright and new for spring, but there’s still old things, too. The leaves and a few piles of snow. The air is crisp.

  Mom never would’ve let me come out here, so I snuck out. She’s sleeping, I think.

  I’ll be in trouble when I get back, but I have an excuse: Dr. Penn said I should lean into those feelings and see where they lead—as long as I’m safe.

  Am I safe?

  I stop on the edge of a small clearing. There’s a piece of bright-yellow tape caught under a rock near my foot, and it flutters wildly. I kneel next to it and pull it loose. There are thick black letters printed on it, DO NOT.

  Stuffing it in my pocket, I continue into the clearing.

  There are questions Dr. Penn would ask: How do you feel? Why are you here?

  I feel… compressed.

  A weight on my chest, pushing down my shoulders, squeezing my head.

  It’s why I’m out here: because I might explode otherwise.

  “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

  I glance back at Liam. He’s a year older, fifteen, which supposedly makes him braver than me. He ventures closer and takes the tape from my pocket.

  His face pales. “Where did you get this?”

  I shrug. “Found it.”

  “We should go back.”

  I twitch. “Dr. Penn said it was okay.”

  “Dr. Penn isn’t the one who’ll beat my ass for letting you come—”

  “Letting me, huh?” I glare at him. He’s been my shadow for the past year, and I can’t figure out why. Everyone tiptoes around me. Around it. The big trauma I can’t remember.

  The whole month of November is a giant black hole. Part of October, too, actually.

  But they refuse to fill in the blanks.

  “You’re going to forget,” he whispers, taking my hand. “You’ll forget that you lost forty-five days. It’ll just become something that we don’t talk about, and you’ll move on.”

  He can read my mind, I swear.

  “But I want to remember.” My eyes fill with tears.

  He nods solemnly. “I’ll help you when you’re ready.”

  When you’re ready. It makes me wonder about my past self. The one who lived from mid-October to early December, who must’ve survived something awful. Was it one day that hurt and caused a ripple? Or repeated trauma? Was I in the hospital for a long time?

  Wind rustles through the clearing, practically beckoning me forward, but Liam tugs on my hand. He guides me all the way to my back porch, then watches with careful, hawk-like eyes as I climb the steps and slip inside.

  I lost a month and a half.

  He was right: I had forgotten. A month and a half is nothing. It’s a blip on the radar of my life. But now that I know it’s gone, it’ll bother me.

  “Open your eyes, Sky.”

  I don’t want to. I want to crawl back into my memories and see what happened next. If I went back to the woods, I don’t remember it.

  “Come back to me, angel.” His breath, then his lips, hit my cheek.

  Maybe I imagine the latter.

  I inhale sharply, and the night rushes back. Drugging, abduction, the fight. An alarm. I open my eyes to a crystal-clear night sky… and Liam.

  “You’re here,” he says quietly. “With me. In the present. Okay?”

  Not in the past. I wonder if I said anything while… I suppose I wasn’t just sleeping.

  “We should take her to a hospital.” Theo appears over Liam’s shoulder.

  I rub my wrists, relieved to find them free of the rope, and then push myself into a sitting position. “Help me up.”

  Liam rocks back on his heels and offers his hands. I take them, and we rise together.

  “I’m okay,” I tell him.

  He watches me steadily. “I know.”

  “I didn’t have keys to ge
t back in.”

  He just nods again. “We can remedy that.”

  Theo’s attention bounces between us. “Huh? You’re giving her keys?”

  Liam rolls his eyes and tucks me to his side. “Her bitchy roommate went home, and her mother wanted her to return to Stone Ridge. So she’s staying with me.”

  He conveniently leaves out the fact that my mother is paying him to watch me.

  Ice trickles down my spine: that’s why he’s gone to such lengths to get me back from Colt. And a fight, to boot.

  Theo tosses Liam a thick envelope. “Before I forget—got that from RJ.”

  Liam nods and shoves it in his pocket. He’s still holding my hands, and his grip tightens a fraction when I try to pull free. He does release one of them, but then… we’re holding hands. His fingers lace between mine, and he turns away from Theo.

  “Where—”

  “Theo goes to LBU,” he says. “He lives down the street. And we’re going to catch the car he called for us.”

  I’m relieved we don’t have to navigate the trains or walk. I feel like I just ran a marathon. Every muscle hurts the more I’m upright.

  “Should I be freaking out?” I ask him. “I think I should. Maybe I’m in shock. Or I’m just fundamentally broken.”

  He grunts. “You’re not broken.”

  “Shock, then.”

  He flags down a car and opens the back door. “Maybe we should take you to a hospital.”

  I wiggle loose from his grip and climb in, scooting over for him. He joins me and greets the driver, and we head off. It’s a short drive back to Liam’s apartment, but I can’t keep my eyes open.

  I wake up to my feet hitting something, and I lurch.

  “Easy,” Liam says, just above me.

  We’re moving.

  He’s carrying me through the door, the frame of which I must’ve caught with my foot. Immediately, butterflies take flight in my chest.

  I hate butterflies. The fact that that is my go-to expression. It’s more like bees buzzing around, with the potential to sting my organs. A terrible, nausea-inducing reaction to… him.

  And now that I’m this close to Liam, my senses open up. He smells like soap and sandalwood and sweat. Somewhere between the fight and now, he managed to locate a shirt. His sweatshirt is in my lap.

  Slowly, I loosen the knot in the center of my shirt that exposes my midriff.

  “Stay here,” he says, setting me on the couch. “Okay?”

  He waits for me to respond.

  My mouth is dry, and I open and close it a few times before I manage, “Yes.”

  Does he think I’m going to run right back out of the apartment? Into the hallway, shrieking my head off? Anything is possible.

  He comes back with a glass of orange juice. “Drink.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “You could ask.”

  “You said yourself you’re in shock.” His eyes narrow. “So you can drink that, or I can hold you still and pour it down your throat.”

  “Gee, Liam, you sure do know how to cheer a girl up,” I mutter.

  Still, I take the glass and swallow a mouthful, then another.

  “What happened?” he asks me.

  “I ran into Taryn in the student center—”

  “Before that,” he interrupts. “Why did you even leave? It’s Halloween.”

  I shiver without warning, and the OJ almost sloshes over the rim. I set it down and tug on the sweatshirt—his sweatshirt. “I can’t be afraid forever.”

  “You could avoid it,” he says. “Mitch invited you out.”

  I nod once, making a face. “He’s a jerk. I don’t know why I was taken by him before.”

  Liam shrugs and takes a seat on the coffee table, just across from me. “He paid attention to you.”

  Ugh. I almost prefer mean Liam.

  “He said he looked me up. I didn’t like that.”

  Now he leans forward. His expression is… intense. I don’t know why. My Liam mind-reading abilities fell apart years ago. “What did he say exactly?”

  I shrug and glance away. “I don’t know. Nonsense, really, about how… it was understandable that I freaked out in his apartment. I didn’t freak out, I just didn’t like what I saw. And he said old articles came up, but that doesn’t make sense. I’ve searched my name before, and nothing came up.”

  A flash of guilt crosses his face.

  I scowl. “That’s not right, is it?”

  “Your parents wanted to protect you,” he says carefully. “They didn’t want details of what happened to you—”

  “Did it happen in the woods?”

  He freezes. “What?”

  I’m unbearably cold. I grab the blanket off the back of the couch and wrap it around my shoulders. “I… I remembered something. Nothing impressive, just…”

  “Tell me.”

  “When I was fourteen, you found me in the woods?”

  A horrible feeling sweeps through me when I say that, and I don’t know why.

  “I found a piece of yellow tape… It was crime scene tape, right?”

  He slowly nods.

  “You knew I was going to go.” It isn’t a question. “And you knew my parents would glaze over the time I lost. I knew I couldn’t remember what happened to me, but I forgot… I forgot. Just like you said. Do you remember that?”

  He just keeps nodding, and it breaks my heart.

  I’m more surprised by the disappointment. He let me forget, and basically chose to let my mother wash away everything that happened. I’ve been trying to figure it out, and everyone dances around the subject.

  Liam was supposed to be the one to tell me the truth.

  I stand, casting off the blanket. “I’m going to bed.”

  He stands, too, and it puts him close to me. Too close, really. Our chests almost brush. After everything that happened tonight… I should be feeling everything. The highs and lows. Terror and relief.

  “I don’t feel anything,” I inform him. “About what happened tonight. I was scared. My ribs hurt—”

  His fingers immediately bring up the hem of my sweatshirt, probing. “He kicked you.”

  I nod once, waiting for him to find the spot. He only sweeps over it, but my cringe is wicked.

  “A bruise.” His voice is gentle.

  “I was scared,” I continue, “but there wasn’t time for it, you know?”

  “I do.”

  “So…. How am I supposed to feel right now?” Asking is vulnerable.

  He continues up my sides, taking the sweatshirt up, too. I raise my arms, and he pulls it off completely. Goosebumps break out along my arms.

  I stay still as he frees the pins from my hair and runs his fingers through the strands. The gash on my head from the fall has almost completely closed up, shockingly fast for how it happened. I’m glad Taryn didn’t try to cover it with makeup.

  “You seem younger without so much black shit around your eyes.” His voice is low, almost too low to hear. “More innocent.”

  I take a shaky breath and focus straight ahead. My line of sight is even with his collarbone. “Maybe that’s the problem. I don’t want to look innocent.”

  He cocks his head. “No, you don’t.”

  I meet his gaze.

  He’s going to kiss me. The thought sails through my mind a second before his attention lands on my lips. He cups my face in both his hands and leans down. The brush of his lips against mine is soft, almost hesitant.

  So unlike how he’s kissed me before.

  And I don’t need soft—I don’t want soft.

  I stretch up and capture his lower lip in my teeth, tugging.

  He groans, and his hands release my face. They go directly to my ass, and he lifts me. At the same time, his tongue slips into my mouth.

  I wrap my legs around his waist, my arms around his shoulders. He holds me to him and heads toward the bedroom. I should care that we’re moving fast, but right now he’s breathing life into me.

  Literal
ly.

  The numbness blows away, replaced by electricity and nerves.

  “Sky,” he says against my lips. “You’re fucking mine. Got it?”

  I shake my head, and he pauses. Withdraws.

  “I’m not an object,” I reply.

  He smirks. “No, but haven’t you noticed? I’m possessive.”

  “Scaring all the boys away from me in high school—that was on purpose?” I narrow my eyes. “Well, it didn’t work when you left.”

  His expression darkens. “Who?”

  I shrug. “Does it matter?”

  “No.” He kisses me again, pulling my arms up over my head.

  Something soft slides around my wrists, and I open my eyes. He’s watching me as he kisses me, and once he sees my eyes, he draws back.

  “Breathe,” he whispers.

  I try to yank my arms down, but I’m caught. Again. A silk tie is knotted around my wrists, keeping them close to his headboard.

  “Why?” I twist, trying to get him off me. “This isn’t fun for me, you asshole.”

  He trails kisses down my neck. “I’m trying to help you.”

  I kick at him, but he grabs my ankle. Kisses the inside of it. The bottoms of my feet are all scraped up, and he contemplates them for a moment before scooting back.

  “What—”

  “Skylar,” he says. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “I… I guess I do. Sort of.”

  He kneels between my legs, sitting back on his heels. I hate the raw feeling of being stretched out like this, my foot in his hand. He tied me up before—two years ago.

  “But I need you to let me go,” I continue. “Or else I’ll never trust you again. This… this is going too far.” My damn voice is wobbling, and my body is tense.

  He says to breathe, but that’s bullshit.

  “I think you just need to accept that I don’t like to be restricted. I hate Halloween and masks and fucking clowns. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to avoid the scary shit in life.” All the while, I yank my arms. “You know what? Fuck you.”

  He smiles. “Is that what you want, angel? To fuck me?”

  I glare at him.

  He runs his hand up my leg, cupping my calf and dragging me farther down the bed. I let out a squeak.