Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Lies. They’re liars.
He’s inside the house now, right on my heels.
I start crying, knowing he’s about to kill me, but I can’t move any faster. “Please,” I cry, my voice pitiful to my own ears. “Please leave me alone.”
With tears blurring my vision, I climb the stairs even though I know it’s the last thing I’ll do.
I make it to the top and glance back. He’s right behind me.
I round the corner and sprint down the hall. I can feel him closing the distance before I can put more between us.
I knew this would happen. I knew he was faster, but I had to run. I had to try to save myself.
I see the bedroom door at the end of the hall. I don’t want to go inside, but there’s no other option. Everywhere I turn is something horrible, something damaging, something I can’t escape.
Tears streaming down my face, I open the bedroom door.
Once I’m inside, I close it.
I’m alone now. It doesn’t feel like Tor is chasing me anymore. And I guess that makes sense because I’ve gone back in time. Russell hasn’t waited in the shadows on my front porch yet or said the wrong thing when he was out back talking to his friends.
I’m at the lake house inside the bedroom of Timothy Walters, and I’ve only been there once.
I look down at my bottle of water, but it’s not water anymore. It’s my “girl beer” from the party that night. Swallowing, I set it down on the nightstand beside Timothy’s bed. I’ve only seen this bed in person one time, but I’ve imagined it many more times than that. In my dark fantasies, the ones I wrote in my notebook, I always ended him in the same bed where he ended me. It felt poetic, I suppose.
My mind screams at me not to lie down in that bed, but I’m tired. It’s quiet up here. I’ll just lie here for a few minutes, and then I’ll leave.
My senses aren’t the same in dreams, so I don’t smell him on the pillow, but I know I did that night. It’s the thing that tortures me on a deeper level than I ever want to acknowledge. The little smile on my face as I breathe it in and remember him pressing that stupid can against my thigh on the boat.
I’m smiling because I smiled then, but tears well up in my eyes because the version of me now trapped in this bed knows what the girl who lay down in it a year ago did not: Timothy Walters will never be a reason that you smile.
Shame coils around me, threatening to choke the life out of me, and I want to be free of its grip, so I close my eyes and welcome the darkness.
I can breathe here, finally. In the void.
But I don’t get to be here for long.
I come to, my vision swaying a little.
There’s a weight on top of me. Pain and a foreign sensation of fullness between my spread thighs.
My eyes fly wide open. I’m so confused.
Immediately, his hand clamps down over my mouth, startling me. Panicked, I shove at his chest, realizing it’s a man on top of me, trying to get him off me. I don’t know what’s happening, but then his hips move, and pain lances through me. I cry out against his hand. The pain intensifies as he shoves deeper, more insistently, as my body resists.
He’s not just on top of me. He’s inside me.
No, no, no. This can’t be happening.
I cry out, but he smothers my muffled cries, leaning into me more heavily. He thrusts into me again, and I push against him with all my strength, but he barely budges.
My fighting back is an inconvenience, though. He lets go of my mouth to grab my wrists, gripping them in one hand and pinning them over my head.
“Help me!” I shout, but his chest muffles my voice as he leans over me.
His hand quickly covers my mouth again, and my heart sinks as I meet his gaze and realize this isn’t some stranger attacking me. It’s someone I know.
His mouth curves up slightly as he registers the recognition. Then he leans in and murmurs, “Quiet, Pritchard. Someone’ll hear.”
His voice is a taunt, and my heart breaks in half as he forces himself deeper inside my body.
Tears blur my vision. I fight to pull my hands free, but I know it doesn’t really matter.
It’s too late.
___
When my eyes open, the bedroom is still dark, but I’m drenched in sweat. My skin is so hot that it feels like I’m lying on a heating pad. Logically, I know I didn’t go to sleep on top of one, but the heat scorches my back so much that I arch off the bed and feel underneath me.