Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
I told him to get off. He didn’t. He just held on tighter and kept kissing me, even when I tried pushing him off. He continued spreading my legs so he could make it easier for himself to enter me. I was triggered. I realize that now. And when I’m triggered, I have the tendency to freeze.
For some reason, while this was happening, I thought about my dad and how sometimes I had to just take the beating so it would end sooner. Don’t fight back. Just let it happen, let him get it out so he can move on and leave you alone.
It was called being in survival mode.
That’s what my mother always said.
I remember just . . . letting it happen.
Letting Cole suck on my nipples and moan as he rolled his tongue around my piercings. Letting him palm my breasts as he grunted in the crook of my neck. He kept saying how much he missed being inside me. How he wished I was in Rose’s place. I was glad he had a condom on because he came fast.
Then Rose came home, and she saw us together. I don’t know what to do. She won’t answer me. It’s been hours and I can’t sleep because I feel horrible. I need to explain to her what really happened and tell her I never wanted that with Cole.
I think because the act was forbidden, Cole wanted me more. He knew he’d never be able to have me again with Rose in the picture, and he couldn’t live with that. He also knew he’d never leave Rose for someone like me. To him, I was forbidden fruit and despite the issues it would bring, he wanted to devour me. Now I understand why my parents named me after the first woman who sinned.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Eve had officially been MIA for four days with no new YouTube uploads or Instagram posts. As a travel influencer, this was highly unlike her. I scrolled through her Instagram as I sat on the sofa in Twilight Oaks, trying to find a clue as to where she might be or what she could be doing.
It was all to no avail and, eventually, I gave up and finished eating my dinner. Going to the diner was a bust, and after seeing Sheriff Reed there, I wasn’t sure I wanted to visit again anytime soon. My phone buzzed on the counter while I was washing my dishes. Zoey was calling. Again. She’d called twice in less than an hour.
I groaned.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to speak with her. I just wasn’t sure what to tell her. I was also worried that it would slip out that I definitely thought Eve was missing and in some kind of trouble. The last thing I needed was for her to overthink and panic.
“Hi, Zoey,” I finally answered.
“So, I’m at Eve’s apartment,” she said, ignoring my greeting.
I sat back down on the couch. “Why aren’t you at school?”
“Because my sister is missing and no one else seems to be doing a damn thing about it.”
“That’s not true. I found out Eve was staying in a cottage in Sage Hill. Did she mention this place to you?”
“No. Never,” Zoey answered.
“Well, there’s a cottage here on Aquilla Lake that she booked for four nights. I’m sitting in it right now.”
“You are?” She gasped. “Is she there? Did you find her?”
“No. But there are signs she was here. I found her favorite ice cream in the freezer and her necklace . . .” I couldn’t tell her it was in the fireplace, burned, likely meant to be destroyed.
“The one Abuela gave to her?” asked Zoey.
“Yes.” I sighed. “That one.”
“Rose, she never takes that off.”
“I know.”
“She’d have died with it on.”
I smashed my lips together. It was not the time to be talking as if Eve was already dead or to reveal that, after inspecting the necklace a bit more, the chain was broken, as if it had been snatched off her neck.
“I see her old laptop,” Zoey said as distant clicks of a keyboard sounded off. “I know her password. She used this laptop as backup. But all of her uploads and files sync to this one. If she’s uploaded anything new, I can see it here. See if maybe she’s active but ignoring us?”
“You can try,” I murmured. I seriously doubted that was the case.
The line went quiet for a few seconds. I peered around the cottage, from the portrait of a fish on the wall to the refrigerator in the kitchen. The tall walls and wide windows covered by curtains that blocked out a foggy view of the lake. Last I checked, it was drizzling outside.
“Oh, wait!” Zoey’s voice filled the silence again. “I’m in her emails. It says she booked a flight to Thailand on the night of September eighth.”