Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
In the van.
My abductor’s hot breath on my neck.
His hands… roaming.
As the others… as the others cheered him on.
No.
No.
I sucked in a deep breath, counted, and released, seeing the memory start to blur around the edges, then trying again until it disappeared completely.
I sat down on the couch, feeling the tears that I’d been fighting welling up again. This time, I didn’t fight them. I knew they needed out, that they were just poisoning me by staying buried.
Dr. Swift came from her desk with her handy box of tissues—she must have stock at the company at this point from me alone—and sat with me as I cried, talking to me when I finally calmed down again. I listened to what she had to say, how she thought I might productively talk to Riff about the incident without triggering another PTSD episode.
Because, she agreed, there needed to be honesty between us.
“I know Riff is your safe person, Vienna,” she said, giving me a soft smile. “But you have to remember, he is just a person. He will make mistakes. He will let you down. That is the nature of all relationships. What makes a good one is your ability to talk it through and work through your feelings about things.”
She was right, of course.
She hadn’t let me down yet.
And as she led me out of her office half an hour later, looking much like the girl I’d seen leaving before me, I felt lighter, ready to walk back to the clubhouse and have a calm, rational conversation with Riff.
Maybe we could take a drive, like we’d been planning. I always found it easier to talk while in the car for reasons I didn’t even begin to understand.
Mind on that, I glanced back at the clubhouse, feeling that newly familiar sense of home sink into my bones.
Until I came here, I hadn’t felt that since I’d been living with my grandmother. My apartment had never had that same level of comfort.
Maybe because home wasn’t a place but a feeling.
And the people inside that clubhouse, especially Riff, were what created that feeling for me.
Taking a deep breath of the crisp late winter air, I started the walk back toward the warehouse, the distance suddenly feeling twice as long as it had when I’d been overwhelmed with the hurricane of my thoughts, the violent storm of my emotions.
But I’d been in such a rush that I hadn’t grabbed my phone, so I could text Riff for a ride.
I couldn’t even go up to Rook’s apartment to ask, since he’d been in the living room when I’d rushed past.
Oh well.
I was hoofing it, like it or not.
I felt so comfortable in this town, so safe thanks to, I imagined, the protection that came from the club, that I didn’t even think to be afraid, to look for threats.
But as I walked toward a wide alley between a few of the abandoned shops on Main Street, a flash of color cut in front of my vision.
Maroon.
A maroon van.
No.
No.
A cry strangled in my throat as it cut off my path.
I had to turn, to run.
Even as I thought it, as I started to do just that, hands were reaching out.
Grabbing me.
Pulling me back to hell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Riff
“Morgaine, I respect the fuck out of you,” I said, surging out of my seat, “but I can’t just sit here. She’s been gone too long. What if she’s out there upset and alone?” I asked.
Before I even got an answer from her, though, I was grabbing the keys to the car, and rushing outside, not even giving the poor, old thing a chance to warm up before I was driving out of the lot, and around the town, looking for any sign of her.
But seeing no one.
Something was wrong, I could feel it in the way my guts felt twisted.
I parked illegally out front of Dr. Swift’s office, not even turning the car off as I threw open the door and rushed inside, everything inside of me screaming that something was not right.
“Hey, you can’t go in there!” the secretary shrieked, trying to get out of her seat to stop me, but I was already throwing open the door and rushing inside.
“Riff,” Dr. Swift said, brows raised.
“Was she here? Where is she?” I asked, hearing the borderline fucking hysterical hitch in my voice.
“Vienna isn’t here,” she said, waving around the room. But something about her posture said she wouldn’t give me more.
“Was she here?”
“I can’t—“
“Respectfully, Doc,” I cut her off, the alarm bells in my head going off too loudly to watch my tone, “we both know you can’t pull that confidentiality shit with me. She’s not even your patient on paper. So cut the crap. Was she here? I need to know. I think… something feels wrong.”
Either intimidated by my position in this town, or responding to the desperation in my voice, Dr. Swift took a deep breath. “She was here, yes.”