Page 67 of Acid

I love you, my Tinker.

Forever Yours.

XX

Slowly, I place the letter on the glass coffee table and wipe the fallen tears. I’d woken this morning to an empty bed and the letter on the pillow, along with the shirt he wore yesterday.

He’s gone.

Sobs climb up my throat, loneliness kicking in now he’s gone.

I thought I could handle not having him in my life. All those years, I convinced myself we could never be after I was raped, not realizing he was going through the same, that he went through worse, but I was still seeing him, still hearing his voice, and now he’s gone. I feel like I can’t breathe….

“Perrie?” I hear behind me from where I’m sitting on Acid’s dark brown leather couch, wearing his shirt. I shake my head, the sob tearing out of me as my body trembles.

“Fuck,” Steal curses and rushes around the couch, kneeling before me as he grips my cold hands. “Darling, how long have you been sitting here?” he asks.

I struggle for breath as I stutter, “A-an hour o-or t-two.” He curses again and sits next to me, pulling me into him as he wraps his arm around me, and I cry, “He-he was raped, h-hurt, and-and now he-he’s gone….”

Oh God, he was raped, abused….

Steal’s hold tightens on me, and he promises, “He’ll be back, Pez. He loves you so much he’s gone to get the help he needs, and he’ll be back for you. I know you hate me for what happened with Cass, but I will be here for you, day and night; you won’t be alone.”

My body shakes as I cry, gripping Steal's shirt, wishing Ollie was still here, and that he didn’t have the life that he had forced upon him.

I wish I had held on tight to him at sixteen instead of pulling back. Maybe things would be different now, and he’d be mine.

23

Acid – Two Weeks Later

“How are you feeling today, Acid?” Dr. Baser asks, and I look at him.

His caramel eyes are soft, but I guess therapists have to have a softness to them, right?

I look back at the fish tank, the fish catching my attention.

“I feel like I can’t breathe,” I admit. “The nightmares are getting worse. The more I talk about my past, the more they consume me, but last night, in my nightmare, it was Perrie….”

And fuck me, did I wake up shit scared.

Being away from her, I’m struggling. I need to hear her voice, to feel her in my arms; she quiets the demons taking over.

“Tell me about it,” he demands gently, and I flinch, the dream flashing before me.

“Stop fighting, will ya? I paid good money for this,” the man growls behind me as he grips my hips, forcing me to thrust inside the woman positioned underneath me, her bright brown eyes sparkling with glee and lust, her pupils blown, proving she’s on something as she brings her hands up and squeezes her nipples, causing her walls to flutter, and making bile rise up my throat.

The urge to vomit is strong, but last time that happened, I got four new marks on my back.

“Squeeze my neck, baby, squeeze it good for me, yeah?” she demands. I flinch as the man behind me, who is naked, takes my hand and bends me forward, forcing me to grip her neck like she requested, his hand over mine tightening, and he moves his other hand to my right ass cheek, and my tears fall as he grips it, forcing me to move quicker.

I hear him groan behind me as the woman’s orgasm takes hold. Her walls squeeze me, but no pleasure takes me, only sickness.

I try to move my hand when her walls stop, but the guy behind me doesn’t let me. Instead, he squeezes harder and continues to force my hips to move as I feel wetness on my ass.

I blink and look back at my therapist, my heart pounding, and I whisper, “When I finally freed myself, when the man had finished, I looked down, and the woman was dead, but instead of the woman from my memories, it was Perrie.”

“And you vomited when you woke up?” he asks.

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