Page 1 of Lexi, Property of Rhyder

LEXI

I’m standing on the wooden stage watching as people in the crowd cheer us on. I look out noticing my mom, dad, and sister, Paige, in the second row with huge smiles on their faces.

Mom has her arm linked into my dad’s, wiping away her tears with her other hand which is holding a handkerchief.

My dad waves, and I try my damn hardest to plant a smile on my face.

I should be happy, over the moon that today I’m graduating and going on summer vacation with my family before college starts. I want to be. There’s nothing else that I’ve thought about more in the past year than getting into Harvard and making my parents proud.

My father’s a surgeon, and he went to Harvard, and his father went to Harvard, so medicine runs in our family. I’ve known since I was a small child that I wanted to be just like my dad and help people. And lucky for me my grades were good enough to get me into one of the best medical schools in the country. The only thing is Harvard’s a five-hour drive from home, which means I won’t be close to my family. I’ll still be able to visit them as much as I can, but I’ll be living in a dorm close to the campus and no longer seeing them every day. I know most kids would love to start their lives out on their own, being independent, but I’m not like everyone else, and especially not like my friends, Diane and Stacey. My family’s close. I’ve always told my parents the truth and never felt like I’ve needed to lie to them.

That was until two months ago—a night I would like to forget but simply can’t.

A night I was robbed of my innocence.

I was dragged into nearby bushes where two men held me down while the third one raped me. If it wasn’t for a biker riding past and hearing my screams, who knows what would have happened. Maybe all three men would have had their way with me.

To this day, I have no idea what happened to them. Rhyder, the biker, assured me they wouldn’t hurt me or any other girl again, but his words don’t stop me from looking over my shoulder everywhere I go, and my heart beating rapidly every single time I see a man looking out of the ordinary.

Which brings me back to the beginning.

Remember how I said that I tell my parents the truth?

Well, that’s now in the past because my family has no idea what happened that night, and I don’t plan on telling them either. Honestly, I have no idea how I could explain that their little girl made a wrong decision, and instead of taking up Diane’s offer to drive me home after Jamie’s party, I decided to walk home thinking it was only one block away.

I needed to take some time to think about how I was going to tell my boyfriend, Zane, we should end things before I left for Harvard. Zane and I had been dating for a year, and although I really liked him, I didn’t love him the way he loved me, even if he was drop-dead gorgeous with his blue eyes and blond hair and was on the lacrosse team. I knew something was missing when I never got butterflies whenever he kissed me or felt that flutter when he would look at me. He was a good boyfriend, and my parents seemed to like him, but I knew it was going nowhere. As much as Zane wanted to try the whole long-distance relationship thing, I knew it wasn’t going to work, and I wanted to start a new chapter of my life with no attachments. Medical school was what I wanted to concentrate on, but since that night, I’m not so sure.

How can I go back to the girl I was when so much has changed?

The night I was raped, I was held down while a stranger ripped my panties off and thrust hard inside of me with no care for my virginity. If anything, when he realized I was a virgin, he yelled over to his friends that they had chosen well.

Chosen?Were they watching me?

Was there another victim they chose between?

Why me?

Why me?

I’ve been asking myself those same questions over and over in my mind.

I’d screamed so loud, and they tried to cover my mouth with forceful hands, but when I bit down on their hand, my attacker cussed and slapped me across my cheek. I remember feeling dazed and confused.

Then, all of a sudden, weight had lifted off me, and air hit my face.

The rapist who was on top of me was gone, and I could just make out the silhouette of a man who was fighting the three men. I didn’t think my savior would have a chance against all three, but I was so wrong.

Once he had dealt with them, he held me tenderly explaining he was getting me to the nearest hospital, and then he told me his name. I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. All I could do was cry—cry for the innocence that had been taken from me, cry for being so stupid to walk on my own at night, and cry for the girl who I was and who I would be now.

The last thing I remember was my savior telling me his name was Rhyder, and that he was getting help. I begged him not to take me to the hospital because I was embarrassed and didn’t want anyone to find out what had happened. But he assured me it was for the best, and that he wouldn’t let anything happen to me, and he kept to his word.

Rhyder stayed by my side while the doctors examined and cleaned me up. When the doctors wanted to bring the police in to question me, I freaked out, and Rhyder seemed to know right away how to handle that situation. I didn’t know how, but whatever he did to get me out of there without talking to anyone I appreciated.

He thinks I don’t know, but I see him following me around everywhere I go. Wearing his Blood Brothers MC cut and blue jeans, he’s hard not to notice. My own personal bodyguard and I don’t even know him, other than his name. And that he’s in a biker club—that same club I avoided whenever I saw them in town.

My dad always warned me to stay away from men like that. He said they were trouble and take drugs, and I believed him. I mean, why wouldn’t I? My dad always knew best, and so when I realized who Rhyder was, at first I was scared of him and didn’t want his help, but the way he controlled that night and took care of me with such tenderness, has me thinking these bikers are not as bad as what people think.

“Congratulations, Alexandra Ambers,” the principle says, smiling as he hands me my diploma. I shake his hand and then look at the camera in front of us as it flashes.

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