Page 3 of Breaking You Open

I stayed for a long time in the same position. Pinching my eyes together, I kept panting, kept gripping the bathtub edge, kept gasping through the burning sensation in my backside. And I was cold. So cold.

That night, Aaron climbed on top of me in my bed and gripped my face so hard my cheeks squished together.

“I’m going to tell you something now,” he hissed, “and I’m only telling you once. No one can know about what happened today. Not even Madame. You hear me?”

“Aaron …”

“Stop mumbling.” His freakishly light eyes looked crazed as he shook my head from side to side, fingers digging into my cheeks. “Who are you going to tell about this?”

“Nobody,” I whispered.

“Good little Sparrow.” His voice grew softer, and he let go of my face as he leaned down to kiss me, his hands in my hair, his breath on mine, his tongue tickling the inside of my mouth.

Before Aaron, no one had ever even looked at me twice. No one had ever even hugged me.

I was fourteen, and it was the first time anyone saw me as more than dirt under their boot.

Chapter 1

Sparrow

Six years later

This can’t be theplace. No way. I asked Lilith to take me to the best party in town, andthisis where she takes me? Frankly, it looks like a dump—a run-down house with a muddy yard littered with motorbikes. If not for the people, the music, and the lights, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been abandoned for years.

“This is it?” I hiss into Lilith’s ear, grabbing her fishnet-covered arm.

“What did you expect—a five-star hotel? Come on.” She lights a cigarette and walks in a confident stride up the muddy yard. How she manages to walk in those ridiculous heels is beyond me.

I click my tongue and follow her. Run-down and sketchy or not, it can’t be worse than where I came from. It’s not like I know what a party is supposed to look like, anyway; Aaron never took me to any parties, and I sure never had any friends who could take me.

Lilith spins to me and blows smoke into my face. “Now, I’m going to tell you something: In there, you’re on your own. I have other people to hang out with, okay?”

“But…” Is she serious? “I don’t know any of these people!”

“You’ll manage.” She drops the cigarette carelessly to the ground and pops some gum into her mouth. “You’re here to make friends, aren’t you?”

Not really, but I’m not about to tell her the real reason I’m here. Not that it would matter now—with my heart kicking into overdrive at the thought of being all alone in there, abandoned and unwanted. I imagine standing with my back plastered to the wall all night as people stare at me with a mocking tilt to their lips—more mocking than usual.

A feral dog tied to the side of the house barks wildly as we pass, making me even more nervous. Lilith pays it no mind, and she walks confidently up the patio stairs toward the entrance. Despite wanting to run the other way, I follow her.

A group of men loiter on a few chairs outside—one of them a gruff-looking man with a leather vest and a beard with thick sideburns. His amber eyes fix on me, and the man next to him leans in and mumbles something into his ear. The man with the sideburns scoffs, a flash of his canines showing as he casts another look at me and barks something at his friend, who throws his head back and laughs.

I feel naked under the weight of their gazes. Naked, tiny, and unwanted. I’m young, okay, I know that, but not any younger than most people at this place, surely? Though I look not a day older than eighteen, I turn twenty-one next spring, and Lilith told me these parties have patrons of all ages: barely legal teens, college students, as well as older folks. She also told me it’s hosted by the local biker gang, which supplies the town of Springvale with the nightclub-esque venue it’s apparently lacking.

I should fit in here. I should feel at ease. But as is usually the case, the ideal clashes hard with reality.

The two men on the patio are laughing at either my skinny frame, my shoulder-length hair, or my small, feminine features. They see the inexperience in my eyes. Maybe they know I’ve never been close to a party before, let alone drunk.

I’m going to get drunk tonight, though, and after I’m drunk enough to feel confident, I’ll find someone. Someone who isn’t Aaron.

A party is a place to have fun, and to have fun means to drink and chat and make out with someone, right? That’s what I’ve deduced from studying my classmates and watching movies.

A tall man with a bandanna wrapped around his head stops us by the door. “You’re new,” he says, nodding to me.

“He’s fine, Ravi,” Lilith says. “He’s with me.”

The man called Ravi looks me up and down, and I try my best not to squirm. “He’s a little young, isn’t he?”

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