Page 1 of The Road to Ruined

ONE

three months later

Close your eyes, sweetheart. Count to thirty. One…two…three…four…five…

I gasp, sitting up in the bed and clutching at my chest. It felt so real—so real I could feel my eyes burning from the dust in the field we'd kicked up just before Declan pushed me to the ground.

So real I could feel his weight on my back and his breath on my neck.

What I'd give just to feel it again—to be touched again, to be held. It's been so long; the only time I can remember what it's like is when I dream like this. And I dream like this a lot.

I wish it'd stop.

I look around the small, plain white room and scream, tearing at my hair.

"What's wrong, baby?" Luca asks, running his fingers along my back. "Did you have another bad dream?"

I nod and wipe the tears away from under my eyes. "Why didn't you come back for me? I loved you so much. And it still hurts…so bad. When will it stop hurting?"

"I can't answer that for you, angel. I'm so sorry."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not real."

Before I can reply to my ghost, the door opens.

"Am I interrupting something?" Sebastian asks.

I scowl at the orderly, who's the closest thing I have to a friend in this shithole. "My regularly scheduled pity party."

"Well, here's a pro tip," he says, passing me a small plastic cup with pills. "If you want to go home tomorrow, don't let them see or hear you carrying on conversations with your hallucinations. Sane people don't do that."

"I'm aware," I say. I look into the cup before I throw back the contents. "Aww, you brought me extras."

"Snaked a Percocet from Harvey again. She's so fucking out of it that it's the last thing she needs; they'll never notice. Consider it a parting gift."

He hands me a small cup of water, and I wash down the pills.

"Well, if I'd known I was going to get a parting gift, I would have made a request."

"I'm not going to fuck you, Teagan."

"You bore me," I tell him. "What's the point of you, then?"

"What the fuck do you mean? I work here."

"You could be getting endless pussy in a place like this. Is there someone else? Is it Veronica?"

Sebastian is over six feet tall and the embodiment of tall, dark, and handsome. Deep tan skin, eyes like Declan's, curly dark hair, and I bet under those scrubs, he's nothing but hard muscle. Tattoos wind their way up his left arm, and just behind his ear, written on his neck, are the words,"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell."It's Oscar Wilde,but he doesn't seem like the type who would know; he probably saw it in a meme one day, felt like going to get a tattoo. I can't say for sure whether it's the worst or most perfect mantra for a place like this, but I can say that I've lost hours staring at it over the past few months, wondering if that's what I did and how exactly I did it. This certainly isn't the first or second time I've tried to get him to fuck me. I've fantasized about it several times, touching myself while imagining he'd snuck inside my room…and then inside me.

Unfortunately, before I come, my thoughts always slip to Declan or Luca. Sometimes River, if my subconscious self feels a little less masochistic.

Every fucking time.

"You know this is sexual harassment, right? Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I just don't want crazy pussy? Maybe I just don't need another fucking problem."

"You'll miss me when I'm gone."

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