Page 10 of Did They Break You

I was good at it.

When I wasn’t, I paid for it.

I wonder, if he knew this, if he knew Cortland was here, would he have warned me?

“What are you doing here?” I ask quietly, amazed at the calm in my own voice. My nostrils flare and I smell him. He smells like the woods, and some kind of dark cologne that I remember so well, even being pressed against that forest floor.

I smelled fresh earth then.

Dirt, and his cologne.

Then…theirs.

My stomach churns and I think I’m going to puke. I try to step back, but he tightens his hold on my wrist, then I feel Storm’s chest against my shoulders.

Bile burns up my throat.Leave me the fuck alone. You’ve done enough.Those words are in my head, but I don’t say them. If I get this over with, let them intimidate me in this moment, it’ll pass. Maybe they’re here for football or Cortland is visiting his parents and stopped by for who the fuck knows.

Just leave me alone.

His dark gray eyes spark as he keeps staring down at me. I remember seeing him on the news. His girlfriend—Maya, the ex he’d ran back to—standing up for him. Women batting their eyes his way. Him, Brinklin, Chase, and Storm.

They fawned over Cortland. Of all of them, he looked the least like a monster. He didn’t talk like a monster. Didn’t act like one. He was a golden boy.

But that night, he was… something else. Something the courts tossed out, but we both know what he did. Whattheydid.

Something like a scream bubbles up from my lips, but I try to bite it back as his eyes narrow.

“Go ahead,” he coaxes me. “Scream as loud as you fucking want.” His words are hushed and my skin crawls as he glances around us, watching a car pass by. “But I’ll tell you something, Remi.” His eyes come back to mine.“You can’t cry wolf twice.”

I physically recoil with those words, but his hand on my wrist doesn’t let me get far even as I shove at his chest again.

And I can still sense Storm behind me. I see Cortland glance at his friend just before I feel Storm’s breath against my skin. “And you can’t run from wolves either, Remi. I thought you’d have figured that out by now.”

A full-body shudder runs through me as I shake my head, blinking, trying to think, to block out Storm’s threat.

“Why are you…” I’m stammering. Losing my words. Just like I did in the months after it happened. It’s like I couldn’t speak. Words didn’t come naturally, just like they aren’t now. Silas asked if I lost my voice when I lost my virginity. I push all of that aside, take a deep breath even as my heart races. “Why the fuck are you here?” I snarl, thinking of Sloane, late for move-in today because she was meeting a boy for coffee that she’d started seeing over the summer.

Don’t you know boys are shit, Sloane.

Cortland’s hand comes to my back, slipping under the edges of my hoodie.

My entire body trembles.

I try to jerk away from him, hitting at his chest with the heel of my hand, but his gaze hardens. “Since when did you get your tongue pierced, Remi? Not so scared of pain now?” He rakes in my entire body, from my white Chucks to my oversized hoodie,to my mouth, which drops open as my knees shake, my stomach hurting. But I freeze with his words.

That’s what he wants to fucking ask me?

I hear Storm laugh, still feeling him right at my back. “Little Remi is all grown up. Maybe now she knows how to handle big girl decisions.”

My stomach convulses.

Cortland slides his hand down, over my ribs. I shiver, biting my lip as his palm comes just under my breast, his thumb grazing the slight swell of my flesh.

“Get your fucking hands off of me,” I growl under my breath, trying to breathe through my nose. To stay upright. I feel dizzy, panic exploding through me.

Running his tongue over his lip ring, he arches a brow, still stroking his thumb over the underside of my breast. “So mouthy now.” His eyes drift down my body and he slides his hand up higher, covering my breast. He meets my gaze. “But for all that mouth,” he says softly, “why are you shaking?”

I can smell his breath, his head is dipped down so close to mine. It smells like mint. That night at the party, it was whiskey. On his and mine. I still can’t stomach the smell of alcohol. The anxiety coursing through my veins when I’m around it makes it hard to breathe.

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