Page 75 of Pretty Cruel Love

This time, I can’t get up.

All I can see are Jonathan’s shoes on the wet asphalt. I can hear him calling someone to pick him up in twenty minutes, then hear the flick of a lighter.

He grabs my arms and drags me closer to the dumpster. Then he helps me to my feet and presses me against the edge.

“Since you’re going to keep fucking with me and claiming that I raped you,” he says, unzipping his pants, “I guess I should probably give you what you clearly want, right?”

“No, please!” I scream. “Stop! I’ll sign it! I’ll sign it!”

His hand clamps over my mouth and he pushes up my dress. He slides his cock inside me, filling me against my will, biting the skin on the back of my neck.

“You were a slut then, and you’re a slut now,” he hisses, thrusting in and out of me so hard it feels like he’s trying to break me. “Your pussy isn’t even that good...”

I give up resisting. Fighting only makes him hurt me worse.

“Fuckkkk…” He stiffens behind me, then pulls out. I feel something warm dripping onto my back.

Seconds later, that warmth turns to searing pain.

He presses my head against the dumpster to muffle my screams.

He keeps me pinned with one hand while he burns the skin on my lower back with his lighter.

When he finishes, he lets go. I collapse onto the ground.

The burning, the inside pain, the flare-up of the scars from the past—it’s all too much.

I don’t know how long I lay there, but the next thing I know, someone is putting me in the backseat of a car.

“She looks messed up…” “I wonder what happened to her.” “Poor girl… Should we take her to the emergency room?”

My throat hurts too much to speak—to beg them to YES, please take me to the hospital, and what little I have left, leaves my body within seconds.

The next time I wake up, I’m in a hospital room and the TV is blaring loud with a Sunday night football game.

Jonathan Baylor just scored the winning touchdown.

34

SADIE

Day Thirteen

Being back in reality feels strange—almost cruel.

The storm has passed, the power restored, and yet I’m being strapped into the serum chair one final time. One night left here, and Ethan is nowhere to be found.

Neither is Robin.

Their absence gnaws at me, loud in the silence. I don’t know if it’s a sign of hope or a warning.

Over breakfast, my new lawyers spoke in cautious optimism, trading theories and legal jargon like it might save me. For once, I let myself believe them.

Just a little.

Maybe—just maybe—the truth (parts of it anyway) will finally rise to the surface.

And I’ll be able to fly free… before the walls close in again.

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