Page 1 of Breaking Free (Guarded Hearts)
Prologue
Three months ago…
I finally have my first date with Josh tonight. We met online a month or so ago and have been talking non-stop ever since. The doorbell rings and I practically run down the steps. My heart is beating so fast and I have butterflies in my stomach. When I open the door, my heart stops, and before I can scream, he shoves something over my mouth. I try to struggle, but after less than a minute I fall to the ground.
He’s moving his hands up and down my side, over my breasts, and dragging his fingers through my hair. It is meant as a seductive, loving touch, but it makes me sick. I try to open my eyes but they won’t cooperate. He’s telling me how happy we will all be together and how long he has waited for this. I need to open my eyes, I need to yell for help, but I can’t.
His rough hand cups me and I silently cry. His hands feel like weapons that are attacking me. He tells me, “I can’t wait until I can sink myself deep inside you.” Please no. Please don’t let him do this to me. His arms are wrapped around me, carrying me somewhere. I just want to go home. I want him to stop touching me. I want to escape. I try to stay awake but everything fades to black.
It’s so dark that I can’t even see two inches in front of my face, and I have absolutely no idea where I am. My wrists are secured behind me, my guess is with rope. My ankles are also bound together and I’m starting to lose feeling in all of my limbs. My mouth is taped shut, ensuring that I can get help from no one. As I’m lying here, trapped, all I can think is how stupid I was.
All I wanted was to have someone just like everyone else, but my stupid desperation led me here. Chris is an evil bastard, so I know that what he has planned for me is going to be bad. A series of loud pops make my stomach drop. Gun shots. I say a silent prayer that those were not aimed at anyone I love. Not being able to see really sharpens your other senses. I hear a car pull up, and a set of heels clicking on the pavement.
I try to shift or move around—anything to make noise—but it’s useless. The footsteps fade away, leaving me alone once again. My chest is really tight and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe. I need my inhaler. I try to open my mouth and create a hole in the duct tape, so that I can breathe through my mouth, but it doesn’t work. I cough to try and relieve some of the tightness, but with my mouth closed, it feels as if each breath I take is slowly suffocating me. I try to inhale again but it seems that I can’t exhale fast enough before I need more air.
I hear sirens now and I am praying that someone, anyone, will find me. My head is pounding and I feel like I’m spinning even though I know that I’m not. I need medicine badly, but I have very little hope that I will get any.
The screeching of brakes and slamming of doors startles me. I’m starting to drift off now and keeping my eyes open seems to be a full-time job. A slew of different curse words are screamed by whoever gets out of the car. There has to be at least three or four people, but everyone is talking and I’m so out of it I can’t figure out who the voices belong to.
I lie here, wishing I could go back and rewind the night. I tried to put myself out there and find what everyone else around me seems to have. Maybe I’m not meant to have someone. That’s what got me into this mess anyway, right? My need to be loved by someone, my stupid fantasy that I would find someone who was perfect for me like everyone else in my life had.
I hear noises. I think it may be people talking, but I am too out of it to be able to pick up on anything that’s going on. I close my eyes and surrender myself to the idea that I may not be found. I hear a mixture of sounds. Everyone is around me but no one knows I’m here.
I am jolted awake by a rush of cold air, but my eyes are so heavy that I can’t even open them all the way. Someone’s arms encircle me and lift me up. I want to struggle, but I have no energy. Their touch feels like fire on my skin and I can’t tolerate it. I don’t want to be held, I just want to be alone. I drift back asleep as I feel the person lay me down.
My last thought is that if I make it out of this alive, I will never put myself in the position to be affected by anyone in any way ever again.
Chapter One
“Nic, listen, I know how much you want to go but I really don’t.” I lift my head off the pillow to see her scowling at me. “Ugh! Fine!” I get up off the bed and walk over to the door. Nicole is one of my best friends and her birthday was last month. Her boyfriend, Jason, got her tickets to see one of the bands she loves. Surprisingly enough, it’s actually this band that has been around for around a year or so. They have made a splash in the rock world and are all you hear on the radio anymore. Nicole has always been a diehard country fan, but Jason refuses to play anything but rock. She discovered this band, The Renegades, a few months ago and this is the first show that they have done close to us.
“You arenotgoing like that.” Nicole is standing in my doorway with her hands on her hips.
“Why not?” I look at myself in the mirror. I’m wearing black yoga pants and a t-shirt that says ‘I’m not short I’m fun sized’.
“One, because you slept in those clothes last night and you can tell. Two, because you look like the pictures that people post of the hot messes they find in Wal-Mart. Oh, and three, because it’s my birthday and I said so.” She sticks her tongue out at me.
I narrow my eyes at her and flip her the middle finger before I walk over to my dresser and pull out a pair of skinny jeans. As I’m putting them on, Nicole is rooting through my closet. She walks over to me and hands me a v-neck shirt that is so low cut I usually wear a tank top under it.
I pull it on, not caring because it doesn’t matter to me how I look. I have absolutely no interest in ‘hooking me a man’, as Nicole says. I follow her downstairs to meet with our other two friends Christen, and Madison. Every single one of my friends is in the type of relationship I had always dreamed about. They have someone that would walk through hell for them, which is great, but just not something that I want or need anymore.
My brother, Carter, walks toward me with a look of disapproval on his face. “That’s really what your wearing, Holly?”
I love my brother very much but sometimes he can be such an overprotective pain in the ass. He and Madison have been together for a while and now are planning their wedding for this summer. “Yeah it is, dad.” I walk out of the house, not wanting to hear any other objections from him.
Carter and Madison have the perfect relationship, although I don’t know how the hell she stands him sometimes. We all went with her to pick out her wedding dress and the bridesmaids dresses last week and she looked amazing. The entire time I was watching the joy in her face as she tried on dress after dress, reliving the time when I used to hope that one day that could be me.
I hear someone come up behind me and I know that it’s Carter. He puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me toward him. “Listen, I just don’t want you to get hassled by assholes all night.”
He is still talking to me but all I can focus on is his arm. It feels like his skin is made of needles that are stabbing me and I want to scream at him to let me go. Ever since the ‘incident’ a few months ago, I can’t stand to be touched. It’s not even that I don’t like it, I just can’t handle it. I haven’t told anyone because I don’t want to be psychoanalyzed, and knowing Carter, he would run to my dad and tell him.
He pulls me into a hug and then pulls back to look at me. “Does that make sense?”
I nod my head because I want him to think that I was listening to what he was saying. The girls come out of the house and we all pile into Carter’s car because heinsistedon driving us there and picking us up.
The concert is at an outdoor venue, and thankfully it isn’t that cold out tonight. The seating situation is basically first come first serve. Once Carter drops us off, we all head straight for the stage.
“Anyone else want a drink? I’m gonna grab something for Nicole and me. ” Madison and Nicole are both twenty-one, but Christen and I are a year younger.
