Page 87 of Oblivion

Finding the mirror, I looked myself over, much like I did on the morning of my twenty-first birthday.

The woman looking back at me appeared the same. Inside, however, I was anything but. I’d grown. Blossomed. My naivety had been stripped the moment I was abducted. There were walls within me now. Ones that left ever-present prickles of fear.

Goosebumps rippled over my arms and sent a shudder down my spine. The experience shook me more than I let on. The truth was, I was deeply unsettled by someone breaking into our house and taking me without Vivi hearing. And the part that scared me the most? Having absolutely no recollection of it. I simply couldn’t understand how the memory didn’t exist. There wasn’t even ahintof it in my head. Nothing.

With tears prickling the corners of my eyes and my lips mashed together, I combed my fingers through the new extensions. A sheen of tears began to cloud my vision, and I pressed a trembling hand to my mouth to conceal a sob.

Sure, I was “fixed” on the outside, but still so broken on the inside. Lost and found all at once.

Tears came faster as my tightly-coiled emotions began to fray and unravel. They released to the surface with force that left my entire body shuddering. Unanticipated panic began its clawing ascent up my throat. I was terrified and trapped all at once. Desperate for an escape, but not knowing what from. I was safe here, I knew that, yet all my instincts told me to run. Flee.Scream.

With one hand pressed over my mouth and nose, and the other blindly outstretched in front of me, I made my way back to my room. I barely had the door closed before another sob burst free.

Trying to smother them was pointless. My hands did nothing to cover the ugly, broken sounds I had zero control over. This wasn’t me. I didn’t wear my sensitive side on my sleeve. While I showed many sides to myself,thisside I always kept hidden.

I threw myself onto the bed and buried my face in the pillow. It smelled like Dante’s laundry detergent—the same scent his clothes held—and it made me cry even harder. Folding the pillow around my face, I linked my fingers behind my head to hold it in place, hoping like hell Dante wouldn’t hear me falling apart from downstairs.

Maybe I should have caved and moved back in with Mom and Paul. At least then I could dream of Dante from afar without being teased by his presence every minute of the day.

The emotional rollercoaster took me from distraught to calmer before the entire ordeal resurfaced again. A fresh round of sobs tore from my chest. I wanted to get a grip, but at the same time, I desperately needed to purge, and the conflicting emotion made me so angry.

The noise I thought I heard along the balcony was lost to the scream I unleashed into the pillow. Just as I inhaled another shuddering breath, a soft knock sounded on my door.

“Penny? Are you okay in there?”

I stilled and held back all the hurt for two seconds.

“Go away, Dante.”

Go away. Go away. Go away.

Because, no, I’m not okay.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-FIVE

Dante

I caught an unusual sound in the background and cocked my head to listen. Penny had rushed from my room barely two minutes earlier and all but slammed the spare room door off its rollers.

What sounded like a muffled sob reached my acute hearing for the second time, and that was when I set down the half-eaten apple and quietly took the stairs. Maybe I was hearing things, but I trusted my gut, and it was telling me something was amiss.

I paused at her door and listened, not at all concerned that I was being a creeper. If it was going down in my house, then it was my business.

When I heard a muffled, high-pitched scream, I lightly knocked on the door.

“Penny? Are you okay in there?”

I held my breath, only to expel it rapidly when her distant reply came.

“Go away, Dante.”

Pausing for a moment, I deliberated over my options. Sadie always liked to be left alone when upset; I learned the hard way not to push for answers when she was in a mood. One broken lamp and raging bitch later…

I swallowed down the memory and inched the door open.

“Penny, I’m coming in, okay?”

Silence. When I got the door open enough to peek through, I found Penny lying facedown on the bed, unmoving. Instinct propelled me forward, and relief came when her entire body jerked the instant my hand connected with her calf.

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