Page 78 of Cruel Prep (Princes of Ravenlake Academy 1)

“You’ve been running at night again?” Dr. Sharon had asked.

“A bit. I stick to the main roads and well-lit areas.”

“Still. That’s great,” she said. “You haven’t been able to do that since the night of the attack, right?”

“Right,” I admitted. “Even though I can’t remember much about it, I know enough to be afraid of the dark.”

“Even if you don’t remember,youdo,” she said, pointing to my head—to my brain.

She told me early on in our meetings that my brain probably couldn’t process the trauma of what happened to me, so it blocked it out. Rather than memories of fighting and screaming and being beaten, there is a blissful, impenetrable wall of black.

“Well, I’m keeping it a pretty big secret from me,” I joked.

“You haven’t had any other flashbacks recently?”

I just shook my head.

In the first few weeks after The Incident, memories had come back to me in bits and pieces. I could see a group crowded around the girl on the table. I could hear the ground crunch under my feet. Feel my heart pounding in my chest.

But no matter how many times the same memory overtook me, I never saw any faces.

No one besides Nico Barber.

I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. I’ll never be comfortable talking about that night, but I also don’t want to walk around broken for the rest of my life.

Maybe if I can finish the memory, if I can put faces to the shadows dancing at the edges of my mind, I can finally find some peace.

Maybe I’ll be able to move on and put it in my past.

But I can’t live in fear. I can’t keep hiding from what happened.

And Finn clearly isn’t coming to pick me up for a drive today. So, feeling antsy, I decide to go for a run.

“I’ll be back soon,” I say to Mom. I slip on my sneakers, give her a kiss on the head, and then I’m out the door.

Dr. Sharon wouldn’t approve of this. She has told me in the past that when I am ready to follow this trail again, I should bring someone with me and go about it slowly. I should go at a different time of a day, in a different season, wearing different clothes. Maybe instead of running the trail, I should walk it or ride my bike. I should do something to disassociate myself from that night and avoid a flashback. I should do something to break the cycle.

Except, I’m not ready to break the cycle.

Not until it has played out entirely.

Not until I know what is hiding behind the layer of fog in my mind.

So, when I reach the mouth of the trail where It happened—the break in the trees that is shrouded in darkness—I hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and taking off.

My legs feel strong. Adrenaline is pumping through my limbs, making it so I barely even feel the ground beneath my feet.

I’m aware of everything else, though.

My head is on a constant swivel as I run, checking the shadows on either side of me for a sign of movement or anything.

I can’t see much in the dark, but when the trail turns right, I know I’m close to the spot where it all started.

The instinct to turn and run rears up, but I push past it.

This is a new day. It’s not that night months ago. There is no one in the carved-out space in the trees.

Except, what if there is?

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