Page 37 of Brutal Obsession

“Until we meet again,” I tell her. Then I leave her there.

12

VIOLET

Ipull myself together and go home. It isn’t lost on me that Greyson didn’t delete the video—so now he has another thing to hang over my head. My lips are swollen and chapped, and my throat hurts. My eyes sting.

I don’t know how to feel. My emotions are all over the place, and it takes the whole walk home to wrangle some control over myself. I sniffle and swipe the back of my hand under my nose, collecting snot and tears.

Ugh.

When did I become this person?

My phone vibrates.

Mom

Got a call from Mia Germain. She wants to talk to you.

Then her contact information below it. A phone number sits glaringly in the gray text bubble. Ignoring the fact that my mom is texting me—something strange all in itself—my heart does a funny skip at what she said.

Mia Germain is the director of the Crown Point Ballet, the company I danced with up until my injury. I had left rather suddenly, of course, after my broken leg led to ongoing nerve pain complications.

I had to give up my spot as the lead forSwan Lake.

I had just been home for the weekend, visiting my mother, when Greyson hit me. Stupid twist of fate and bad fucking timing.

I contemplate reaching out to Mia now, but it’s approaching midnight on a Friday. I’m not sure why my mother is awake, unless she’s just getting in from a night out herself. I sigh and unlock my apartment door. It’s silent and dark, an indication that Willow isn’t home yet. And who knows if she’ll be home tonight with the way Knox was looking at her.

Besides, I don’t want to get my hopes up that Mia would have some solution to my impossible problem. Something that would give me back the months that I wasted eating real food for the first time in my life, putting on more than just muscle. I’m what most people would consider healthy, but in the ballet world? I’m far away from the size I maintained.

That hurts to admit. That I didn’t develop a healthier relationship with food until I started going to therapy—not just physical but talk. And a nutritionist was added to my team, coming to chat with me while I worked on flexibility and strength training with the physical therapist.

There are limits to how far we can push the human body.

I let out a sigh and drop my phone on the nightstand, then strip out of my clothes. I toss them in the hamper and pull on an oversized shirt. In the dark, I go into my bathroom and flick the light on. I don’t want to see my reflection, but I force myself to look. To take in the black and blue streaks down my cheeks and mouth. My bloodshot, stinging eyes. My lips are swollen. My hair, even, is a mess. First Steele gripping it, using me the way he wanted, and then Greyson.

A shudder works its way up my spine, and my stomach churns. I’m going to puke.

I lunge for the toilet and barely make it in time. I fall to my knees and vomit, sour bile burning my throat and mouth. When my stomach finally stops rolling and my throat stops convulsing, I sit back on my heels.

I let two guys fuck my mouth, and I don’t know if I can forgive myself for giving in to Greyson like that. The more he pushes, the more I want to stab his eyes out—but in that, I caved.

He’s learning how to manipulate me.

I turn on the shower, the skin-crawling feeling kicking up.

It seems to be coming in waves, like flashbacks of what just happened in the locker room.

And his words.

The expression on his face.

He was a man possessed…

And I have a feeling it’s my fault. Somehow, I intrigue him. I caught the attention of whatever demons lurk under Greyson’s skin.

I step under the cool water and tip my head back. I can’t do hot. Not when I’m burning from the inside out. I brush my teeth and rinse out my mouth until I have no evidence of my physical reaction to my horror. I spit and dunk my face under the stream. And then I scrub. My face, the makeup coming off on my washcloth, my neck, my chest. Every inch of my skin, leaving it pink and tingling.

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