Dread is strange. This morning, when Jack blew up my phone with text messages, the dread was heavy. I felt walls closing in and a tightness in my chest that wouldn’t budge. Everything made me so anxious I didn’t even remember how I got to the park for training. But after being injured by Ry and then spending the entire way home feeling like someone was watching me, the dread fizzled. Only confusion, exhaustion, and, unfortunately, desire remain.
The same desire that has been on my heels since last night follows me now into the shower, where my skin screams from all the open scratches.
Hissing, I prod each one, knowing I don’t have anything to help. There’s a gash under my right breast and another by my left hip. I have some kind of rock rash over my stomach and my right arm, but it’s already stopped bleeding.
Even that’s not enough to keep me from running my hands between my legs where I need relief. One orgasm turns into three before I’m even able to catch my breath. Then I work up one more, this one much slower, just to buy myself some time before lust rears its ugly head.
Something cracks against my windows. In a studio apartment like mine, the windows overlook my bedroom, so when the strike comes, I don’t bother with clothes as I head for the glass. I’m on the second floor, so no one has a reason to look up and see me naked. Checking the glass is more important this close to the cold season.
I scramble to study each of the three large glass panes, but there’s nothing here. No cracks, no dings. Not even a smudge of dirt. What in the world…? Looking out at the city block beneath me, I scan for a sign of what happened. My focus catches on the dark alley across the street, and I wait. Watching for something out of place. Nothing. Exhaling, I head for my dresser. Maybe I imagined it. The lack of sleep and physical effort are finally catching up to me.
Remembering the queasy look on Ry’s face bothers me as I ignore all my cuts in favor of icing my bruised eye socket. Dressed in an oversized shirt, everything that happened bothers me all the way to the kitchen until a boom sets off my security alarm.
Another two follow the first, loud and insistent. And suddenly, I remember all the problems I shoved out of my mind during that hour with Ry. Suddenly, the dread is back and stronger than before… because I’d forgotten… that I was worried about those Thur males following me home.
Each face flashes behind my eyes. Panic makes my legs shake, sending a queasy illness down to my feet. I’m going to be sick. I’m going to beg. That’s all I can do, just beg for them to show mercy and hope that—
I jump at the yell coming from the other side.
“Devi, I know you’re home! Open the fucking door before I cause a problem.”
Sighing, I rest my head against the nearest cabinet and thump it, all the adrenaline crashing back down through my system. I feel even worse at the relief of hearing his voice if that’s possible. I don’t think the middling body is supposed to oscillate like this. It makes me feel ill, wrung out, and tired.
“Devi!” Jack shouts again, making me jump. I thump my head again. And again, curling my fingers under the hem of my oversized shirt. I shouldn’t open the door when he’s angry. I know better. But if I don’t, he’ll only get worse, and then… my hearing is still damaged from the last time.
Another boom rattles my door frame, and my skin breaks out in goosebumps. Is he kicking it? I forgot. How could I forget how pissed he was when he sent at least thirty texts?
How could I forget he said he went to my apartment?
The hairs on the back of my neck raise before I finally open the door. He brushes past me before I can say anything, a wall of male power slamming into my shoulder. It stings.
“What the hell are you doing?” he snarls, frantically looking around my apartment. For what? I haven’t a clue. I don’t even understand what made him come back. He rushes into the bathroom and spins back, looking near my windows and inspecting my unmade bed. What is he expecting to find? His nostrils flare, activating the nose mod.
“Trying to rest before work?” I say.
“You smell like cologne,” he spits. I didn’t even notice Ry was wearing any. Fire. Orange light refracts through the windows, making Jack’s eyes look like they’re burning. He backs me into the door with a slam. It locks, re-engaging my alarm system.
“J-jack,” I pant, tapping his wrist as he clenches his firm hand around my throat. I hiss as he forces pressure against my wounds.
“Where. The. Fuck. Have. You. Been. Devi?” He yells, punctuating each word with a slam of my head into the door. Harder each time. I want to hit him. I know exactly how to defend myself. But being pinned like this makes my knees go weak. Every single instinct in my body deflates. The nerves in my hands short-circuit until they feel limp. I’m ten all over again. Twelve. Fourteen. Eighteen. On and on like a default setting, I can’t shake. “I call. I text. You don’t answer. Who do you think are to ignore me Deviera? You think you belong to somebody else?”
Traitorous little tears leak over the corners of my eyes. “Jack. Jack. Please.” I can’t think, can’t form the appropriate responses. I’m just a kid again, small, too small. Unable to fight. He leans down so the air is tainted with the scent of him. I gag and shiver. I don’t—I don’t even know what to say.
“Devi? You okay? We heard yelling?” Les? I can’t help the whimper that squeaks out when Jack flings me across the room. I can barely get my feet as I fall against the cold wood. I hear a bucket click free.
“She’s fine!” He yells to Les with all the care of someone who isn’t afraid of the frail, graying man.
“Devi, I’m going to call the Truceguard,” Les hollers back, bless his heart. The terrible hiss of leather sliding free makes my hands shake as they scramble to push me up. No. This can’t happen here in my safe space.
Another boom against the door, this one hard enough to set off the alarm system. My hands clamp down over my ears, a mind-numbing reverb echoing through my damaged ear. I’m whining, rocking against my knees.
I think Jack is yelling something about turning it off. I think he even shakes my shoulders, but I can’t move. Something hard connects with my lower ribs. Still, I can’t—can’t focus on anything.
“Devi, open up right now,” a firm, masculine voice growls from behind the wood, drawing my attention.
The alarm turns shrill, amping up to a second level like all Thur tech does when not handled immediately. Jack’s panicked curse floats to me as he heads for the emergency escape chute near the kitchen. It’s a mechanical shaft that sends a platform down to ground level in case of a fire. Good. It’s best if he just goes while I diffuse… diffuse whoever is outside my door. I barely get my shaking hands out in front of me, pitifully crawling to the door that seems liable to come off the hinges any second.
“Devi, I swear to—”
My shaking fingers incorrectly put in the alarm code three times before I finally key it off, and the apartment goes silent. It’s like the person on the other side of the door and I both wait to see what will happen next. I can barely get the door unlocked before the knob is twisting. It doesn’t swing inward hard like Jack.
There’s a pause that extends long enough for me to step back before Ry’s harsh features come into focus, a pale Les behind him and an irate Varik at the end of the hall. For once, I’m grateful I don’t wash off my makeup in the shower.
Before I can say anything, his body moves through my apartment, mimicking Jack without any of the menace or terror. “Devi, what in the fucking cosmos was that?”
I look at him as he studies the open chute door, his jaw clenched. Swinging back to Les and Varik, I don’t know what to say to make this go away. My mouth opens and then closes again. My face grows hot.
“I… um… it—”
“I heard a man, Devi,” Les says, his expression soft.
“It was nobody,” I hear myself mumble. “Just a fling that didn’t go well. I made a mistake.”
Ry looks me over, realizing I’m wearing only an oversized shirt, and looks away with a harsh sigh. “Devi,” he says quietly. There’s something in his voice that tells me he doesn’t believe me. He wants me to confirm it, but I can’t. He doesn’t understand that I *can’t*.
“I swear,” I say, pinching a tired smile. “No harm. Sorry, I scared anybody. Girls have needs, too.”
He looks at my neck as if he can see the phantom hand, then nods sharply and leaves without a word. It’s not until I close the door on the judgmental faces of my landlords that I stop to consider how Ry knows exactly where I live.