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My skin turned to ice, my mind hardly registering what he was saying.
“The doctor said whoever did it was an expert. He knew right where to stab to inflict the most pain but avoid Will bleeding out,” Declan went on. “Before he passed out, he kept yelling for me…and you.” His brown eyes squeezed shut, and he fought the emotions threatening to take him over. “I don’t know what I’ll do if…if he…” He couldn’t even say it.
Declan turned those watery eyes to me, and I croaked out, “I have to pee.”
Yes. I have to pee, like I was six years old, unable to tell what was appropriate to say in dire, serious situations.
Declan was so startled at my sudden declaration of the state of my bladder that he only blinked as I stood up, watching silently as I walked down the hall. My back was rod straight, my fingers trembling at my sides. A unisex bathroom sat nearby, just thirty feet down another hall. All the while, the nurse at the front desk watched me, as if not trusting I was only going to pee.
I wasn’t.
I didn’t have to pee. The only thing I felt like doing was throwing up, but beyond that, I was fine.
No.
Liar.
I wasn’t fine. If I was fine, I wouldn’t feel like throwing up. If I was fine, I wouldn’t feel like all of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I wouldn’t feel the urge to hide myself away in a hospital’s bathroom only to pull out my phone and do something I should’ve done a long time ago.
I locked the door behind me, moving before the sink, staring at my own reflection in the mirror for a moment before my shaking hands retrieved my phone from my pocket. I’d long since stopped watching the news. Obsession wasn’t my thing. It might be Travis’s, but I’d done my best to not think about it.
What I saw, what I knew…what I told the police from a phone in the middle of nowhere.
I opened up the Google search bar and typed in the two words I never allowed myself to think. Two words that made me want to die. I’d blocked it out for so long, it felt strange to see my fingers typing them out.
The first word: Midtown.
The second word, Strangler…was a bit of a misnomer, because he didn’t just strangle them.
Oh, yes. I’d kept so much to myself. Ray Ruiz was not only my ex, but also a monster of epic, murderous proportions. He was the reason I had nightmares. He was the cause of my panic attacks that came on so randomly and quickly. He was the reason I tried so hard to hide how fucked up I really was.
The truth: I wasn’t okay. I hadn’t been okay for a while. I’d lied to everyone I’d ever known, and where had it got me? Here, clutching the porcelain sink in one hand, my other hand holding a phone as I waited for Google’s search to load.
And when it did, my stomach lurched.
The first headline said it all: Midtown Stranger gets off on a Technicality. I jerked back, dropping my phone to the floor. Its screen cracked, but I didn’t bend to pick it up. My skin was colder than ice; the flesh on my bones wanted to slither off and crawl away to avoid dealing with this, and me? I didn’t know what to do.
He’d found me. He’d gotten off, and he’d found me.
I couldn’t breathe. My eyes met mine in the mirror and on the wall behind me, in the reflection of the mirror, I saw a girl I’d seen before. Beaten, bloodied, tired. Her arms were strung up above her head, tied to a cinderblock wall. She wore nothing but a dirty white bra and some underwear, her blonde hair an unkempt, knotted mess. On her left side, a big black X sat.
For a moment, I was there. For one fast, impossible moment, I found myself back in that basement, in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. For one split-second, I was back to where I started out, and I wanted to die.
My nerves took control of me, and I was like a passenger in my own life, watching as my body mechanically left the bathroom, abandoning my shattered phone. My feet drew me down the hall, not stopping as I passed the ER’s seating area, not even glancing up when Declan called out to me. I left the hospital, walked myself right outside with a pace that was slowly quickening.
I was on the sidewalk heading to the road—going God knew where—when Declan caught up with me. “Ash,” he called out, but I didn’t stop. He grabbed my arm, pulling me toward him, stopping me from further storming off. “Where are you going?” His brown eyes were almost accusatory—or was I imagining that? Did I want him to blame me? Would that make this easier?
“I can’t,” I said, not sounding at all like myself. I sounded cold, bored…borderline nuts. But that’s what a man like Ray did to you, made you feel ten different kinds of crazy. Made you enjoy it before you knew what was happening, before you knew the depths of the shit he made you walk in.
“You can. Whatever’s going on inside that head of yours, tell me.” Declan’s grip on my arm tightened, holding onto me with a strength I wouldn’t have pegged him for. I could see the scar lining his arm, white tissue slightly risen from the surrounding skin. An injury that I was slowly coming to terms with; an injury that was my fault. “I’m not letting you walk away, not when someone’s out to get us—”
“Me,” I practically shouted at him, watching as his expression changed. I yanked my arm from his grip, taking a few steps back, putting more distance between us. Those lips I’d kissed…those arms I’d wanted wrapped around me protectively—it could never happen again. Nothing could ever happen between me and any of these guys.
His brown brows furrowed, and he reached for me again, but I sidestepped him. “What are you talking about?” His tone was strained; it was clear he didn’t understand what I was doing or saying…and he probably never would. A rich boy like him, shattered and broken as he was, had never crawled through dirt that held corpses.
“What am I…” I laughed, and the laugh was like acid on my tongue. Didn’t feel right, hurt coming out. “This—this isn’t about you, Declan! Don’t you see? It’s never been about you. It’s always been about me. This isn’t your story, it’s mine.” I sounded like a lunatic, a crazy person who escaped their mental institution, someone off their meds.
I didn’t have meds, but maybe I should. Or go to therapy, but that would involve telling my mom everything. Telling Kelsey everything. Then everyone would know the truth about my past.
