Stephanie Tyler - Vipers Run

I curled up into myself—I didn’t want him touching me when I told him what happened, and even though he didn’t look happy about it, he seemed to instinctively understand. He sat next to me, giving me plenty of space.

I took a breath and looked at him, saying, “I was fifteen and he was seventeen. He’d been my boyfriend for a couple of months. And it started out consensual.”

“Didn’t stay that way.”

“No. I mean, we had sex. I was drunk but I didn’t say no. I thought . . . I thought he loved me. Fifteen and stupid, but I wouldn’t have been the first girl to sleep with the wrong guy. But while I was passed out . . . I don’t remember what happened but when I woke up, I was in his dorm suite. They’d drawn on me,” I said, my voice hollow, my body numb. “I woke up covered in black and green permanent Magic Marker, on my body and my face. I was naked. I was bleeding between my legs. And I was all alone in his room.”

I didn’t want to go on, not after seeing the anger in Cage’s eyes. But he put a hand over mine and didn’t say a word.

I took a deep breath. “My phone rang. I picked it up and it was Jeffrey. He told me to check my pictures and I did. Me, naked, with guys’ naked bodies around me. No faces, though. It didn’t make sense until I realized that he’d let the guys watch us having sex, and then he’d let them jerk off on me, draw on me and take pictures of it for keepsakes. And he told me, ‘Last night was great, honey. Anytime you want to do it again . . .’”

Cage let go of my hand and I didn’t look at him. Not until I heard something smash and I turned to see he’d thrown the coffee table against the wall, letting it shatter into a thousand pieces. There was a dent in the wall.

He was taking all the anger for me so I could remain calm.

I don’t know if I was the first—or the only—girl he’d done that to. I suspected not. I could still see the goddamned pictures when I closed my eyes, so right then I kept my eyes wide open. “I want to get over it. I need to. But I haven’t found the right guy to make me forget. I hadn’t . . . until you.”

Cage reached his hand out and waited for me to grab it. I did. “I don’t remember much after that. I got sick in the garbage can before making it to the bathroom. I just wanted to get clean—I couldn’t leave his room like that, so I showered. Scrubbed myself raw trying to get the marker off me.”

It would take weeks before my skin was unblemished again.

“I didn’t think about the police. I was sick and confused, and obviously Jeffrey had counted on that. I was goddamned fifteen and had had sex with the guy I’d thought loved and protected me. At first, I didn’t even understand his part in the betrayal. Not until I saw the pictures. My father contacted his friends in the police department. They went after Jeffrey hard. Jeffrey’s family had a lot of money too, and my mother didn’t want any of this public. I don’t blame her—I didn’t want it getting out either. So there was a settlement and everything was buried.”

I took a deep breath and then said, “There’s more.”

“Okay,” he ground out.

“Remember . . . I told you my father was working with Bernie? Because my brother stole money from me?” I didn’t wait for him to respond. “That was true, but it was only partially why my father got in touch with me. Ned has the pictures and he was blackmailing my father—if he got money, he wouldn’t publish the pictures online.”

Cage’s eyes were stormy when he asked, “How did Ned get them?”

“I don’t know. He knew about them when it happened.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat and ripped the Band-Aid off. “But Jeffrey has sent them to me at least once a year since it happened. He’s not supposed to have any contact, but he sends them and I don’t say anything to anyone, and the rest of the time it’s fine.”

“When was the last time he sent you those pictures?”

“This morning,” I whispered.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Because I thought I could handle it,” I told him, my voice low and angrier than I’d intended as I took a step toward him. “Because he only sent me the e-mails a couple of times a year.”

Cage held his ground even as the earth seemed to tilt under my feet, but I managed another step. “Because I thought he couldn’t get close,” I told him, even as I closed the distance between Cage and me. I grabbed his shirtfront, fisted it in my hand and yanked as I practically whispered, “Because I didn’t want it to be goddamned real.”

Cage’s eyes flickered over my face, his expression something I couldn’t place. Melancholy, maybe? “I get it, baby.”

“Do you, really? Do you know what it’s like to have someone following your every move, watching you . . . waiting for you to break?”

I still held his shirt tightly. He didn’t try to pull away, but his tone matched mine when he said, “You’d goddamned better believe I do. I’ve known what it’s like for my goddamned entire life. And you shared that with me. And I promised to come back and take care of this guy for you.”

“I don’t understand why. For me, a total stranger.”

“You’re not a stranger, Calla. Don’t bullshit me. You knew that maybe the second you picked up the phone and you definitely knew it by the end of the call.” He went and got the laptop and brought it to me. “Log into your e-mail.”

I wanted to refuse. But my fingers hit the keys. I was so beyond numb by this point. I hit the e-mail. No text. Just attachments. But I hesitated, with my finger hovering over the delete button.

I couldn’t press it, though—doing so wouldn’t actually erase what happened. It wouldn’t be that easy. I was going to have to let Cage see the pictures and I knew that could ruin us. It was one thing to explain it and entirely another to see it.

How was he ever supposed to be with me again after seeing that?

I turned the computer back to him. “I don’t want you to open them. I want to tell you that I’ll hate you if you do . . .”

Even though we both knew that last part wasn’t true, he looked so torn. I wanted to take it back, but I couldn’t.

“When you see them, you’ll never look at me the way you do now. It will never be the same. He will ruin my life again. It’s like he gets to violate me over and over . . .”

“I have to, Calla.” His voice was as raw as my emotions. He clicked the link and I closed my eyes. Turned away and tried not to be sick. Because I didn’t have to look to know what he was seeing.

It was enough that I could feel his rage, palpable and violently so, slam through me.

This was it. Knowing about what happened to me was bad enough, but the fact that he was actually seeing the aftermath made my stomach turn. He’d never touch me after this, or he might try but he’d never be able to rid himself of those images.

He closed the laptop and turned to me.

“Do you ever think about those pictures when I’m fucking you?” he demanded.

“No!”

“Is that the truth?”

I stilled, because it was. “Yes. Never.”

“Then why would I?”

“It’s different.”

“It’s not, Calla. Do you have any faith in me at all?”

“Yes.”

“If you did, you wouldn’t say things like that to me.” He pulled away. The pictures had driven a wedge between us—maybe not in quite the way I’d thought, but they were a wedge between us all the same—just as I’d feared. So I sat in Cage’s apartment in a high-security building guarded by MC members, and I’d never been more afraid in my entire life.

I hugged my arms around my legs, pulling them tight to my chest. “I need to be alone.”

“Babe . . .”