Page 179 of Drown My Sorrow

“Do you think so?”

“Babe, the Daane are yours. They always have been. I don’t know what’s keeping them, but they will come, and they will come with guns blazing.” Her optimism is a thing of wonder. I squeeze her hand but wonder how much longer we can survive this.

I know they’re coming, but every day without them has my anxiety rising. What if they don’t come in time? What if something went wrong?

Nat puts a hand on my shoulder and smiles her most evil smile. “I’ve got a new idea to fuck with the town.”

Theycomeatnightlike they’ve come every night since Gael got locked up. A group of guys that I recognise from the island. They come and throw rocks at the windows, yell and scream. Graffiti the outside of the house and break bottles.

They shout about raping us. Beating us up. What they will do to us. The words and insults are almost worse than the property damage.

They come to scare us, to terrify us.

It works.

I sit silently on a chair up the back of the house, glaring at the floor. Nat sits beside me, a baseball bat clenched in her white-knuckled hold.

Neither of us say a sound.

We listen.

They wreak havoc, and then they slink away before the sun rises.

And I send into the world the same question now that I have every night.

“Where are the Daane?”

Nat squeezes my hand and puts her head against her knees and starts to cry. She’s learned to be afraid. I hate that for her.

My anger grows, and I decide that I’ve had enough.

Chapter forty-four

Aspyn

AspynAged22

The white dress I’m wearing makes me feel beautiful. I feel beautiful. But I’m nervous, Pack Daane are away for a couple more days. I shouldn’t have agreed to meet him, but it’s Ezy, and he pleaded and promised it would be perfectly safe. But I have to do this for myself. It’s important. I can’t rely on them forever.

I get to the front door when thunder cracks across the sky.

I scream.

I scream so loud it hurts my ears.

I grip the door frame in the house and look back and forth, my eyes getting wider and wider.

I didn’t check the weather! I always check the weather!

The rain starts a minute later.

I cringe, recoiling so violently I hit the wall hard enough to leave bruises.

The memories slam into my head with the next bolt of lightning. The power cuts out.

I’m sobbing, desperately hanging onto the walls, sure the deluge is just outside.

“HELP ME!”

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