Page 26 of Sins of the Hidden

His other hand came up to my face, turning me around with a touch that contradicted the blood on his clothes. My back met the cold metal of the car door, breath caught halfway between need and escape. Even through his mask, those black eyes burned into mine.

His calloused thumb traced my bottom lip where I'd bitten it, "You're hurting yourself."

My heartbeat jumped underneath his touch. He was too close, devouring every inch of air between us until nothing else existed. I could hear shouting from Victoria's house, but it seemed distant, unimportant.

"I-I'm fine," I managed, but my weak voice betrayed me. "You don't need to protect me."

"Mine." His thumb dragged across my lip, smearing my blood like a brand. "To protect." He let the bat strike once more against the door. "Get in."

I slipped into my car, keys trembling between my fingers. Through the windshield, I watched the girls spill onto the porch with worried faces, weapons still in hand.

V's shadow fell across me as he moved toward his bike, each step deliberate and heavy against wet asphalt. The engine roared to life.

My reflection stared back at me from the rearview mirror. His headlight cut through the rain.

I started the engine, feeling the vibration hum through my bones, knowing with perfect certainty that wherever I drove tonight, those black eyes would never be far behind.

His touch lingered long after I drove away from Victoria's, each point where they had pressed leaving invisible marks with ghostly throbs as I drove through the empty streets. His scent clung to my clothes, my lips burning from his callous touch.

My hold tightened on the steering wheel until the leather creaked. What terrified me most wasn't the silhouette in my rearview mirror—that relentless outline of his motorcycle stalking too close. No—what truly unnerved me was how my body had begun reacting before my mind could catch up, responding to him without my permission.

I signaled toward my apartment complex, eyes darting to the mirror, searching for the shape I'd learned too well. The wheel groaned under my white-knuckled grip, eyes widening when I saw nothing.

My heart stuttered as scenarios filled my mind—each more violent than the last, painted in crimson shades I'd grown to know intimately. My stomach turned into that sick, electric pull.

Stop it, Oakley.

I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. Silence pressed down as I rushed from the car, gravel scraping under my shoes as I jogged to the front door, keys trembling against the lock as I entered, securing a door that might as well have been paper against a man who treated walls like mild suggestions. The metal clattered into the bowl, the clank sharp and lonely in the quiet apartment. Tonight, the room felt different, heavier, as if the corners had learned to whisper his name.

With a sigh, I trudged to the ensuite bathroom, light buzzing to life, harsh against my reflection—pupils wide from adrenaline. My bottom lip was swollen where I'd bitten it, where he'd touched it. Even now, I could feel the phantom pressure of his rough thumb.

The rattle of medication offered hollow comfort as I fumbled with the cap. The bitter pill dissolved slightly on my tongue before I swallowed it down. I'd relied on these since high school, back when anxiety and PCOS were my biggest problems.

Now it was the half-hidden man stalking me like it was his full-time job.

My bedroom felt wrong without light—every corner crept closer, pressing in too tight. Thin ribbons of pale light traced silver paths across my floor. There in the corner stood my lifelong enemy—the full-length mirror draped in a black sheet. For years, it had waited, gathering dust beneath its protective shroud, marking all my failures to face it.

I used to avoid this mirror like it could read my mind. When I was thirteen, I threw the sheet over it and told myself it was because the morning light made it glare. But it wasn't the light. It was the shape of my body. It was the way I couldn't meet my own eyes without wishing I wasn't there at all.

My hands shook as I approached, heart pounding so hard my teeth started chattering. The coarse sheet rasped against my fingers. One quick pull—that was all it would take. Just onemoment of courage. But I'd never been brave, had I? I'd spent my whole life running, hiding, making myself smaller to avoid exactly this kind of confrontation.

Do it, Oakley.

The blanket tore away with a sound, ripping a bandage from an old wound. The mirror revealed itself—tall, merciless, unavoidable. My reflection stared back, frightened and fragile with wind-tangled chestnut hair and jade eyes too large on my pale face. My size sixteen clothes still carried dust from Victoria's basement.

I drew a shaky inhale that felt like broken glass in my lungs and gripped the hem of my shirt. The fabric had been my shield for so long, I'd forgotten how to exist without it. My stomach clenched, acid burning the back of my throat as I fought against years of carefully constructed walls.

The shirt came off like peeling away scars, leaving me defenseless. My fingers trembled over the pooled clothing, too afraid to look up and see my full reflection. I kept my eyes down, watching dusty material gather at my feet. My pants followed, kicked away before I could change my mind, before the voice in my head—so much like Mom's—could remind me why I always wore layers. Now only thin pale underwear stood between me and the person in the mirror I'd been avoiding for years.

My eyes blurred with humiliation as they traveled my body, cataloging every imperfection in unforgiving detail. My thighs showed a texture akin to the uneven peel of an orange—dimples and ripples catching the light in all the wrong places, the kind I'd spent years scrubbing raw in the shower, trying to smooth away what was never going to disappear. Beneath my lower belly, reddish-purple stretch marks fanned out. Bruises, scars from endless diets abandoned in tears behind bathroom doors. Each failure left a mark, staining what was already covered indisappointment. Darkened patches clung to my inner thighs and creases—evidence of a body waging war against itself.

Every flaw felt like punishment for a crime I didn't remember committing. But I was still paying for it daily.

"Five things," I whispered to my reflection, voice crumbling. "Just find five things you like about yourself, Oakley." The girl in the mirror stared back, a stranger wearing my face, her collarbones sharp enough to cut, shoulders curved inward like parentheses around an empty space. My therapist's exercise had seemed simple—just five small mercies, five fragments of self-worth to cling to. Dr. Sarah made it sound as easy as breathing.

I hated that part most. The quiet voice asked,If your parents loved you, why are you still like this?

If love could fix me, I would've been happy at twelve.

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