Page 14 of Black Castle

The silence is too suffocating, too loud, so the memories come back. Not in fragments at all. Not in vague flickering flashes. It’s a full, vivid reel playing behind her closed eyes.

And it comes to stay.

His weight presses her down. Then the stench of cigarette and sweat. Her muscles lock, her throat sealed, and her body betrays her.

No, no, no.

Her breath hitches, sharp, uneven. And her fingers claw at her chest as if she can tear out whatever filth he left inside her.

She doesn’t realize she has pushed up her arm warmers again until her nails begin to dig into her scar, the recent one that became two weeks old today. But the pain barely registers because nothing can hurt more than these memories haunting her.

A loud blare of a horn thunders from behind her window.

“Kenji,” she whispers, leaping off the floor and dashing to the window. There is her best friend, Kenji Sato, the luxurious Range Rover Sport his Mom got for him on his seventeenth birthday parked on her lawn, an unknown pop song blasting from the speaker.

“No, no,” she leans off the window, her hand furiously wiping at her tears, and layer by layer, her concealer begins to come off.

But she doesn’t want Kenji to see her like this. She doesn’t want him to ask questions. Because the answer to this question is one she must carry to her grave.

Running to her dresser, she pulls up her tiny makeup box and begins the same pattern. Three different layers of concealer and a blush that comes in a silky feel and glittery look.

The horn comes again. If the third one goes off, he will come inside. He will see that guy whose name she still doesn’t even know, perched on the kitchen stool. He will ask if that is Isadora’s infamous boyfriend. And she might let her mask slip. She might get emotional. She might tell him what happened.

And he might be disgusted by her, just as she is by herself. He might think she is cursed, too. Kenji is all she has. She can’t afford to lose him.

So when she dashes out of the building with her backpack strapped to her shoulder, she hopes her mask worked.

“What took you so long?” Kenji asks suspiciously as she slides into the passenger side of the car.

“Woke up late.” She tries to avoid his eyes by pretending to be working her seatbelt.

“Your eyes are red?” His fingers curl under her chin, turning her face to his. A frown causes his eyebrows to pinch, a flash of worry in his eyes.

“Mascara.” She doesn’t even have to think too hard. It’s like her brain is already used to this. The word was just there, hanging on the tip of her tongue, ready to be echoed.

“Mascara?” He raises a brow, his hand dropping from her chin.

“Gosh, that shit hurts like hell.” She keeps up the act, sucking in air sharply through her teeth so he can feel the weight of how much the mascara really hurts.

“Sorry about that,” he murmurs, starting the car.

Vivienne releases a sigh of relief. Kenji doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice the sadness in her eyes. He doesn’t notice the tremble in her fingers. He doesn’t hear the echo of the shattered piece of her heart in her voice.

He doesn’t know anything. Or maybe she just unlocked a new level. Maybe she has become good at masking it all.

Chapter Five

Vivienne

Marlene’s sudden imposing presence in Vivienne’s room raises hairs on her skin. The space quickly becomes too small, too hot, and suffocating.

She is standing at the doorway, a glass of red wine in one hand, the other hand braced lightly on the frame.

Pulling her gaze from the sketch on her tablet, Vivienne reluctantly looks up at her. If her stepmother is suddenly in her room at 10 pm, she definitely wants to address an issue. Vivienne can only hope it won’t end up with a new set of marks across her back.

“I noticed you seem unusually off today during dinner,” she says, her voice casual and smooth. “Is there anything you might like to tell me?”

Vivienne stiffens, her hold on her stylus pen tightening. She has no idea why in the two years her boyfriend has been coming and going, Isadora suddenly decided they should have dinner together. But today, they did anyway. And it was as if an invisible hand was wrapped around Vivienne’s throat the entire time, sitting across from the man who sexually assaulted her, degraded her, made filth of her, silenced her.

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