Page 79 of Drown Like Heaven
I just didn’t know how much longer I had until that happened.
You’re going to rip me apart and apart and apart. Until there’s nothing left of me. I don’t know how to stop you.
He loosened his grip just enough for me to speak, my head still fuzzy with the lack of blood flow to my brain.
“I can’t show you it.” And I didn’twantto, because the closer he got to the darkest parts of me, the less armor I had.
“But you will.” He ran his hot mouth over my jaw. “I’ll make you.”
“No you won’t. I’m more stubborn than you think I am.” I exposed my throat as Mason tilted his head downwards.Bite my flesh. Stop trying to break into my mind.
“Why did the deer run away, Dakota?”
My breath caught, stalled in my lungs. I felt much more unsteady than I had a second ago.
“Hmm?” he murmured against my neck, sucking my skin into my mouth, bruising me with his teeth.
My first memory. The doe in my backyard, standing so still.Prey.
“I don’t know why,” I reminded him.
But I did know why, didn’t I?
She ran because she was scared.
It didn’t matter what scared her now—I’d never know exactly what it was that started her running back then—but in that moment, she’d feared for her life. Even if only for an instant, she feltunsafe. That was why she ran away into the woods.
To protect herself.
Prey. Prey. Prey.
I shut my eyes, trying to focus on the feel of Mason’s mouth on my skin, but he washurtingme and I knew he wouldn’t stop and I didn’t know how far he was going to go this time and sometimes I felt like he only wanted me in this way.Do you want to scare me? Make me flinch? Make me run?
“Tell me more about her,” Mason said, changing his position and holding my face in both his hands. I kept my eyes shut, pressure behind them making me feel like crying again.
“There’s nothing else to say. The memory is blurry.”
“Tell it to me again.”
I could sense the frown trying to tug on my lips. “It was nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. It’s part of you. There’s a reason your brain remembered this moment.”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, my words getting lost to the wind and rain. I wanted to tell him to stop, to leave me the hell alone, but my mouth wouldn’t form the words. “I was looking out the back window. We had blinds, which were blocking my view, so I had to push them up. And she was justthere, standing in the grass. She was young enough to still have little white spots, but old enough to be on her own. Not a baby, but young.”
“And you were worried she was going to run away.”
“I guess so.”Yes.
“And she did.”
“Yes. She did.” My response sounded cracked and choked up, the lump in my throat growing until I could no longer swallow it down.
Mason’s voice got quieter, softer. I knew he was watching my face.
“Did you run away, too?”
Quietness filled the air, and all I could hear were my memories reverberating in my head.Yelling, fighting, a hand hitting the counter, a fist hitting the wall, an engine turning over.
