Taken by Lies (Truth or Lies 1)

Her eyes widen, our bodies halt, but my voice carries, bouncing off the walls, echoing through the room. We wait for the reverberations to stop.

Her tears threaten again. This is what I need an answer to. This. I’ve finally hit a lie I need the truth of. It’s the key to healing her.

“Why don’t you like being touched?” I slow my voice.

She looks down, ignoring me.

“Why don’t you like being touched, Kai? I’ve experienced torment before, but it doesn’t make you stop hating other people’s touch. If anything, it makes you seek it out more. It makes you desperate for pleasure, comfort, love, anything that can erase the pain.”

Nothing.

“What happened, Kai?!”

I grab her forearm before I realize what I’m doing.

Kai screams, but I’m not sure if it’s from surprise at being grabbed, pain, or pleasure. Her scream carries, as the electricity pulses back and forth between us. Pushing us to the edge of joy before ripping us down with the sharp ache as the heat and cold fight with each other.

I only touch her for a second, before I correct my mistake, but it’s enough to know she is definitely hiding the truth from me. Because her reaction is beyond anything normal.

Instead of pushing her again, I change my tactic. “Why come back to the barbarian who sold you?”

She holds her forearm carefully in her other hand, as she stares at the spot where I touched her. A single tear rolls down her cheek.

“Because I am nothing. I can’t be healed. They broke me, permanently.

“I used to think someone would save me. My father or best friend would come and rescue me. I even fantasized you might come and take me away. But when I broke, they said I was free.

“When I came back to Miami, I knew I wasn’t. I was alone, surrounded by people who didn’t care enough to come for me. I didn’t want to go back to them. The only thing that seemed to matter was my need for answers. I risked everything to learn the truth. I risked my life because I already knew no one would save me. I couldn’t even save myself. The truth became my everything, but now that I know one truth, I realize the truth isn’t worth my life.”

More tears fall down her rosy cheeks.

“If

you could take our previous game back, where you lost your life to me, you would?”

“Yes.”

23

Kai

“You saved yourself, that’s how you got free,” Enzo says encouraging me despite me never having asked a question, trying to pretend like my life isn’t the mess that it is—trying to give me some sense of encouragement.

My eyes glisten with the tears. I didn’t cry for six years—hardly a single tear fell. And now, I feel like I can’t shut them off for the stupidest of reasons.

“No, I didn’t save myself.”

“Then, how did you get free?”

I’ve already told him, but he wasn’t listening, or he needs confirmation that the words I spoke were true, and I wasn’t exaggerating.

“I was deemed broken. It was a game to them. Jarod wanted to break me, and then the men had no use for me anymore. Jarod said I could be free if I broke, so I broke. And then they dumped me on a park bench.”

Enzo curses under his breath. It’s beautiful how he feels all of my agony. It makes me more attracted to him than solely his physical allure. It’s a stupid thought to think he could be more than a beast.

“Where did they keep you?”

“In a room with no furniture.”