Rebel Hearts

“I said I want to wait, okay?” I snap.

His sympathetic expression becomes a frown. “Listen, I’m just trying to help. None of this is even my fault. I don’t have to—”

“I know, I’m sorry,” I say in a softer voice. “I just… It’s a lot to take in. I need some time to think is all.” I can’t afford to piss Alec off, or to give him any reason to think I might not be around for that interview he and his friends are assuming I’ll grant the police.

I need time to think, and to plan how I’m going to keep the courtroom scenario from happening. I can’t end up on the stand.

I just can’t. I won’t live through it. It will blow out the last flame of hope inside me, and I’ll never get that fresh start I’ve been dreaming about. If I go down that road, I’m never coming back again.

I’m going to have to run, but not to some nowhere town in Middle America or the studio apartment in Cape Cod I’ve been daydreaming about. I’ll have to go farther, someplace where no news stations are following the scandal at SU and no one cares that I’m a witness in a felony trial. Somewhere where I can disappear into a new life and none of the bad things from the past can ever find me.

Even before I say goodbye to Alec—promising to call him if I change my mind about the lawyer and want him on the phone when I call Penny to ask for money—I’m already plotting my new escape route. But this time, I won’t be able to take any of the good things with me. I won’t be able to finish my degree with this hanging over my head, the university might even decide to kick me out of school, once they learn the truth. My education is over, and I’m going to be leaving Sterling with nothing but what I can carry in my suitcase, heading out into the world even more alone and friendless than I thought I’d be.

Unless…

I reach where I parked my car, but don’t open the door to get inside. Instead, I pull out my phone and stare at Danny’s number, wondering if maybe I don’t have to leave all of the good things behind, after all.

Maybe I’ve been looking at this the wrong way, and I don’t have to run off and carry this load alone for the rest of my life. Maybe Danny and I can run away together and leave all of the ugliness behind.

I just have to decide how far I’m willing to go to keep the one person who matters by my side.

Chapter Nine

Samantha

Present Day

“The great object of life is sensation—

to feel that we exist, even though in pain.”

-Lord Byron

* * *

I wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of someone moaning, and for a terrifying moment I have no idea where I am.

I freeze in bed, hands clutching the scratchy wool blanket and pulling it up to my neck, instinctively moving to conceal myself though I know hiding under the covers won’t do any good if someone’s broken in.

The moan comes again, a long, low, miserable sound from the opposite side of the room. I’m about to ask who’s there when my eyes adjust to the darkness and I make out the silhouettes of the other bunk beds filling the space and my mind catches up with my body.

I remember that I’m in the girls’ dorm at the hostel and that the man at the desk said there would be a full house tonight. Twelve girls in the beds and another girl bunking on the floor in the corner—even though that’s technically against the law. But the guy with the beads threaded into his beard on duty tonight said he couldn’t stand to turn a girl out to sleep on the streets. He was willing to risk a fire code violation if we were all willing to make room for one more.

Eight of the girls in the room are on a mission trip to help build homes for the needy and the rest of us came close enough to not having a place to sleep that we could empathize. We even helped move the beds around to give our thirteenth—a tiny girl with dreads who’s on her way to work on a communal farm—room to crash.

Everyone at the hostel has been very nice, and done their best to make Danny and me feel welcome, but even all that niceness can’t banish the memory of that kid’s knife at my throat, or the way it felt to be pressed so tight against a stranger’s body. For a few minutes, I’d been transported back to New Year’s Eve.

I’d relived it all in fast motion, images and sense memories racing through my head so fast the world started to spin. But for the first time, the memories didn’t make me feel scared. I’d been enraged, so furious I’d fought back without thinking about the consequences, and I don’t regret it. I would rather die than be a victim. I’m not going to let anyone hold me down, not ever again.