I was mending.
I was grateful.
I would evolve.
This was my new life now.
And I’m not going to waste it.
Surveying the mess in Gem’s house, I blinked back tiredness and began to earn my keep.
I cleaned.
I cleaned until her house sparkled and exhaustion leaped on my back.
I cleaned until my mind felt clearer, calmer.
And only once I was satisfied that the mess was tidy did I stumble to the couch, grab her delicious-smelling pillow, and land face-first into unconsciousness.
* * * * *
“Any last words?” My hand held the knife to some rapist’s throat, poised to slit him from ear to ear.
“Yeah, tell that Nyx chick that she’ll never be free of me.”
I looked over my shoulder at Nyx.
She stood with her legs braced and arms crossed. Blood trickled down her cheek, and tears danced in her eyes, but she wasn’t cowering, wasn’t running. She was done being their possession, and I was so fucking proud of her.
“You’re wrong, asshole. I’ve already forgotten you,” she hissed. Her eyes latched onto mine, glowing with death. “Do it. Kill that son of a bitch so we can walk in the sunlight.”
My hand sliced.
The guy howled.
Warm copper splashed my face and throat.
Rising from my squat, I caught a glimpse of myself in a blackened mirror.
Only...it wasn’t me.
One blue eye and one brown stared back.
Hair flopped over my forehead.
Retribution gleamed on my face.
My lips moved, but it wasn’t me who spoke. It was Jareth. “No one is safe from me.” My teeth flashed in the mirror, stained in blood and vows. “No one.”
I woke in a cold sweat, my legs thrashing under a blanket, my mind still half in my dream and half panicking with confusion.
Jareth.
He needed my help.
He wasn’t safe.
They’d hurt him.
I let out a pained grunt, trying to understand where the fuck I was.
A hand landed on my chest, pushing me down as I tried to launch upright. “Whoa, buddy, just a bad dream. You’re all good.”
A stranger’s hand on me.
A man’s voice in my ears.
Ah, shit.
The trigger set off a detonation inside me.
Every man who’d ever touched me, every voice that’d ever teased me, and every fucking minute of agony I’d been given flooded through my brain.
I lost touch with reality.
Panic roared through my system.
I.
Lost.
It.
The man’s hand pushed me harder, trying to keep me lying down. “I told you, buddy. It’s all good. Just calm down, alright?”
His fingers bit into me.
I was a kid again.
A kid being held down for someone to rape and hurt.
No.
Fuck, no.
Rage I couldn’t control drenched everything.
I’d kill him.
I’d rip his cock off and tear out his heart—
My eyes snapped open, my hands wrapped around the wrist holding me down, and I let go of everything.
It was so easy.
Too easy.
The guy went flying across the room and crashed into the TV as I swooped to my feet with balled hands. It’d taken no effort at all. A simple flex of power. A dark decision to no longer be the victim.
He was my victim.
He would pay for every fucking thing I’d endured.
The guy rolled onto his hands and knees just as the TV toppled from the table and crashed to the floor in a splinter of glass.
I didn’t recognize any of it.
Where the hell am I?
I blinked at a coffee table with neatly stacked maps and climbing pamphlets in front of me. A sparkling kitchen in the morning sunshine existed behind me.
Everything seemed small and strange and—
“Who the hell are you?” the stranger stood, brushing off TV glass from his jeans. A small trickle of blood appeared in the corner of his mouth.
I was past words.
I was nothing but fists and fury.
He’d trespassed.
He’d entered this place where—
Gemma!
Her face and wonderful kindness shoved its way past my anger. Memories flooded me from yesterday. This was her place. This was her living room. I’d cleaned it last night and—
“You gonna answer me, asshole?” The man splayed his legs a little as if readying for war. His hands came up. “Where’s my sister? What the hell did you do with Gemma?”
I crouched, ready to strike.
My instincts overtook me.
I couldn’t control them.
Couldn’t get the possessiveness to fade.
Some part of me knew this was Gem’s brother. I’d seen him on the video. He meant me no harm. He meant Gemma no harm.
But fuck, the blood from my dream was still in my nose.
Jareth’s voice howled in my ears.
My body burned from his unwanted touch.
No one. Fucking no one was allowed to touch me without consent again.
Darkness descended over any rational sanity I had left.
I shook my head, trying to snap out of it before it was too late.
Gem!
“Oi, you bastard!” The man didn’t give me a chance to stop myself. Completely unaware that I was seconds away from murdering him, he stalked around the coffee table and stabbed me in the shoulder with his finger. “Tell me where she is!” He stabbed me again, triggering self-preservation. “Tell me, right now! Otherwise, I’m gonna knock you so hard on your ass, I’ll be able to pull whatever answers I want out of you!”