Page 68 of Badd Love
"Connor said he would drive your car," Saleh said. "I will take him home."
I sniffled. "Okay. Thank you, Saleh."
"Of course, my dear. Of course."
I barely remember anything else past that—streetlights, stop lights, motion, Saleh having a quiet conversation in Arabic on his phone while driving; mostly, I had Danny's face, his voice, his hands, his everything vile flashing through my brain.
I remember Saleh escorting me upstairs to my apartment.
And then I was dreaming. I was fifteen. Danny and my older brother, Larry, had been gone all week on a bro trip to Baja. It had been great having them gone. It meant Danny couldn't corner me. In the dream-memory, I was in bed asleep. Something woke me up—a sound of some sort. My eyes had flicked open to see my door easing open. A tall, lanky frame filled the doorway, backlit by the nightlight from the hallway. I had scooted against the wall and curled up in a ball, already crying as Danny approached.
"No," I'd whimpered. "No. Please."
He'd shushed me, placed a hand stinking of cigarettes over my mouth. His belt had jingled as he fumbled with his baggy, oversized jeans. I'd worn a T-shirt and loose shorts to bed. He'd yanked the leg of my shorts aside, hand over my mouth, muffling my whimpers as he took what he wanted from me; the only good thing about Danny was that he never lasted more than a minute or two, so at least it was over fast.
"Keep your whore mouth shut," he'd hissed in my ear, breath stinking of vodka and cigarettes and halitosis. "If I can come in here and do this and no one knows, I could kill you in your sleep. You say a word about this to anyone, and I fucking will. You'll wake up with my hands around your whore throat."
I was a whore because he raped me. Makes sense, huh? Real sweet guy, Larry's BFF. Of course, Larry was a piece of shit himself, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he was doing something similar to some poor girl somewhere. He'd left me, then, and I'd lain there awake for hours, weeping silently before I couldsummon the courage to sneak into the bathroom to clean up. Which meant getting in the shower and scrubbing myself till my skin bled.
I jolted awake, sobbing in relief when I realized I was twenty-two and alone in my apartment, not fifteen and waiting for Danny to sneak in again.
"Fucking fuck me," I rasped, sitting up and wiping my face. “Howthe fuckdid Danny find me?"
I fixed myself coffee and tried to enjoy it, but every time I blinked, I saw his evil little eyes widening as he realized it was me. The nasty things he'd said to me even before he knew it was me.
My skin crawled, and I clawed at my forearms, my chest between my breasts, my stomach. Fuck. The crawling, creeping, slimy, grimy sensation coating my skin worsened with each successive heartbeat until it felt like I had spiders under my skin, slime mold growing from my pores.
I dumped my coffee down the sink and all but sprinted for the bathroom, ripping my clothes off as I went, keening through gritted teeth, fighting the mother of all breakdowns. I twisted the hot water on and climbed in before it was even hot—the abrupt cold shocked my system and the breath out of me, leaving me paralyzed and gasping until the water started to slowly heat up until it was just off a boil. Which is what I needed—to scald off the filth.
Yet even after scrubbing myself raw in water hotter than the fires of Mt. Doom, I still felt filthy and violated all over again.
I was afraid.
Sick to my stomach.
And I realized, as I stood naked in front of the full-length mirror on the back of my closet door, that I've spent the last several years hiding from this feeling. Running from it.Burying it. Ignoring it. Pretending that Danny didn't exist unless someone else brought him up, or what he did.
Last night made it agonizingly clear that this approach wasn't fucking working.
I have to face him.
I have to look him in the eye—without giving in to the urge to claw that eyeball out of his skull—and find a way to make peace with myself. Not with him. Not with what he did. With myself.
I chose my outfit with care. It started with my favorite pair of booty-lifting underwear and a matching push-up bra. My best leggings, which make my ass look great—with lifting underwearplusthe leggings, Dane would take one look at my ass and spontaneously combustWHYtheFUCKam I thinking about him right now? I put him out of my mind and pulled on the pièce de résistance of my outfit: a fitted V-neck tank top that took my cleavage to eleven. I styled my hair loose and wavy. Smoky, dramatic makeup.
Bombshell.
It was a fuck-you outfit.
I stuffed my shit into my purse and headed for my car; there was only one hospital within a thirty-minute drive of the bar where I worked, which is the only place Saleh could've taken Danny. I drove there, parked in the back of the lot, and made the long walk to the ER desk. Yes, they'd had a patient by that name last night; he had been admitted to the ICU last and was upstairs. I pretended to be his worried girlfriend and wheedled his room number out of the lady behind the desk. Which, might I add, was some god-tier acting on my part. There was a teary-eyed sniffle, a catch in my voice, and a wobble in my lip. I wasgood.
I marched down the hallways feeling like Beatrix Kiddo, just needed an eyepatch. I even whistled that jaunty melody as Icatwalked toward his room, catching the eye of doctors, nurses, and orderlies alike. I reached room 1244 and hesitated outside.
I had no clue what I was going to say or do. I reminded myself sternly that I was there totalkto him, andonlytalk…no matter how tempting it was to steal a syringe and inject air between his toes.
"Donotkill him, Lindsey Snelling," I murmured out loud.
A mammoth orderly paused as he passed me, pushing a cart. He lifted an eyebrow in my direction. "I need to worry about what's gonna happen in there?" he asked me.
