to swallow me whole. It sucked me down and forced me to watch as the worst parts of my life infiltrated my mind. The memories trapped me mentally as I had been trapped physically.
“Fuck!” Rafe yelled, startling me for a brief moment in time.
But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to pull me out of it. To save me from it. That nothingness that had been an unending nightmare.
“What the fuck is going on?” Dom said from behind us.
“Help me, Dom. Please help me.” I reached out for him blindly, tried to find him when my brain was dark.
The black pulled me under again, made me numb to the room around me.
But they were too late. We were all too late. He had found me. Pulled me back and forced me to watch. Again.
**
“Fucking look at me, Willow. You want to save her, don’t you?” Ethan said, his voice warm and soft.
The girl in his arms couldn’t be any older than fifteen. Her young body already slashed to ribbons by the scalpel he held. Her blood dripped from the cutting implement designed to help heal people.
I looked at her eyes. Mostly swollen shut, the blue irises were hazed and unfocused. Good. I hoped she’d found a happy place. A place where he couldn’t hurt her.
A place I was never allowed to find.
I tried to get my tongue to move, my lips to move. Any part of me to move. But I couldn’t. I was locked in this hellscape with no way to flee.
He sliced her again. Part of her flesh fell to the plastic lined floor.
She didn’t move. Didn’t jerk. Nothing. Lifeless as a doll. At least she had that small blessing.
Ethan sneered. “That’s all you’ve got, Willow? That’s pathetic. Try again and make me believe it or her death will be on your hands.”
I used every part of me to move, to flutter an eyelash, to save her by some kind of movement. But I failed. I failed with this mother’s baby who didn’t deserve to be abducted by a sociopath.
Just like all the others I couldn’t save. The countless mother’s babies, sisters, girlfriends, fiancés I’d been unable to save. Like ticker tape, they flashed through my mind. Every ethnicity, every race, every age between eleven and twenty-five, every body type. They didn’t matter to him. Not really. They only mattered as leverage for the horror he inflicted on me.
And that…that was the fact that damned me to hell. I hadn’t been strong enough. Been able to fight the drugs well enough. I wasn’t strong enough when I finally got to leave the prison I called a home. I wasn’t brave enough to tell someone what was happening.
They were dead.
And it was all my fault.
**
Pain—sweet and beautiful—slid through my mind. Forced the memories back into the deep dark place I kept them. I came back to my body with a sharp short scream.
My eyes flashed open. Light seared through my nerves as cold wet agony slammed through my body. My head fell back on a gasp.
“That’s enough, Penn. Touch her again and I’ll fucking kill you right here,” Dom shouted from far away.
Something grabbed my chin, pulled my head down.
Brilliant green eyes probed my own. “You back, cupcake?”
A smile pulled my mouth wide. “You saved me again.” The words were barely audible.
Ryker tightened his grip on my chin. “What’s my name?”
My eyelids drooped low for a moment. “Ryker.”
“Ryker what?”
“Ryker Penn.”
“Open your eyes, cupcake. I need to see those pretty eyes.”
My lids felt like weights, but I got them up enough to see his handsome face. I’d been lying before. He definitely was in the same league as Chris Hemsworth.
Ryker’s lips quirked. “I’m going to remind you of saying that. What’s your name?”
I tsked him. “Not remembering a lady’s name is in poor manners, Mr. Penn.” My lids tried to close again as another surge of pain swept through my mind.
“Name or the pain ends,” Ryker snarled.
My eyes popped open. “Willow Koa Chase. Don’t let it stop. Please, Ryker. You have to keep me here. Don’t let it get me.” I could feel the tears burning, pushing at the back of my throat. He couldn’t let the memories win. He couldn’t do that to me. Please.
Another hot surge of pain floated through my mind.
I sighed as I tried to bundle myself up in it. Wear that prickly warmth like a favorite blanket on a cold night.
Ryker slapped my cheek lightly. “Come all the way back or it ends and I’ll