Redesigning Fate (Revive #1) - A. M. Wilson Page 0,111

remember all the shit I let him get away with. I’ve been pushed around my entire life, and it was easy to not fight back, to let myself believe I deserved to be pushed around by him too.

Never again. This is my life I’m fighting for, and I won’t fall victim to him again. I promised myself that once. Now it’s time to live up to my promise.

The second cut tears through my shirt, splitting it to my breasts. I suck in a breath when his hands grip the serrated edges, peeling them to the sides to reveal the dingy bra beneath. He growls audibly as he stares as if mesmerized by the sight of my chest. His eyes take on a depth of longing I haven’t seen them reflect in years. His tongue swipes his lips and his teeth sink down into the lower one as his eyes rake down my torso. When his hand cups one breast, I close my eyes, forcing my teeth into the inside of my cheek until blood floods into my mouth.

I will not scream. I will not scream. I will not scream.

Travis is vile. He’s getting some sick satisfaction from watching me lie here against my will, completely vulnerable to him. Even though he’s laid his hands on me before, I have a hard time reconciling this Travis with the one I had once loved, the one who had once saved me. The one I had once trusted.

The thoughts fade abruptly when I feel the cool touch of metal between my breasts, and my eyes fly open. Travis yanks upwards, and the remainder of my soiled bra falls away, draping limply off my shoulders. A whimper escapes my mouth, and I blink back the tears that flood my eyes unbidden.

“Are you going to beg me, Lena?” he asks, the tip of his blade circling my left nipple, toying with me, making me a game.

I hang onto my silence with every ounce of strength I have.

“No? You don’t have anything to say to me? Hmm…” Travis brings the blade to the base of my throat. “Maybe I’ll just have to make you beg.”

Not when he brings his mouth to my throat.

Not when his mouth trails a path down my neck.

Not when he bites down on my breast.

Some might think there’s no point in dignity if there isn’t anybody to witness it; Give in and maybe your death will be a little less painful. But I won’t let my last moments be of me pleading with a sick bastard to let me free when he has no intention of doing so. I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing for the last moments of my life, he had me begging for mercy and he didn’t give it to me. I want him to know that even in the direst situation he will not control me. He has no power over me.

Travis begins to lose himself in my body as I remain silent and still. He mutters to himself about worshipping my body one last time. His face buries in the crook of my neck, one hand holding the knife loosely to my throat. I can feel his sickly hot breath against my ear, and I shiver. Travis’s free hand snakes down between my legs. Violently and without preamble, he begins rubbing fiercely against the fabric between my thighs, his groans picking up in intensity. In a moment of misplaced passion, the hand grasping the blade slides around my neck to twine in my hair, and I seize my chance.

With as much strength as I can muster, I use my free leg to bury my knee into his gut. He grunts in pain as he pulls back from my neck. I rear back, smashing my right fist into the side of his head before he can fight back. His eyes look slightly dazed, and before he recovers, I kick my other leg into his face, knocking him on his back.

Something breaks inside of me.

A part of me, pent up rage and anger at my father; displaced abandonment from my brother; pain and sadness from losing my mother, is unleashed.

A blackness settles within my mind. All thought long forgotten as I throw myself on top of Travis’s howling frame where he lies on the dirty floor. One after another, my fists fly against the side of his face, and a pain I’ve never let myself feel has broken free, fueling each punch, each hit, and a raw