Being Me (Inside Out #2)

Being Me (Inside Out #2)

Lisa Renee Jones




To Diego for his enduring belief in me and this series





Acknowledgments




I have so many people to thank for helping this series find its audience. First, Louise Fury, my agent, for reading If I Were You and feeling passionate enough about it to sing its praises from rooftops, and she really did pretty much jump on rooftops.

To Lori Perkins for jumping on those rooftops with her. Then Micki Nuding joined them and magic was created. Also, thank you to Shari Smiley, who has done such great things to bring the series to an entirely new audience. I also cannot say enough about the entire Simon & Schuster team. Everyone has taken such care with the series and shown great excitement.

I also want to thank the many bloggers, readers, and reviewers who read If I Were You early and told the world they had to read it, too! And continue to tell the world they need to read the series! Thank you so much!

And to my street team, The Underground Angels, for all your love, support, and efforts, to spread the word about my books. You really are my angels!





Journal 8, entry 1

Friday, April 27, 2012

Darkness surrounded me, a complete absence of light that left me shaking inside. No. It wasn’t the darkness that had me shaking. It was him. I could feel him, even if I could not see him. Oh yes, I could feel him. In every pore of my body, every nerve ending I owned, I could feel him. Stalking me. Claiming me, even though he hadn’t touched me yet. I was completely at his mercy, naked and on my knees, in the center of a soft wool rug. Tight bands held my calves to my thighs, while another set of ties wrapped my chest and held my arms behind my back. It hurt in a bittersweet, arousing way, and while I felt exposed and vulnerable, I’ve come to know those things arouse me in ways I never thought possible. It isn’t logical really, how I can feel scared of where he will take me next, and still quiver with arousal. And I was scared as I knelt there in the darkness. Scared of how little control I have over my own body’s response, how much he controls me when I do not. How much I need him to control me. I do not recognize this part of me now, as I write this, but when I’m with him, I become what he wants me to be. I become his willing slave, even though I’ve come to know I am only a token in his games. He’s promised me nothing other than to possess me. He will never belong to me as I do to him. I will never control him as he does me. I play by his rules and I never know how they will change, or what, or who will be part of the new game each of our encounters become. And last night, when a spotlight suddenly shone down on me and me alone, when he stepped out of the darkness to stand before me, it was the man standing by his side that jolted me to the core. Two of them, one of whom I despise being with us and he knows it, yet he still invited this person to share me. I wanted to object. I should have objected. But there in that room, I wasn’t Rebecca. I was just his. Sometimes, in the morning light, when he cannot touch me, when we are apart, I think I want to just be me, to be Rebecca again. Only I’m not sure who that is. I’m not sure I know me anymore. Who is Rebecca Mason?





One




I am suffocating in a tunnel of complete, utter darkness created by the unexpected power outage in the storage unit I’ve been digging through in hopes of finding clues to Rebecca’s whereabouts. I have been thrust into the middle of a dreaded horror movie, the kind I hate watching, and I instantly picture myself as the girl who makes all the wrong moves and ends up bloody and lifeless. I, Sara McMillan, am a logical person, and I tell myself to reject my fear as irrational. This is simply one of the random power outages San Francisco has experienced in the past few months, and a mouse at my feet is the worst of my worries.

But then, isn’t that what the girl who gets killed in the horror movie always thinks, too? It’s just a power outage. It’s just a mouse. I was stupid to come here alone at night as it is and I try not to be stupid. I knew from a prior encounter that the attendant of this place was creepy but I dismissed him as a concern. I’d just been too darn desperate to feel I was doing something to find Rebecca, and desperate to take my mind off Chris’s silence since our text exchange this morning, when I’d confessed to missing him. I fear his trip out of town for a charity event has given him time to decide he doesn’t miss me. After all, he’d dared to show me one of his darkest secrets the night before and I’d done exactly what he’d said I would, and I’d sworn I wouldn’t, by pushing him away. Running away, I add silently, thinking of the words Chris had used quite often to predict my behavior.

Another popping sound permeates the eerie silence and I am officially freaking out about more than Chris’s silence. My mind struggles to identify the sound, with no results. Oh yes, indeed, I am so flipping stupid for coming here alone. And while I like to think I’m not stupid often, tonight proves that when I am, I do it in a big way.

I don’t dare move, let alone breathe, yet I can hear low, raspy pants and I know they are mine. I will myself to silence but it doesn’t work. My chest is tight, and air becomes harder to draw into my lungs. I need air. I need it desperately. I’m hyperventilating, I think. Yes. That’s it. I remember this same, almost out-of-body sensation, from the moment a doctor exited my mother’s hospital room five years ago and told me she was dead. Even knowing what is happening to me, I continue the damnable shallow gasps certain to give away my location. I do not understand how I can know what is happening to me and still not be capable of controlling it.