Consumed(65)

A painful cry rips from the back of my throat and I realize that I’m crying. “I—I didn’t want to screw with Lucas’s music.”

Kylie makes a disgusted noise. “Screw Lucas’s music. You—you’re what’s important. Music will never be more important than you.”

Even after Kylie has to go five minutes later, those words are what stick with me.

After I send Ashley several messages to reassure her that YTS is definitely not breaking up, I spend the rest of the day doing laundry and helping my grandmother clean the cabin. Because she’s so observant, I make an extra effort, so she won’t notice how torn I am. But following dinner—which Seth comes over to help eat just to leave in favor of a frat party afterward—she tells me in the politest way possible to go out.

I cast a sideways glance to where she’s sitting in her recliner, her feet propped up as she watches an episode of one of her favorite reality shows—the one with roses and ridiculously gorgeous people “looking for true love.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me, Gram?” I tease.

Turning the corners of her mouth up, she motions her head in a negative motion. “No, I’m saying that I’m an 80 year old woman. You look like you could use a little company.”

Kicking off my pink flip-flops, I lie down on my side and smile over at her. “You’re 79, Gram. And I’m just fine staying right here.”

Keeping to her schedule, Gram goes to bed a couple of hours later. Alone, I watch TV until my brain begins to hurt. As I climb the steps to go upstairs, I reconsider my grandmother’s suggestion to go out. Pulling out my phone, I send Ashley a message asking what’s going on at her parents’ bar tonight. Twenty minutes late she messages to tell me about a Five Finger Death Punch cover band, and a few minutes after that, she sends another text.

10:39PM: I hope the silence means you’re getting dressed? I’m not working tonight, so I’m all yours.

After I drag on a pair of jeans and a white tee shirt with leather shoulders, I drive downtown. I loop the nearby area twice before I resign myself to parking in a paid lot several blocks away from The Beacon. I pay for my parking ticket at the automated machine, slide it onto my dashboard and grab my bag from the front seat.

I don’t hear someone coming up behind me, so I jump when I turn around to find a tall, lanky guy standing next to the front of my car. His face is worked into a pinched, angry scowl, and instinctively, I take a step back.

His nostrils flare. “You’ve. Fucked up. Everything.”

Backing up a few more steps, I shake my head quickly, darting my gaze around the empty parking lot in panic. “I think you’ve got me mistaken for—”

“Sienna? The bitch that’s going to ruin Lucas’s life? No, I don’t have you mistaken.” Seething, he moves closer towards me, reaching deep into his pocket for something.

My chest constricts and I struggle to find my voice. When I do, it’s small, barely audible. “No, I think you have me mixed with someone else, I—”

“I followed you from your house, you lying bitch,” he yells. And this—this is when the true fear sets in. I try to take off in the other direction, but he tackles me to the ground, knocking me onto my back. My head hits the ground with a sickening thud, and the air whooshes out of my body.

As the man sits on top of me, I struggle to breath. To think. To fight.

“Get off of me,” I wheeze.

When I open my mouth to scream, his fist slams into my stomach—once, twice. The only thing that stops the third hit is that I guard my belly with my hands, and then, the blow catches my wrist. Burning pain shoots through my arm. The next time I try to scream, his hands close around my throat.

This guy could kill me.

This guy could kill me, and he knows where I live.

My hands fly up to his arms, pushing and scratching. I scrape my fingernails into his skin, dragging roughly as my head starts to spin and my vision clouds. He lets out a howl, moving his hands from my throat to the sides of my face where he squeezes hard.

It’s the worst physical pain I’ve ever felt.

But it’s not cutting off my ability to make a noise.

This time, when I scream, it comes out. Hoarse. Broken. Dripping with fear.

His palm crashes into my face, making me dry heave.

Reaching out, I drag my fingers over the ground as I try to find something, anything that will help me fight this man off. When my fingertips tangle into my key chain, I grasp it and jab it up at the man’s face.