Prologue
Thea
“Thea.” I hear the whisper in the dark. “Thea.” I want to scream. “Thea.” I feel like my skin is crawling. He’ll find me any minute now, and I have no fight left in me.
“Come on out now, Thea.” His voice, once smooth and soft, full of care and love, now makes me want to vomit. It’s pure malice and devious intent.
This isn’t supposed to be my life. This isn’t how I should end.
I hate my mother for what she’s done to us, our family. She ruined everything. All so she could have someone take care of her. Finance her jet-setting trips across the globe. Never once did she think about me, what he would do to me.
She didn’t think about how my life would change.
Be decimated.
I’m ruined. Tainted. Broken.
I should just give myself over to him. Let him end me so I don’t have to suffer forever. Reliving tonight for the rest of my life would be worse than what he’s already inflicted upon me.
I hate him.
I hate her.
“I’m here,” I whisper from my hiding spot.
The demented smile on his face is the last thing I remember.
Chapter 1
Thea
“Eyes up, princess. On me. Always on me.” There is something different to his voice tonight. Something…new. Not quite right.
I just turned fifteen and Richard, my step-dad—or so my mom wants to call him—has been looking at me for months. Not in a fatherly way, either. It’s a cross between a sneer and unfettered desire.
I’ve never really liked him in the four years he’s been with Mom, but we’ve been cordial to one another. We have our disagreements every once in a while, and usually, get over them. He’s never crossed a line before.
Until now.
“Wh–what are you doing?” I stutter out in a weak voice.
“Exactly what your little fuck-me eyes have been begging me to do for months.” His voice is a whisper, but it sounds like nails on a chalkboard to me.
“I haven’t done anything.” My defense is weak. Not that it’s a lie because I haven’t done a damned thing to encourage this type of touching from him. I don’t dress as provocatively as some of the other girls at my school. I don’t flirt. I get good grades, do my homework. I tutor for crying out loud.
I’m the good girl!
So why is he doing this to me?
Deep down in my gut, I know tonight isn’t going to end well. Tonight is going to ruin everything.
I watch with terror in my heart as Richard closes my door, turning the lock, and strides towards my double-sized bed. I try to push back farther, to become smaller than my tiny five-foot-two frame allows, but I can’t.
I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I can’t focus. I can’t…
“Over here, Thea. Eyes. On. Me.” Each word is punctuated by the unbuttoning of his shirt. “You’re going to be Daddy’s good little princess, aren’t you?” It should have been a question, but it came out a demand. I have no choice.
“Please don’t do this,” I whisper. I hate how helpless I feel. I hate that I’m about to become a statistic.
In my own home.
“You know you want this, Thea. I’ve been waiting a long time. So be good for Daddy.” His knee makes the bed dip at the end as he reaches forward and grabs my ankle, pulling my trembling body down the comforter I’d just gotten. The one of soft silk and satin, the one I saved for six months to buy. Now, it’s going to be soiled. I’ll never be able to touch it again.
“Please, don’t.” I push his shoulders back, but he’s so much bigger than me, stronger. I don’t stand a chance. I don’t want this. I don’t want him. “Please.” Scorching tears stream down my face as he yanks my shorts from my legs.
Gasping for breath, I can feel my lungs seizing as I curl into a ball on the couch. I hate them so much. Everything is in shambles. Because of one night followed by lies piled on top of lies. No one ever cared about me, what I said, or the proof my body carried that night.
I was called a liar, a whore, attention grabber. I had to leave. To disappear. At sixteen years old, I became a runaway. I was smart about it, too. I didn’t go to a friend or hide in the high school gym.
I left. Town. The state. My mother. Everything.
Thea Andrews, naïve girl of Joplin, Missouri, daughter of Alexandra Andrews, a fatherless child, was declared missing. Presumed dead at the bottom of the Grand Falls River after I tossed my bag and sweater off a bridge.
I wanted them to think I was gone. To never know if I was dead or alive. It was the only retribution, revenge, or peace I was going to find.
I can still picture my mom’s beautifully made-up face, not a hair out of place, as she begged for information about me. Mascara was perfect, lips stained a deep red. If not for the press conference and law enforcement, you’d never know her only child was missing. Likely dead. She didn’t care. And Richard Dane only cared about the image I nearly tarnished. My disappearance was the best thing to happen to them.
They just won’t admit it to anyone but themselves.
I went back once, about a year ago. Two years after I disappeared. Nothing had changed for them. They were still together, happy as could be, only without the burden of me. It was like it never happened. Peo
ple acted as though I was never violated. Wrecked. Ruined.
I left in tears that day. The hate I harbor for them has settled so deeply into my bones that I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to move forward. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get past the pain and humiliation.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to look in the mirror, see the scars, both physically and mentally, and not think of that night.
On nights like tonight, where it’s quiet and calm, not a rustle from a branch in the breeze, I almost believe I can make it through.