CHAPTERTWO
Stella
My first thought is that someone has filled my veins with concrete and stuffed cotton into my brain.
My second is that the beeping and the voices are loud as fuck.
“I think her eyes flickered.”
That voice. I know that voice.
The beeping gets faster.
“Stella?” Warmth spreads from my hand and up my arm.
What is that?
“Stella? Open your eyes, baby.”
The voice is closer this time.
“We should call the nurse,” someone else says, someone farther away.
“No, just wait,” the voice snaps.
My entire body jolts when something touches my face. A soft brush of fingers against my cheek.
“Come on, baby. Come back to me,” the voice whispers so quietly I’m certain only I can hear it.
I fight to understand, to get any kind of grasp on reality. It’s there. Right fucking there, but I can’t quite reach it.
His touch continues, and while it feels nice, comforting, something still feels wrong. There’s something deep inside me that wants to pull away.
Sebastian.
Right as that realization hits me, the darkness consumes me once more and everything fades away.
It’s not a bad place as I sink into the nothingness the blackness provides. Well, not to start with.
But then images start becoming clear in my mind.
The graveyard. Nico’s basement. His bathroom.
Memories of having Seb’s hands on me, of him thrusting inside me make my temperature spike before the image of him on his knees before me with my knife in his hand carving his name into me becomes so clear I almost feel like I’m right back there. Pain radiates from my thigh as I watch the blood pool against my pale skin.
The movie in my head continues, taking me back through the next morning when he humiliated me in front of his friends. Him visiting me in my bedroom, the way he played my body, the things he said to me… they all feel so real. The fight with the guys Calli and I went out with is the last thing I remember before the beeping comes back to me.
This time things are clearer, my head cooperating with my body as I come to.
Dragging my eyelids open in that moment is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
I regret even bothering when the bright electric light burns my retinas and makes my head pound.
For a second, all I can see is the white light. I don’t even hear the words that are being said to me, or the scrape of the chair legs against the floor as someone rushes over.
“Stella. Stella, baby. It’s okay.”
I blink a couple of times and my surroundings begin to clear—or more so, the face right in front of mine.