I lost it.
I couldn’t keep—Jesus, why wasn’t she fighting me? I needed her to fight me.
I needed it to breathe. I needed it to—There was so much pressure inside me. I felt like a balloon ready to pop, and I had to hurt her to make some of it go away.
That arm wasn’t restraining me.
That arm was just holding me. A chest came up behind me, and I knew that chest.
Kash was standing there behind me, holding me, and his head bent. His lips were on my shoulder.
I was still trembling.
I hated Victoria. I hated her with everything in me.
She was the one who did all of this…
No.
I stopped, freezing in place.
That wasn’t me talking in my head.
I smelled Chrissy. I felt her. I could hear her laughter, and I sagged in Kash’s arms.
I was done.
Everything Victoria did to me, I was doing to her.
Round and round.
The train never stops. But I was hurting. The pressure was building, building, building. It was going to rip me apart, and right behind it was pain. Just pure and horrifying and paralyzing pain, and I couldn’t feel that. I didn’t want to feel that. I wanted to rip apart my skin, push my hand deep inside, grab that pain, and yank it out of me.
I wanted it out of me for good.
Bailey.
That was my mom again. I was hearing me, and I knew she wasn’t there, but she was. She’d come back to haunt me.
“Mom,” I broke, my head folding down. My knees gave out, and down I went.
Kash caught me and he lifted me.
I curled into him, just needing him, and then he was moving through the crowd.
“Here.” That was Torie.
A door opened. We were through it. The club’s music faded.
Kash was carrying me down a hallway. Then we were in an elevator. We were going up, and then another hallway.
“Sir.” His guard.
A door opened, and then I was being lowered onto a couch.
I looked up, but the room was dark. There were neon lights flaring from a window behind him. He’d brought me to his office.
I hadn’t been in this room for so long.