Jax stood in the middle of her living room, barefoot, his mural of tats disappearing from view as he pulled a shirt over his chest. His jeans hung open in the front. It wasn’t his state of undress that bothered me as much as the guilty expression on his face.

9. Always - Alex

9. ALWAYS - ALEX

Zach’s psychological warfare took a toll on my entire being. I often lost hours while he forced my body and spirit into an uncontrollable pleasure zone. Maybe I’d retain a small amount of sanity if my memory would only disappear into that dark hole.

But it didn’t. I always recalled the total mind-fuck he put me through daily. Time soared past, as if it had wings, and while on the ecstasy, I not only believed I had wings, but I used them to fly. It was ironic, really. Zach drugged me because he thought doing so would bring me back to him, but when I was high, I fell into an alternate reality where Rafe was still alive for a few precious hours.

The crash back to Earth never failed to gut me. I stared at the waterfall in horror, unable to stop shuddering. Thick foliage protected us from discovery, but that rush of water, toppling over rocks and crashing below, threatened to pull me into its depths. The thought was irrational, yet every bone in my body believed the lie—the facade my phobia enforced.

It wasn’t that long ago that Zach had laid me near the ledge, lifting the skirt of my dress up past my breasts. I’d been so high on his reality-altering cocktail, I’d opened my mouth to catch the spray misting down on us, unmindful of the threat that existed only a few feet away as he’d hunched between my spread thighs and feasted.

Again, some sick and twisted part of my psyche had believed it was Rafe. Maybe it was my subconscious tricking me in order to cope. All that remained was shame. Sadness. Sorrow that ran so deep, my muscles ached with it. I tried to hide my pathetic state from Zach, knowing how my tears pissed him off. He expected the old me—the girl who clenched her jaw and took his cock like a trooper—not this blubbering, serotonin-depleted shell of myself who pretended he was another man to keep from wanting to slit my wrists.

But the pain in my soul wouldn’t stop overflowing from my eyes, and incurring his wrath was an inevitability.

“Time to snap the fuck out of it!” He lifted me from behind, arms winding around my waist, and carried me down the steep path to the water’s edge. I kicked and screamed, nearly causing him to lose his balance on the way.