He starts to kiss my lips, my mouth, and my face. When he starts to move down my neck, he whispers, “Kiss me back.”

I don’t want to, but I can’t say no.

I have to buy more time.

I need to figure this out.

There must be a way out.

I want to bite him, but I force myself to kiss him back.

He doesn’t seem to notice that I’m doing it under duress.

“Yes, isn’t that amazing, Olive? Is that everything you have dreamed of?” he mumbles and kisses me again.

I press my lips to his, I slowly open my eyes and glance down.

I can’t see for sure but it feels like he’s no longer holding onto the gun. I move my body and he moves his on top of me.

He thinks that I’m under his spell when all I’m doing is trying to find an angle.

When he grabs at my chest, I jerk away and head butt him with my head. He winces from the pain but it’s not enough to keep him away.

He pins me down again but I wrestle out of his grasp. I search around the bed for the gun but I can’t find it.

I try to kick him but his body is draped too closely over mine.

Then he does it again.

He presses his forearm against my throat.

My airway tightens and I start gasping for breath. I start to see stars and then my vision gets blurry.

When everything goes black, he finally lets me go. My throat burns with each cough.

“Don’t you ever do that again, Olive,” he sneers.

I glare at him.

Air starts to come back, clearing my cloudy thoughts.

He’s on top of me again, not choking me but trying to take off my clothes.

I feel around my side for anything sharp or hard I can use to protect myself. But my fingers find nothing but clumps of sheets.

And then…

It’s so cool and hard, it’s hard to believe it’s there and it’s hard to confuse it with anything else. I grab the gun and push the barrel into his body. When I pull the trigger, he lets out a yell, grabbing onto his stomach.

“Olive, give me the gun,” someone says over and over again while I stand over Owen writhing around in pain.

He repeats himself a number of times before I register the fact that it’s Wallace who is speaking.

“The police are on their way,” Josephine whispers. “He won’t hurt you again.”

At some point, I give up the gun.

At some point, the paramedics throw one of those gray blankets over me to keep me warm.

At some point, they put Owen on a stretcher and start to roll him away.