“That’s awesome,” Leah says, grinning. She seems a little hyper, like she’s overly excited about something.

I soon learn what that something is.

“Hey, Nora,” a familiar voice says behind me, just as we’re getting ready to pay our bill.

I jump up, startled. Turning, I stare at Jake—the boy I had been on the date with that fateful night when Julian took me.

The boy Julian had hurt to keep me in line.

He looks almost the same: shaggy sun-streaked hair, warm brown eyes, a great build. Only the expression on his face is different. It’s drawn and tense, and the wariness in his gaze is like a kick to my stomach.

“Jake…” I feel like I’m confronting a ghost. “I didn’t know you were in town. I thought you were away at Michigan—”

And then I realize the truth. Turning, I look accusingly at Leah, who gives me a huge smile in response. “I hope you don’t mind, Nora,” she says brightly. “I told Jake I was coming to see you this weekend, and he asked to join me. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about that, given everything—” her face reddens a bit, “—so I just mentioned that we’d be here tonight.”

I blink, my palms beginning to sweat. Leah doesn’t know about the beating Jake received because of me. That little tidbit is something I disclosed only to the FBI. She’s probably afraid that seeing Jake might bring back painful memories of my abduction, but she can’t possibly guess at the nauseating swirl of guilt and anxiety I feel right now.

Jake knows I’m responsible for the assault, however. I can see it in the way he looks at me.

I force myself to smile. “Of course I don’t mind,” I lie smoothly. “Please, have a seat. Let’s get some coffee.” I motion toward the seat on the other side of our booth and sit down myself. “How have you been?”

He smiles back at me, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners in the way I found endearing once. He’s still one of the cutest guys I’ve ever met, but I no longer feel any attraction to him. The crush I had on him before pales in comparison to my all-consuming Julian obsession—to the dark and desperate craving that makes me toss and turn at night.

When I can’t sleep, I often think about the things Julian and I used to do together—the things he made me do… the things he trained me to want. In the dark of the night, I masturbate to forbidden fantasies. Fantasies of exquisite pain and forced pleasure, of violence and lust. I ache with the need to be taken and used, hurt and possessed. I long for Julian—the man who awakened this side of me.

The man who is now dead.

Pushing that excruciating thought aside, I focus on what Jake is telling me.

“—couldn’t go into that park for months,” he says, and I realize that he’s talking about his experience after my abduction. “Every time I did, I thought about you and where you might be… The police said it was like you vanished off the face of the planet—”