His face brightened, and he sneered again, the resulting expression a horrific mask. “You scream, and everyone will know you’re the helpless child I told them you were. Misinterpreting a friendly hug from a colleague, tsk-tsk, Naya . . . Not that they’d hear you, anyway.” He dropped his other hand, yanking at his belt.
I closed my eyes.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.
I had no choice but to scream and hope someone could hear me. It would happen just like he said, and I’d be ruined all over again.
Helpless.
A victim.
But he didn’t get to win, not this time.
“Let me go!” I screamed and used my whole body to push him back.
He grabbed a handful of my hair, wrenched my head back, and slapped me hard across the face. Flashes of light dotted my vision as the pain registered. With all he’d done, he’d never hit me in the face. It had always been somewhere that could be hidden. At that, one thought blared in my mind. He’s out of control.
“You think you can fight me? That girl in the picture, the girl who needed to be told what to do, that’s the real you.”
I shook my head, finding no voice. I started to retreat into myself as I had all those years ago, to fold into the smallest possible space where I could block out what he was doing.
I remembered Felicia and Aaron saying, We’d love to see the volume go back up.
Wes’s words from my self-defense class filled my head. If you can’t do anything else, use your voice.
Then there were Jake’s words. I love you.
I wasn’t the same person I’d been three years ago. I’d rediscovered my own strength, and I deserved better than this. I don’t have to fold. I can fight and I can save myself.
I screamed as loud as I could in his ear, and he clamped a hand over my mouth. Fighting my instinct to pull his hand away, instead I wriggled an arm free and jammed the heel of my palm up into his nose like Wes had taught me. The crunch was satisfying, and he grabbed for his face as blood gushed down his chin. Before he could retaliate, I kneed him in the groin with all the strength I could muster and shoved him away from me.
My breath came fast, and a primal rage coursed through me. I knew I should run, but I wanted to go on the offensive, to kick him or punch him again. In that split second of indecision, he grabbed me, his hand viselike around my wrist. He was unhinged, his face contorted in a gruesome snarl, blood running from his nose. “I would have been nice, but you had to push. You always had to fucking push.”
My heartbeat thudded in my ears, but Felicia and I had practiced—we’d done the move over and over again in class and out, so clamping down on his hand and twisting until his extended arm was behind his back and under my control was natural. Forcing him to his knees in front of me was almost instinct. My mind whirred at conflicting and crashing thoughts—how much I loved feeling strong, how much I hated being even remotely like him, how he’d hurt me for so long, and what he’d wanted to do to me in that clearing. “You’re damn right, I fucking push.” I sucked in another shallow breath, applying more pressure as he tried to shift away. “I push back now, and you don’t ever get to push me again.”
“We heard screaming—what’s going on here?” Jake’s partner, Carlton, ran up the path flanked by Jill and Davis’s friend, Doug. They stared at me wide-eyed, three mouths agape, and after a moment, I released my hold and Davis scurried from me.
“What the hell happened?” Carlton stepped between us.
Davis held up his bloody hands, palms out. “She’s crazy,” he exclaimed. “She just went nuts and attacked me.”
Still standing in place, the three looked between us, but all I could do was shake my head. I couldn’t get enough breath, and my pulse thrummed, but I stuttered, “He attacked me.”
Davis again gestured to his face. “Doug, you know me, man. I’d never do that. She’s lying.”
Jill continued to look at me, worry and something else etched on her face. Empathy? Judgment? She stepped nearer to me, asking if I was okay, but I could only shake my head. The power that had been surging through me dissipated, and my hands began to tremble, my legs feeling wobbly. The full impact of what he could have done, what he wanted to do, hit me, and tears sprang into my eyes.
She looked from me to Davis, her shoulders squaring. “She’s not lying,” she said to the other two men. “He would . . .” Jill glanced at Davis again. “She’s not lying.”