Because I was desperate to stay.

“I will leave her alone,” Damon reiterated again when the dean remained silent.

“Sir,” a woman called behind us.

“Don’t move,” Kincaid told us, and I heard him walk past us and step onto the stones of the main office. The door stayed open, and I could hear voices out there.

And then I felt him next to me, his warm breath just above my ear.

“Enjoy your freedom while it lasts, Winter Ashby, because we’re not done,” Damon warned in a low voice that snaked through my ear, taunting me. “Grow up, learn things, and have fun in high school, but don’t change the little girl who loves it ‘in the black’, because I like you there, too. And I will be back for what’s mine when you’re old enough for bigger things.”

I turned my face away, breathing harder.

“And be good,” he told me. “If I hear anyone touched you, I will crack his fucking skull.”

My mouth went dry, my stomach rolling as the voices outside grew closer, and then his heat was gone as he put space between us and Kincaid walked back into the room.

Damn him.

The meeting ended, Kincaid doling out harsh words for Damon but accepting his terms and promising to hold him to it. The dean didn’t trust him or like him, but the politics of Thunder Bay society would win over a man who feared for his job and position. He was an educator second and an employee of every parent in this town first.

Someone from the office got me and guided me to my next class, everyone now back inside after the false alarm, and as I walked out of the main office, turning right as Damon went left, I wondered how long I had and how many notches up he would take his behavior when we met again.

Because it wasn’t over.

He was just waiting.

Winter

Present

I blinked my eyes, waking up, and immediately winced as I rolled off my side and onto my back. Shit. Pain shot through the left side of my neck, and I bent it, trying to stretch it out. I didn’t think I moved all night. My whole body was kinked up. I never slept that deep.

Sitting up, I slid my legs over the side of the bed, rolling my neck and ankles before stretching my toes to a point.

“Ugh,” I groaned.

I was exhausted. I rubbed my eyes, feeling that they were a little swollen and achy.

Then it came back to me. The dance at Michael and Erika’s engagement party last night. Damon and me. Damon trying to taunt me with what he was going to enjoy with my sister.

I’d cried. A lot.

I’d come to bed, locked my door, and sobbed into my pillow, because I couldn’t stop myself, and I didn’t want to be heard.

I hated him. I hated his vile words and his cigarettes and his arrogance and insanity in thinking he wasn’t responsible for anything. I hated how he grabbed and threatened and wouldn’t let me go. He had no right.

And I hated that I’d missed him. I hated that so fucking much.

How I still felt the parts about him I loved when I didn’t know it was him I was with. How his arms around me still felt protective and how his whispers reminded me of when I loved the feel of them all over my neck.

I shook my head. It was an act. It had all been an act. He’d used me.

I stood up and closed my eyes, stretching my arms over my head to wake up my body.

A light rain tapped my window, and I inhaled, smelling it seeping into the house as I tried to clear my head. Coffee first.

A creak sounded above me, and I tipped my head back, training my ears on the sound. Who would be in the attic? No one went up there except servants, and we no longer had any of those. Full time ones, anyway.

Stepping over to my chaise, I picked up the sweater laying on it and pulled it on, rubbing my arms against the chill. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and removed my chair lodged under my doorknob before unlocking my bedroom door and swinging it open. Not that anything would stop Damon from getting into this room if he wanted, but at least it would take more than one kick and give me a warning bell of sorts when I was dead asleep at night.

I stepped into the hallway, the cool wood under my feet creaking as I yawned.

So quiet.

I stood there, hearing the rain outside create a shield of white noise around the house, and somewhere, deep in the house, a breeze whistled through a cracked window or wall. A chickadee sang in the distance, every little sound amplified, because there was nothing else drowning them out. No noise.

No television. No hair dryer. No shower running.

No footsteps or dishes clattering or doors opening and closing.

“Hey, Google,” I called back into my room. “What time is it?”

“The time is seven-oh-three a.m.”

We were early risers. My mom and Arion worked out in the morning, while I got plenty of exercise dancing.

But we’d been to a party last night. Maybe they were sleeping in?

Or maybe not. Something felt off.

Why hadn’t they intervened in my fight with Damon last night? They had to have heard it.

“Mom?” I called out over the railing. She was normally already up and moving around the house when I woke up. “Mom, are you up?”

Nothing.

Grazing the railing, I trailed down the hall and into my mother’s room first, cracking open the door. “Mom?” I said lightly, afraid to startle her out of her sleep.

There was no response.

I inched into the room and found my way to her bed, running my hands across the smooth, cold comforter. The bed was still made. Or had she already made it up after rising?

Walking over to where her vanity sat, I found the lamp and touched the bulb, tapping it and then holding it when I realized it was cold.

The only time this lamp was off was at night or when she wasn’t home.

My pulse quickened.

I left her room and made my way down to Arion’s in the master suite, calling her name as I entered, too. “Arion?” I said. “Are you here?”

I checked her bed and her lamps, her room in the same untouched state as my mother’s. I walked over to the closet she shared with Damon, not going in, though.

“Ari?” I called. She could be in his room.

His room.

My teeth ached, and I unclenched my jaw, leaving the room and heading back to mine.

Grabbing my phone off the bedside table, I searched my apps, finding Uber, and ordered a car using VoiceOver to help me navigate. I forwent typing “assist” in the promotional code to let the driver know I had a disability. I was in a hurry, and no one in this town didn’t not know me, so we’d muddle through.

I slipped on some jeans, a T-shirt and jacket, and pulled on a baseball cap. After I got my shoes and socks on, I stuffed some cash from my stash into my wallet and stuck it into my pocket with my phone.

Heading downstairs, I called for my dog. “Mikhail!”

I pulled out my phone, checking the driver’s location.

“Four minutes,” VoiceOver read.

“Mikhail!” I shouted again, pulling his leash out of the drawer in the foyer table.

Something creaked above me again, and I shook my head, going breathless.

Something was wrong. That wouldn’t be my family. I called their names. They didn’t answer. Where were they?

Damon, what have you done?

I heard a noise, like the refrigerator closing, and maybe…

“Mom!” I yelled.

What was that? Where was my dog?

Racing into the kitchen, I halted, facing the direction of the refrigerator. “Hello? Who’s there?”

No answer.

Shit. I lunged, swinging open the back door. “Mikhail!”

Rain pattered the terrace and awnings, and I couldn’t hear him. He would come in if it was raining, and it he didn’t, he’d be huddled right outside this door. No jingling leash telling me he was running for me or whining to get out of the water. Where did he go?

Two footfalls hit the floor above me, and I stopped breathing.

Damn you. The fear of that night seven years ago when he first messed with me came flooding back, only this time, I doubted my dancing could get me out of this.

I slipped my hand in my pocket, finding the house keys already there, and fitting two between my fingers as a weapon. I closed the door, hearing my phone ding, probably with the notification that my ride was here. I gripped the leash in one hand, the keys in the other, and backed up a step.

The floor whined to my right as someone stepped, and I tried to inhale but couldn’t. Then something clicked from somewhere in the house, a door softly closing.

Weight settled on one of the stairs, and I heard the rings on a curtain slide along a rod. Closing.

More movement in the attic, and in my head, I’d already run.

Go. I forced every ounce of energy to pool in my legs as I gripped my weapons, spun around, and bolted out of the kitchen, taking the straight shot all the way to the front door.

I grabbed the handle, whipped it open, and flew outside into the rain and cool morning air. I slammed right into a car and fumbled with the door handle, finally opening it.

“Jesse?” I said the driver’s name I got from the app.

“Yeah, you okay?”

I scurried inside, barely registering the cackling I heard coming from inside my house since I’d left the door open.

Asshole.

My heart was trying to jump out of my goddamn chest.

And it still didn’t answer where my family was. Or my dog.

“Lock the doors,” I told him.

He did and took off, rounding the fountain and heading for St. Killian’s, the address I’d already entered into the app.

I put my head back, still gripping the leash in my hand. Mikhail. God, he wouldn’t hurt him, would he? The dog was coming to me less and less. I didn’t know if he was warming to Damon or hiding in fear.

Rain spattered the windshield, and the driver stayed quiet as he drove, probably noticing that I was out of sorts.

It was a short drive. St. Killian’s wasn’t too far from my house if you were in a car. I’d learned from Will that Michael and Rika had an apartment in Meridian City, but they spent almost as much time in Thunder Bay now in their newly renovated home. An old, abandoned cathedral that overlooked the sea.