A mixture of fear and disgust rolled through me and I jerked my arms with as much force as I could, but it barely fazed him. My muscles were exhausted, and Dale was stronger. It didn’t take me long to realize the sickening implication behind those two facts.

“Dale, please, let me go,” I cried, tugging my arms again. He shoved me back hard against the door, knocking the wind from my chest. Wide-eyed and shaking, I flexed my knee forward and connected with his groin. Dale coughed and bent forward, but kept his grip on my wrists. I squirmed against his grasp, trying to wriggle free as he strained to catch his breath again. But I was trapped. And when he lifted his head again, his dark eyes were venomous. He released one of my wrists long enough to rear back and slap my face.

The force hurled me to the ground and I hit the hardwood floor with a smack. Groaning, I grabbed my head between my hands, trying to stop my vision from spinning. Pain echoed through my skull as I tried to focus on the legs of our coffee table across the room. I blinked over and over, but the room kept sliding quickly from the left to the right in my vision. I squeezed my eyes tight, willing my head to settle, praying the dizziness would pass.

Dale dropped down on top of me, pinning my wrists above my head. My chest was tight, my breaths labored. I felt the panic setting in and I couldn’t think straight. Shaking my head wildly, I thrashed against his grip, my eyes wide, vision still blurred.

“Dale! Stop! Please!” I screamed for Mom, but that only made him laugh. He knew as well as I did that she was passed out and not even my screaming was going to wake her. When a sickening snarl curled on his lip, I realized this was how he liked it. He wanted me to fight. He wanted me to struggle.

I swallowed back the acid rising in my throat, squeezing my eyes tight again. This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.

“God, you smell so good,” Dale whispered, inhaling a deep breath against my neck. I squeezed my eyes tighter as hot tears leaked out of each one. I focused on them as they seared a trail from my cheeks to my ears. When I felt Dale fidgeting with the spandex band of his sweatpants, my eyes snapped open.

I bucked against him, thrashing, kicking, screaming, crying. A rush of adrenaline had sparked to life and I tried so hard to help it catch fire. I tried to head butt him, to knee him again, but every attempt was futile. My muscles wouldn’t cooperate, and Dale wouldn’t budge.

“Dale,” I groaned, tears streaming, throat aching. “God, please. Please stop. Please. Please.” I said the word over and over, praying to his humanity or God or whoever would listen first.

“Shhh,” he whispered, touching his finger to my lips as his other hand still held my wrists firmly in place. I shook my head against the touch. “Just relax.”

I choked on a sob, writhing beneath him. My heart was pounding in my ears. It was beating so fast. Too fast. I was going to pass out. I was sure of it.

My eyes fluttered open, the beat growing louder and louder in my ears. Dale was still saying something, but I couldn’t make it out anymore. Everything was muted, vision still like a dream, or rather a nightmare. I simply stared up at the chandelier, watching it shimmer and glitter like the horrific scene just beneath it weren’t real. Like I wasn’t real. Like I didn’t exist.

Everything was in slow motion. Time was morphing. Inhale. Exhale. Dale’s hand slid up my inner thigh and two more tears slid down to join the puddles forming in my ears. A cry left my lips, but I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t smell or feel or taste. I only saw through blurred, distorted vision. The chandelier. The chandelier was all that existed.

Something broke the edges of my vision, but still, no sound came. There was commotion, muffled voices and screams pierced through the barrier. I blinked. Dale was off me. I blinked again. Still the chandelier. I blinked once more.

Rhodes.

All of my senses came rushing back at once.

I gasped, bolting upright as the breath hit my lungs. Eyes wide, I clawed at Rhodes as he lifted me into him. He wrapped his arms around me. He was kissing my hair. He was saying something. What was he saying? Nothing made sense. My head. I reached up, fingering a tender spot on the back of my skull. My hand was wet. Blood.

Dale was on the ground. A woman stood over him. She had a gun. Who was she?

Dale’s laugh was the first sound to truly register. It broke through the fog, and it was as if I were hearing for the first time.

“You,” he seethed. “Well, well. Look who’s risen from the dead!” His mouth was bleeding, staining his teeth as he smiled up at us. The woman still had the gun trained on him. All I could see was the back of her head. She had short brown hair and a dove tattoo on the back of her neck.

“You would love me to be dead, wouldn’t you?” Her voice was sweet, but firm. Her hands shook just slightly as she adjusted her grip on the gun.

Dale laughed again. “You going to shoot me, sweetheart? Go ahead. I’d just love to see your pretty little ass thrown in jail.”

“Lana, don’t,” Rhodes warned as the woman’s finger wavered on the trigger. I gasped.

“Lana?”

Her eyes flicked to mine, but all I saw was Rhodes. She looked just like him. Same green eyes, same strong jaw, same bent brow. Eying Rhodes’ arms around me for just a moment, she snapped her attention back to Dale.

“As much as I’d love to be the one to kill you, I’d rather see you rot in prison.”

Dale laughed harder and Rhodes lurched forward. Lana held out one arm to stop him. I knew more than anyone that he could have easily plowed through her, but he didn’t.

“I don’t know what you don’t get about this situation, sweetheart. I’m Dale Poxton. This is Poxton Beach. I own this fucking town.”

“I’ve been gathering witnesses. I have fourteen girls willing to testify against you.”

“And I’ve got three highly-respected doctors who will diagnose every single one of them with some form of mental instability,” he argued, not even fazed in the slightest. He lifted himself from the ground, still sitting but leaning back against the wall. “It’s my word against yours. And theirs. Sexual assault is one of the hardest crimes to prove, baby, and let me assure you, I am the only one who comes out a winner in the end.”

I watched as Lana’s face crumbled. Rhodes lurched forward again.

“You mother fucking son of a bitch!” Lana didn’t stop him this time and I watched as his fist connected with Dale’s jaw. His face flew to the left with a loud crack, blood spurting from his mouth and painting the wall behind him.