Forgotten Read online

  “Fine,” she said, having a sudden inspiration. “I’ll tell you what—I’ll explain what happened to make me not want to let you, uh, taste me if you’ll tell me about the hunger.”

  He sighed harshly and she had a feeling she’d hit a nerve. Well maybe that was a good thing. Maybe he would be so unwilling to talk about his strange secret that he would let Kate keep hers. But after a moment he spoke, dashing her hopes of keeping her past hidden.

  “Fine—I’ll tell you,” he growled. “But you go first—I need to finish healing your back.”

  “All right.” He had her and Kate knew it—she had to tell, had to dredge up the awful old memory like a dead body that had been buried and rotting for years. Taking a deep breath, she tried to speak in a cold, emotionless voice, willing herself not to feel as she told Rone her past.

  “I was a freshman in college before I ever really dated,” she began, looking down at the quilt as Rone continued to heal her back. “Part of that was because of the Knowing—some of the kids could sense it, I think. They knew somehow that I was different, even though they couldn’t put their finger on how or why.”

  “It’s the same with me,” Rone murmured. “Some people can sense the Beast in me. We used to call them ‘Sensitives’. Most of them picked up my differences before they were bothered by you, though.”

  “Really?” Kate glanced back at him.

  He nodded. “Uh-huh. My Beast really bothers the ones that can sense it.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “You always say I scare the ‘shinola’ out of them.”

  “That sounds like me.” She gave him a little smile in return. “Anyway, enough people were bothered in my home town that I got the reputation as being the ‘weird’ kid.’ And it didn’t help that I had to wear this huge, hard back brace for years after my surgeries either. Looked like a freaking turtle shell but it went all the way around me.” She sighed. “So anyway, between that and the Knowing, none of the guys were exactly knocking down the door to get to me.”

  Rone was silent but it was a listening silence. He’d mostly finished with her back now, but Kate could still feel him behind her, the warmth of his big body radiating against her bare skin.

  “When I got to college, I thought everything was going to be different,” she went on. “I was out of the brace and even though I still had the Knowing, I was able to, I don’t know, shield myself a little better. Or maybe it was just that everyone was new and different and I didn’t stick out so much. Anyway…” she took a deep breath. “There was this guy in my French Literature class named Greg Compton.”

  The name tasted like dust in her mouth—like fear and sour wine and a past best left forgotten. But Kate knew that now she had started, she had to continue—there was no other way.

  “Greg Compton,” she made herself say again. “He was at least five years older than me and I thought he was amazing. He was tall—well, everyone is tall compared to me, but you know what I mean—and he had these big, soulful brown eyes. I think I was in love with him for a whole semester before he ever noticed me. But then…then we were assigned to analyze some poetry together.”

  “And what happened once he took notice of you?” Rone asked. He spoke quietly but there was a soft growl in his voice that sent a little shiver down Kate’s spine.

  “He…he invited me back to his dorm room to do the assignment together,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “And then he asked me if I wanted some wine. You know—well, you probably know—I’ve never been much of a drinker. I just don’t have much tolerance. Beer I would have said no to, but here was this sophisticated older man offering me wine and I didn’t want to seem like some stupid little freshman who didn’t know which end was up so I said yes, of course, I’d like some wine.”

  She paused for a moment, having a hard time going on.

  “And?” Rone asked softly after a long pause.

  “And…and I think he put something in it.” Kate sighed. “In fact, I’m sure he did. Not enough to knock me completely out, but enough to make me feel all warm and dizzy. The next thing I knew he was…” She swallowed, hearing a dry click in the back of her throat. “He was pushing up my dress.”

  “What?” There was definitely more of a growl in Rone’s voice now. “He dared to take advantage of you?”

  “Oh, he dared all right,” Kate said grimly. “I should have known better than to drink that wine or to go with him in the first place, you know? The Knowing tried to warn me but I…I wanted so badly to be noticed, to feel pretty and desired that I ignored it—pushed it to the back of my mind. It was my own fault, really…”

  “It was not your fault. Then what happened?” Rone asked in a low, intense voice. “How did you get away from him?”

  “I didn’t—not completely, anyway.” Kate winced at the memory. It was old but it still had sharp edges that cut her when she took it out to examine it—like an ancient shard of broken glass half buried in the sand of her past. “I…I started to panic but it was like everything was in slow motion. I tried to push him off me, but he said…said I should just…just let it happen. He said, ‘You’re going to love this, Katie. You’ll see.’”

  Kate swallowed hard and for a moment, she was back there, back in the dorm room that smelled of stale beer and dirty laundry on Greg’s crumpled, half-made bed. She could still feel his ice-cold hands groping between her thighs as he fumbled with her panties, yanking them roughly down in his eagerness to get to her.

  “He…he put his fingers in me first but I was scared and horrified so of course I wasn’t in any way ready for any kind of…of anything. So he said something about getting me ‘all hot and bothered’ and then…then he put his face between my legs,” she said, her voice coming out high and tight.

  “The bastard! You were too drugged to get away?” Rone sounded infuriated.

  Kate nodded. “I tried to sit up but he pushed me back down. I started to shout for help and then he said something like—‘Just shut up and enjoy it.’ And he put…put a pillow over my face.” She put a hand to her throat, her voice closing off to a whisper. “It was so awful—I felt like I was smothering. I couldn’t breathe.”

  The memory washed over her, the awful sensation of helplessness, of being unable to move, her ankles tangled in her panties as she kicked weakly but to no avail, the drug he’d given her holding her down as much as his hand on the pillow. It sent a shudder through her and she gulped in a breath, trying to get air in to her lungs, exactly as she had that night in the dorm room…

  A low growl from Rone brought her back to the present and somehow she was able to go on.

  “He was…so much bigger than me. And he was…I think he was coming at me sideways. Like, bending over me from above so he could hold me down with the pillow using one hand and force…force my legs open with the other.” Kate drew in another trembling breath and the words came out in a rush.

  “Then he started trying to…to get his tongue in me, I guess. It was cold too, just like his fingers. I remember that vividly, I don’t know why—maybe it was cold from the chilled wine. Anyway, it felt like he’d been sucking on ice cubes or something. It was weird and really awful—like a cold fish trying to worm its way inside me.”

  She pressed her thighs tightly together, the memory so deep and visceral it nearly made her sick.

  “And the whole time I couldn’t get a deep enough breath because of the pillow and I was wondering…wondering if I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe. I was seeing spots in front of my eyes and I remember telling myself, don’t pass out. You can’t pass out or you’ll never wake up!”

  She clenched her fists in the quilt, trying not to let the memory sweep her completely away, trying to anchor herself in reality. But it was hard…so hard not to let it take over her completely, not to get washed away in the tide of nightmares letting herself remember brought with it.

  “Kate…if you can’t go on…” Rone murmured behind her.

  “No,” Kate surprised herself