ia's

f exposed skin and the t

" everyone talks about, or even the four guys

t someone had come into my room, t

posed to be

g which of them had done

d to kn

to eat required descending to th

g to calm the frantic thud of my heart, and

uch as a glimmer of what I then s

iet as I crept down to th

et lair, trying to understand people's body

y feeling

faces unsettlingly spotless. I needed s

gs

the hollow thrum in my st

rs for an omelet, the thwack-thwack of the knife on the wood a sma

colorful vegetables, when warm, larg

ll my musc

e was earthy, wild, with s

h

eep voice rumbled, hus

initesimally, not hurting, but imprisoni

the violation. But how could he not? Should h

swer, my voice uncertain, chopping ano

loser to me. "It looks like you're cooking breakfast. But did nobody tell you that you

through me at his touch, a shivery echo of the

ission slip," I snapped at him, trying

he knife, but it felt flimsy, insuff

dy shifted, totally clo

t my back, shoulder to hip, hold

rth and something much older, somethin

raw growl trembled in the back of his chest. It wasn't threate

inst my ear. His hands shifted, his fingers digging gently in

pressed into my backside, the fric

th stuc

was w

wro

held pinned by a nauseating mixture of fear and something else, something shameful which coiled deep

pered, his hips still ro

as

ike forever but was probably

is warmth

mef

appeared. I rocked forward slightly, holding

But I sensed his eyes on my back, heavy and knowing, before I

the cutting board with a clatter

m that touched

ture from the kitchen, I hurr

om. The door slammed shut behind me with a deafening thud, one that was more like a lock

k, screaming imprope

't think

not thin

rong. Al

my consent. And now, the terrible truth of the Lunar Surge, m

nst my chest, trying to shrink, to disappear. I

-

on. Sunlight outside my window shifted f

of going back to them once more, of

ef from the suffocating fear and e

ld that I had lost. I scrolled numbly through my soci

, headlines – anything to f

top

d its way acro

ly. Ryan. And to his side, her head o

t emojis. with the

h

o

roat. My vision grew fuzzy, but th

that

lef

for my be

literally