ssa'

The laugh that followed from the circle a

were still stinging from the fall, and my dress smelled of spilled wine. I crawled forward on my palms an

an audience applaud. "There you go. Good girl," he said,

spit in his face, to shove him and the rest of them and run until the c

"Well, Melissa," she cooed, the tone so sugary it made my

same girl who'd tried and failed to charm Josh, my boyfriend at college back then. She'd always had this way of pretending our

hed and cruel, and she

watched me with interest, as if he'd staged all this for his own entertainment. The men and ot

ing a terrible, knowing grin plastered across her face. She set it d

I could get sick and I could stop breathing if I dare eat that. And that shouldn't have been secret and I could

ed to say, the words thin a

ith mock concern on her lips. "But that's the more re

Tony were inside, mostly watching the spectacle. Those who should have stopped it, the senior men who owed favours to Tony, only watched. Even Mrs. Morgan, T

If I refused, Tony would do something worse. If I obeyed, I could... survive

I could pull back, her hand closed over the cake, and sh

eeks and thought it a masterpiece. People laughed, a low sound that felt like

s like my throat

I cro

mething to steady me. My breath came short and hot and a prickling tightness crawled into my chest. My thoughts

s if burnt. "Get your filthy hands off me!" he snarled, shaking his shoe like I had dirtied it

e spat. The wor

hter, the clink of a glass but I guess those noises belonged to another place. My vision tunneled and I cou

anyone who could hear but m

al, and the small group cheered, like they were already eager to go to the next party he'd a

ng, as if victorious. Tony rose, straightened his cufflinks, and called out in that

ike trained sea

my body finally protested with the kind of honesty words could not reach as my chest tightened further, and my breath h

imagination as my fingers found the carpe

e and steady. At first I thought my mind was inventing it out of n

it hit me straight in the ribs. Someone was moving toward

ng to focus on the

ce repeated, closer now,

ancake reaction must have taken the be