In this moment, I hate my life. I hate everything about this shithole of a life I so desperately want to free myself from. Sobs achingly rip out of me, and as I fall back onto the cold slate floor, I lie there, wet and naked, the smell of my vomit filling the room. And when I close my eyes, I see my dad.

“Princess, what are you doing?” he mumbles in a sleepy voice as I crawl under the covers with him.

“I’m scared.”

He helps me pull the blanket over myself and then cuddles me in his arms, saying, “Nothing will ever hurt you. I’ll always protect you. Now, tell me what scared you.”

“I can’t remember. I just woke up and I was scared.”

“Bad dream?”

I nod my head against his chest and snuggle underneath the covers of his bed, asking, “Can I sleep with you tonight, Daddy?”

“You don’t want to go back to your own bed?”

“No. I just want you.”

His large arms band around me tighter. “How can I say no to that?” he says and then kisses my forehead, the stubble on his face pricking my skin, causing me to giggle.

“Daddy! That tickles,” I squeal and as soon as the words are out, he’s laughing and nuzzling his face in my neck, pretending to eat me. The both of us laugh loudly in the dark room, rolling around his big bed.

I start pinching his sides, and he rolls onto his back with a huge smile and chuckles, “You win. You win. I give up.”

“You never give up,” I tell him, and he responds, “Sometimes a man needs to know when to let a lady a win. Now give me a kiss right here.”

He points to his cheek as he speaks, and I lean in and kiss his unshaven face, feeling the prickling pokes on the soft skin of my lips.

“Come here,” he says, and I lie back down in his arms as he kisses the top of my head. “Close your eyes now. There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll never let anyone hurt you. You’re always going to be safe.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you so much more, Princess. Come find me in your dreams.”

The vision fades and I roll to my side, curling into a ball, and cry for all the things he promised me that never happened. I was never safe, and this world hurt me beyond what I ever thought a human could be hurt. All because of Bennett. And now I lie here in his bathroom, our bathroom. He’s my husband. We share a home, a bed, a life. I knew what I was doing when I embedded myself into his world, but after what just happened with Declan, I wanna run. Run so far that I never have to look back and remember any of this. Run all the way back in time. Back to Northbrook, back to the house I used to live in, through the front door, into my bedroom where my father still waits for me at my little table, with pink daisies, to join him for our princess tea party. Maybe if I cry hard enough, the world will take pity on me, shift off its axis and make all my dreams come true.

I want my daddy.

After all these years, I just want my daddy.

A COUPLE HOURS pass, and I now sit in the living room as I watch another snow-filled day. My body aches, and I’m tired after my meltdown. I know better than to let those feelings bleed through. It’s been a long time since I’ve cried like that and allowed myself to feel sorry for the life I wound up with. So now I sit here and gain control as the fire ignites inside of me. The fire I let fizzle out earlier. I feel its embers in the molten heat of my veins. A resurgence of what I’m doing here. This is about regaining what was stolen from me. Taking back what was mine to be had before my father was ripped away from me and murdered in prison. I can handle Declan; I just had a moment of weakness last night, but now, I have rectified that steel wall.

Fuck Declan.

Fuck Bennett.

This is about righting the wrong.

This is revenge, and I’m ready.

Without wasting any more time, I grab my coat and keys and head down to the garage to go to Justice. I need to see Pike.

When I pull up to his trailer, I see Matt’s car. I’ll never forget that night when Pike crawled through my bedroom window in the middle of the night. Matt was there too. Pike held me while I cried for hours in the back seat of Matt’s car as he drove us to northern Illinois where he had rented a rundown apartment with Pike. The three of us lived together for a few years until Pike and I got a place of our own.

I never went back to school. I was a runaway, but I didn’t let that define me as a complete failure. Pike gave me money to buy a few home schooling kits that got me through high school. Doing it on my own doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m just as knowledgeable as any other graduate, diploma or not. I’ve always loved school and learning new things. I would look through the course catalogues from the local university and buy the textbooks for the classes I was interested in and read them on my own. Pike has always teased me, but I wasn’t going to let the reality that I was a high school dropout plague me.

Until I was of age, I couldn’t risk getting a job either, so I helped Pike, weighing and bagging the product Matt would bring in. Because of the people they dealt with, I was always by Pike’s side. It was safer running the streets with him than to be left alone in the apartment.

But I’ve never liked Matt despite Pike’s friendship with him. I had to fight him off a few times when he would get drunk and try to get into my pants. But it was him that stood by my side on that fateful night, the night he and Pike gave me one of the greatest gifts I could’ve asked for. Matt and Pike gave me payback in the form of death. The first stroke of revenge as the both of them stood by my side as I lit the match, killing both Carl and Bobbi in the ink of night. I was only fifteen when I discovered the sweet taste of vengeance as their pleading screams were engulfed in the flames of hell.

So to see him here, now, irritates me because no matter how much I dislike him, I’ll always be indebted for that one precious gift he allowed me. And when I shut off the car and walk inside, Matt sneers, knowing everything about what I’m doing with Bennett, “Well, well, well, what drug in the shit-stain on high society living?”

“It’s an amazing thing to see.”

“What is?” he asks.

“The way your vocabulary has matured through the years,” I give him as I slip off my coat and then look over to Pike, saying, “I need to talk to you.”

“Dude, get lost,” he tells Matt.

“What the fuck?”

“Don’t start that shit, you know Elizabeth has a hard enough time getting out here to see me,” he tells Matt as he stands up and walks over to me.

I give Pike a hug and watch as Matt grabs his coat and starts heading for the door. “Call me when she leaves.”

“Yeah, man. Talk to you later.”

Matt looks back over his shoulder at me when he gets to the door and then leaves. I wrap my arms more tightly around Pike and nearly smother him.

“Whoa. What’s going on?” he says as he holds me.

“I really missed you,” I tell him thickly.

“Is everything okay? Did something happen?” he asks as then we walk over to the couch and sit down.

“I fucked Declan last night.”

The concern on Pike’s face isn’t surprising. Aside from Carl, Pike is the only guy I’ve ever had sex with, until Bennett. But Bennett is nothing compared to Declan.

“Shit,” he sighs. “Are you okay?”

“He tied me up with his belt,” I reveal to him.

“What the fuck?”

“It’s how he is. He’s forceful. He actually fucked me at the New Year’s party. That was the first time. It was a dirty fuck in a bathroom.”

“Wait. Go back,” he says, confused.