The sky is filled with bright stars, the moon brightening each step forward I give to arrive home. Sherman Avenue is deserted as I try to remember my way home, walking passing through Tenney Park. The blurry vision won't stop me from finding my way back to the apartment, let alone thinking over and over about the happenings with Denver.

Maybe the bike path is the shortest way? I try to block my mind from thinking of him.

I take the route that appears to make more sense. I don't have a GPS and have to trust my instincts. If this isn't the shortest way to get home, I won't have any hard feelings. After all, there aren't any hard feelings left besides my last conversation with Denver. Only sadness.

Walking at this time of the night is the best way to sober up. I'll be fine by the time my body hits the bed.

Denver.

Memories of Denver comes to my mind. I was supposed to sleep with him. Now he is probably sleeping with Susan – again.

Before moving to Madison, I hadn't drunk since Chelan. Maybe I was too young to remember that night. The night that Jason saved me from a party in the basement. Jason, from all the people I've ever met, was there when I needed it. He would never allow anyone to take advantage of me. He was always watching out my back.

He proved that so many times.

And yet I couldn't save him.

I had promised him I would stay by his side, no matter how difficult things have become. It was hard on our end, especially his. Jason couldn't handle it well after my father married his mother. In fact, they didn't marry. They cohabitated because the separation from my mother was still going. Minhoca had disappeared somewhere in Seattle without calling back a single time after she left home. It was Adele who replaced my mother's role as she'd done many years ago.

I just hadn't realized it.

Mom had tried to be a good person my whole life. She didn't know any better. She didn't know how to differentiate the good and bad on people. She trusted Adele with her own soul. She trusted her to take care of me while she was gone. Minhoca didn't have the strength to fight her depression, so she gave up her Lithium pills. When she was happy, she was all over the place, and then bum. Money was gone, and so our energy.

But Adele and her children were there for me. Jason and Jessa were all I had left. And the rest of their family. Granny with her lava cake. Emily and Delilah with their kind. Even Martin. The bigger cousin of all.

It was after that night when I'd caught Adele with my father that everything started. Reese's son waited for me with his party in the basement. Elliot, Ricky, and their group came along. I'd never been to his basement before, but it was cool. He played techno music as we all drank and danced for hours.

"I think it is time to introduce you to Molly and Adam," he said.

"Where are they?" I asked.

"Here," he opened his hands. Pills. A bunch of pills.

Elliot took one. Ricky took another, and so did the girls that were with them.

Aside from the many drinks I'd taken before Reese's son introduced us to Adam and Molly, inside my head was a maze. I had just found out my father was having an affair with my mother's best friend. Adele was also my best friend's mother. Had been this the real reason why Minhoca packed her bags, moved to Seattle, and disappeared for almost two years? If Jason knew about this all along, how come he didn't tell me? Did Jessa know, too? Who else in their family knew about it? Did the town know it, too?

Everything started to make sense. I was placing the puzzles together.

I took the pill from Reese's hands just like the rest of them. Just as I placed it in my mouth, Jason opens the basement door. Martin was with him.

"What the fuck is going here?" he asked, intrigued.

"Nothing," said Reese.

"I'll fucking kill you if you gave that shit to her."

"Too late," said Elliot. I had swallowed the pill and felt the heat coming up inside my body, the sweat coming under my skin. I loved Jason. More than everything, I loved him now—more than anyone I'd ever loved.

Jason glanced at Reese's eyes just before flying in his neck flew and pushed him to the ground.

"He will do to him what he did to me," I hear Elliot say with a laugh. I noticed the pills were working inside the body, the same way it worked in Ricky's and the other girls.

"Jason, stop!" Yelled Martin, pulling him away from Reese, whose body was on the floor with Jason punching him multiple times on his face. Reese's nose bled profoundly as Martin managed to call 911.

But I don't remember that part very well. Only the part I woke up in the hospital. I had blacked out.

Jason's knuckle had been hurt with the punches. "Nothing happened to me. Reese has been arrested. He shouldn't be giving alcohol and drugs to minors. He is not a minor."

"What happened to me?" I asked.

"Apparently nothing. Despite his bad intentions. He wanted to rape someone. The police found pictures of naked young girls in that basement. He will spend a long time in prison."

My memories are ripped apart, strong hands grabbing my neck, pushing me to the ground. I'm somewhere behind Tenney Park and the bike path. That's all I know.

"Quiet," the voice said behind my years. It is too dark, and I can't see anything. He licked my neck where I can't see. I can't move. I can't breathe.

But I can feel everything.

I don't say a word. Instead, I stop moving. "Don't look at me and do what I say." I realize the person is covering his face with a scarf, so I don't recognize him and his voice.

"Take your clothes off," the man says. I nod, feeling so small under his arms that now are wrapped around me, almost suffocating me. I want to move, but now I have to wait for the right opportunity to do so if I have one.

"Did you hear what I asked you?" the man asks under his breath.

I nod again while I attempt to remove my dress. This will be quick as long as I stay alive.

"You are so beautiful," the voice says behind my back. I'm on the cemented floor. I feel the man removing his scarf and kissing down my neck. I let him. There is nothing I can do.

"Please don't do anything that will hurt me."

"Who said this would hurt you?"

"Promise it will be quick?" I ask the strange man whose face I can't see.

"Yes," he says, removing his pants. I wait.

I quickly remove my arms from him by kicking him in his balls and run as fast as I can, my heart pounding on my chest. But the man is fast enough to catch me.

"If you run again, I will shoot you." He laughs softly. Sometime in the past, I'd smelled someone wearing the same cologne. A costly brand of cologne. It could have been anyone and anywhere.

"You'll be mine today, tomorrow, and after tomorrow. I'll take you home with me where you will belong."  

I look at the darkness in front of me. It doesn't seem to end.

"Will you kill me?"

"Not if you behave."

Then I don't have a choice. It is all about survival.

"I've never seen a beautiful girl like you. Others will like it, too."

I can't breathe with the sound of his voice behind my ears and neck. His warm hands reach my back. I don't see anything else ahead of me. Only the moon and the stars above me, but they are too far away.

"Be a good girl, and I will treat you well for the rest of your life."

Silence.

"Just come with me, and we'll do the rest later. At my place." He touches now my breasts, and my heart races with fear and disgust.

But something else happens. It is too quick. I recognize the voice of the person that pulls the man by his hood behind me. I fall to the side, watching as he punches the man in the face with a covered mask, not a scarf as I'd thought.  I'm too weak to run or say anything. Too scared to even counting from one to ten.

The man manages to pull away from Denver, his gun falling out from his pants. As he attempts to get the gun, Denver is faster, so the man runs through the darkness. Denver runs after him, but he can't catch up. The strange knows his way too well among these woods.

"Denver," I yell. "He has a gun."

"No, he doesn't." he says as he is trying to catch on his breath, "Here, it is a paintball gun." He says.