My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 87

87 /103

Gianna

━⊰ ❦ ⊱━

My eyes felt like someone had rubbed sand into the sockets. I tried to blink, but my lids were heavy and stuck together. Everything was too bright. The light coming through the gaps in the curtains felt like a needle stabbing straight into my brain.

My mouth was a desert. It was bone-dry, and there was a bitter, metallic taste coating my tongue that made me want to gag. My head wasn't just aching, it was thumping. A slow, rhythmic boom-boom-boom that matched the frantic beating of my heart.

I felt hollow like someone had scooped out my insides and replaced them with cold lead. My muscles were weak, and my skin felt sensitive, as if the air itself was too sharp to touch.

I shifted my legs, and the fabric of the sheets felt wrong.

This wasn't my bed.

I froze. The memories of the night before started to leak back in like black ink. The forest. The masks. The high, cruel laughter of those girls. I remembered the pink ribbon. I remembered the blue pill hitting the back of my throat.

I remembered running.

Dirt scraping under my nails. Branches tearing at my arms. The feeling of something wrapping around my ankles and dragging me down. The panic. The screaming stuck in my throat.

And then… him.

Raphael.

The memory of his hands grabbing me made heat rush across my skin in a wave that felt wrong and confusing. He had lifted me like I weighed nothing, like I wasn’t even a person. Just something lying on the ground that needed to be picked up and moved.

He dragged me out of that nightmare.

But this—this life—this house—this world—this nightmare—was his.

This was his world. This was the life they lived, a world of blood, drugs, and games where people hunted each other like animals. The horror of it pressed against my ribs until it felt hard to breathe.

These people were insane.

I immediately sat up, my head spinning so fast the whole room tilted. I had to grab the edge of the mattress, my fingers digging into the silk to keep from falling onto the floor.