Reckless Hearts

This is Book 1 in the Ridgeside U series, which is also a spin-off of my Breaker Ridge series. Currently, this published chapter is an excerpt from the series. Once I've finished my current project, Vicious King, I'll post chapters in Reckless Hearts.

EMMA

I was stuck, deep in the recesses of my mind. Like I was swimming in a vast sea of nothingness with evil creeping in from the corners that didn’t exist. Clinging to the shadows just waiting for the slightest hint that I was aware.

The longer I was there, the more I felt it. Gnarled fingers ghosting across the top of my feet, caressing the skin. I recoiled, panic striking as memories flickered across my vision with the unwanted touch. Things I knew I wasn’t ready to face, but the grotesque wisps of fingers refused to let me go, solidifying into a vice grip around my ankles and yanking me down.

I tried to scream, but there was no sound. Just silence as I fought, twisting, turning, and kicking, doing everything I could to break free, but the longer I tried, the thicker the nothingness became, like the evil was seeping in and pooling around me, forming a sludge to hold me in place. Forcing me to witness every pathetic moment I’d been put through before my mind had trapped me here.

My mind. This is just my mind. Nothing here is real. Maybe if I was lucky, even the memories were a trick.

Forcing calming breaths, I stilled, waiting for the torturous grip to ease. Praying I could trick it into complacency that it had won.

Praying that it was all an awful dream.

Wake up. Wake the fuck up, Emma. I begged my body or my brain to comply. But even as the sludge eased, slowly retreating into its smoky state in the shadows, I was stuck.

That was when I knew the memories were real. This nothingness was my protection.

And with one loud boom, it was all ripped away.

Jolting back to reality, I barely had time to register the pain rippling across my body before nausea swirled through my stomach so intensely I barely had time to react, rolling to my side on instinct as I braced myself for the pain.

Just that movement alone was enough to make me scream, but it was choked from my throat, the remnants of my dinner splattering across the floor.

I groaned with the last heave of my stomach, forcing myself to keep my head from dropping into my own vomit, and rolled so my back rested against the hard granite floor, everything in me spent and aching too deeply to try to move any further.

Honestly, I was afraid to move.

I was afraid to see how bad the damage really was.

Ashamed of myself for trusting the wrong person.

Again.

The asshole could have at least left me on the bed.

I scoffed, the sound derisive and pathetic, turning into a moan.

Stupid thoughts like that are what put you here.

Bitterness swam over me as awareness really started to seep in, the coolness of the air controlled floor slowly seeping through my ripped top to cool my heated and bruised skin.

The sharp pain across the side of my face and in my side.

The pulsing feeling of nearly every inch of my skin, as if I could feel my heart beat throughout my entire battered body with each pump of my heart.

How I wished I could tear it out, hating it for settling. For trusting. For wanting what it couldn’t have. Like always.

Another wave of twisted guilt swarmed through my stomach, but I shoved it down, not ready to deal with it all yet.

Voices filtered in, flowing in and out and mumbled through the bass-pumped music of the party. Shrieks and splashes from the pool cascaded in louder than the rest, just feet away from the window I was splayed under. It was no wonder no one had heard my screams earlier.

Stupid.

A door slammed down the hall, and I jolted, sending pain shooting through my ribs like a knife. I cried out before I could stop myself but quickly bit down on my bottom lip to brace myself from the pain, something in me screaming I needed to keep quiet. As soon as I heard it, I knew that door slam was what had pulled me from my unconsciousness. What terrified me was which door would be next.

And if he was still here.

Even if he wasn’t, I didn’t know who I could trust out there.

Who had been close enough to overhear our fight.

Or me begging and pleading for him to stop.

Or was my torture really that quiet? Is it possible no one heard?

As soon as I thought it, I knew it was nuts. It had been a battle.

The infuriating part was how many outside this room were choosing to ignore what had happened. That were content to let me lie here in my own blood.

Again. Who’s fucking fault is it? It’s not like you weren’t warned…

Disgust and anger tore through me. Like fuck was it my fault. But it was true that I’d been warned. Annie and Izzy had tried to talk to me. They’d sensed what I hadn’t.

What I never fucking can, apparently.

Hot tears pricked behind my eyes. Even Nic mentioned…

My gut twisted for a whole new reason at that, but every speck of me froze when I heard a familiar deep voice through a transition of the music.

He was still here.

Talking. Laughing.

Like he hadn’t just beaten me unconscious, left on the floor to my fate.

Fight or flight struck me then, and I knew which of those I’d just lost. Pain be damned, I forced myself to roll and push myself up from the floor, but even with adrenaline rushing in, it took every ounce of determination I had. Everything in me shook, both in terror and in pain. My fingernails scraped along the wall, begging my legs not to crumple beneath me as I leaned against it for support.

Thank God I listened to Annie about wearing sandals instead of those gorgeous heels Izzy was going to let me borrow.

I didn’t even want to fathom how long it would have taken me to pay her back if I’d gotten blood on them.

My eyes rolled inwardly. Not the point here, Emma. How about focusing on your escape before any more random bullshit?

Bracing myself, I looked around. At the bloody sheets. The hole he’d punched in the wall just inches from my head. The items scattered around the dresser from when I’d slammed into it. Shards of broken glass and ceramic were strewn across the floor when I looked down.

It was a miracle I hadn’t landed on any.

I swallowed, the scene reminding me of what I wasn’t ready to process. Not yet.

First, I needed to get out. My eyes set on the window around the other side of the bed, the one away from the eyes of the party out back, and I clenched my teeth as I forced a foot forward, clutching the bed as I inched my way around. My toes brushed against bits of the broken ceramic and glass, and my teeth clenched harder, determined to ignore it. Once out that window and somewhere safe, I could dwell on it all I wanted. But not now.

I nearly stumbled twice, and if I’d thought my body had ached lying on the hard floor, it all but literally screamed as I climbed through the window.

As soon as my toes touched the ground, I reached up, fighting the shaking of my arms to pull the window closed, determined not to give anyone an obvious route to my escape.

Voices still shrieked around the corner, everyone still at this party oblivious to my plight or just as evil as my ex, choosing to ignore what he’d done.

I whimpered with the final push to reseal the window and then forced my unsteady body to move, rounding the back side of the pool house until I saw the outline of my Jeep visible in the shadows just past the streetlight.

How I avoided anyone’s attention as I crossed the front lawn, I had no clue. Even someone further away would have at least assumed I was dead-ass drunk, the way I was stumbling and desperately gripping onto anything in my path.

Tears were streaming down my cheeks when I finally grasped my door, and I laid my head against the window for just a moment. Relief hitting me just as much as the pain. I forced myself to ignore the slickness of the glass, trying to convince myself it was from a neighbor’s sprinklers and not my own blood.

But I knew the truth.

I knew how badly he’d beaten me.

My one question was if he’d thought he’d left me for dead.

My brow rolled back and forth against the window, possibly in denial. I didn’t know. But it was too hard to admit that could be true.

When my knees started to buckle, I braced myself once more, pulling my door open to drag myself into the driver’s seat.

I swallowed the scream that tore up my throat, because apparently, climbing up was a whole nother bitch compared to climbing down. It wasn’t until I mustered a pathetic pull to close the door that I managed to breathe again.

Any other night of my life, I’d have called 911 before ever dragging my ass off the floor of that bedroom, but terror had never hit me like it had tonight.

Maybe the night Izzy fell back in high school, but that fear was different. It had been life or death for both of us, but my fear tonight…it was for me and what might have happened if I was found awake before the ambulance came. That and his hissed threats if I ever told.

A harsh shiver jerked through me, and I bit down through my latest shriek of pain as I reached out to press the start button. I was trembling so much that it took a few tries, but as soon as my Jeep rumbled to life, relief washed over me like a wave. I tore away from the curb and down the street, flight mode now in double time. It was like I was on autopilot, temporarily numb to the pain as I blazed through the next several stop signs. All of it was a blur.