I was in a dead sleep when a knock came at the door. I hadn’t seen my brooding neighbor since he’d dropped me off after our swamp trip over a week ago, yet for some reason, I expected to find him on the other side of the door.

Only it wasn’t him.

It was Sterling.

He was standing on the deck, chugging a bottle of water.

Something was off.

His eyes weren’t focused. His usually neatly combed hair was mussed, and his shirt was untucked.

“Sterling, are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m great,” he slurred, pushing past me. Some of his water splashed on me in the process and I quickly realized it wasn’t water at all.

It was vodka.

And he wasn’t okay.

He was drunk.

Alarm bells started going off in my head. I glanced across the field to Finn’s house. I stayed by the door, leaving it open.

“You should go,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. My throat tightened. “You’re drunk. I was sleeping.”

“But I haven’t gotten the full tour,” Sterling slurred, leaning toward me. “Aren’t you going to thank me for the house?”

“Thank you for the house,” I said. “Now please go.”

“That’s not quite the thanks I’m looking for,” Sterling said with no emotion in his voice.

He crossed the room and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me from the door and slamming it shut.

My head spun. My heart raced. Memories of my father looking at me the way Sterling was invaded my mind.

He cornered me and I pushed against him, turning my head to the side when he leaned in toward me. He smelled like body odor masked with cheap cologne.

“Leave,” I said, again. “Leave now!”

Sterling only laughed. He pressed his thin cold lips against my cheek.

Bile rose in my throat.

His hand roamed over my t-shirt and he squeezed my breast painfully hard as I struggled to free myself from the prison of his body.

I screamed as loud as I could and kicked my leg upward with all the force I could muster. I connected with his groin and he groaned, the full force of his weight landing on top of my chest. He fell to the floor, dragging me along with him and landing directly on top of me. I was sure I was going to pass out from not being able to take anything more than a shallow breath.

“You’re going to pay for that,” Sterling groaned, covering my mouth with one hand and cocking back his fist. Sterling’s face morphed into something else.

Someone else.

Someone I couldn’t escape from no matter how hard I tried. Not in my dreams and not in my nightmares.

Only this wasn’t either.

This was real.

“What did I tell you, Father?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

“What? What are you talking about you stupid girl?”

“I told you never again. You’ll be sorry,” I said. And then I began laughing. High and loud.

“Why the hell are you laughing. I’ll give you something to laugh about!”

The door crashed open, slamming against the wall.

His eyes widened as he turned to see Finn’s massive body standing in the doorway.

“That’s why,” I whispered as Finn launched himself at my father who’d morphed back into Sterling the second Finn laid hands on him.

“Get your hands off of me,” Sterling growled as Finn tossed him out the door and off the deck, landing on his side. He rolled over, grabbing his arm. “You’re fucking her aren’t you?” Sterling asked with a manic laugh. “It fucking figures.”

Finn’s eyes were as dark as I’d ever seen them. His fingers flexed and his chest heaved as he glared hatred down at Sterling who was on the ground, wiping blood from the corner of his lip.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Sterling said with laughter that had an edge to it.

“Is HE why you won’t fuck me?” Sterling asked me. Finn’s eyes followed to where I was standing in the doorway then back to Sterling who was attempting to stand.

“Glad I found out now before things went too far,” he snarled, stepping up to Finn. “The last thing I want is the famed Finn Hollis’s sloppy seconds…again.”

Finn’s fists clenched together. I stepped up to Finn, placing my hand on his. He turned to me and looked down to where my hand was on his arm. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”

Finn gave me a sharp nod, hopped down from the deck and grabbed Sterling by the shirt with one hand and began to pummel him with his closed fist. He roared like an animal, a sound I could feel deep within my gut. Blood sprayed from Sterling’s nose.

Bone cracked.

Finn lifted him up by his shirt into the air then shoved him back into the ground.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Finn seethed.

“She’s all yours,” Sterling said, stumbling and coughing, blood gushing from his nose and lip. “Little slut has too many of those goddamned ugly freckles anyway.”

Finn took a single step to Sterling and punched him across the jaw. Sterling fell onto his back on the ground with a groan and a gurgle.

“If you ever try and lay a hand on her again… If you ever talk to her again… You won’t come out breathing next time. I’ll tether you to a tree in the swamp where no one will be able to hear you scream.”

“You going to kill me the same way you killed Jackie?” Sterling rasped. “Did he tell you about her Sawyer? Did he tell you how he killed his fiancée?” Sterling snarled as he taunted Finn who looked like his eyes were bulging out of his head. His neck was corded. Sterling chuckled “At least I got a taste first.”

Finn sent one last punch to Sterling’s face and his entire body stilled. No more gurgling. No more groaning.

Finn stood, grabbed his phone from his back pocket and held it to his ear. I didn’t understand the words he was saying to the person on the other end. I only heard something that sounded like waves in the ocean loud in my ears. A wet kind of static.

I didn’t realize I’d been crouching down behind the side of the house until Finn approached, putting his phone away.

“Did…did you kill him?” I asked, my voice shaking. I stood and took a few steps back from Finn whose expression switched from murderous to confused.

Finn reached out his hand to me and I zoned in on the blood across his knuckles. When he realized what I was looking at he pulled it back but it was too late.

I was already running.

I ran from Finn. I ran from Sterling. I ran from the past.

I was in a full sprint by the time the full weight of a memory crashed into me like a wave, pulling me under and holding me deep beneath the surface.

Drowning me.

“Does it hurt when he hits you, Mommy? It sounds like it does.”

“No. It doesn’t hurt. I go to my safe place. He can’t hurt me there. No one can.”

“What’s it like in your safe place?”

“It’s warm and sunny. There are birds and alligators and all sorts of animals there.”

“What is your safe place called, Mommy?”

“It’s called Outskirts, but that’s our secret. You can’t tell a soul, not even your father.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Good.”

“Hey, Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“Outskirts is a silly name.”

“Yes, it is, darling. Yes, it is.”

“Caroline!” Father called from downstairs.

Mother gave me a kiss on my forehead.

“Don’t go,” I begged.

“Don’t worry. It will be over soon. I told you. I’ll just go to my happy place.”

“Because he can’t hurt you there? In Outskirts?”

“Exactly,” Mother said, getting off my bed. “Your father can never hurt me when I’m in Outskirts.”

The storm rolled in. The thunder boomed. I held the blanket over my head, but no matter how loud the thunder boomed it couldn’t drown out the sound of shattering glass. Whimpers. Angry demands.

The crack of leather against skin.

Defeated cries, that I’d later realize, were my own.

“Sawyer! Sawyer! Say!” My body shook and I blinked rapidly to find a man lying on top of me, his chest heaving. His fingers digging into my skin. I glanced around at the heavily wooded area surrounding me then back to the man.

In my mind, I saw Sterling. My father.

I panicked.

I fought.

I screamed.

“Get off of me!” I kicked my legs and flailed my arms. “I won’t let you hurt me anymore. I won’t let anyone hurt me!”

My fists were caught in the air, bound together in one big strong hand.

“Sawyer, it’s me! It’s Finn. I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice trailed off. “I would never hurt you.”

I slowly opened my eyes and when they finally focused, Finn’s face appeared above me, but the panic was still there, right under the surface like a boiling pot with a flimsy lid.

“Finn,” I stated simply. “Let me up.”

Finn watched me curiously as he slid off me. “He’s gone.” He leaned in to run his hand down my face, but I tore my head away before he could touch me.

When he tried to help me up I flinched. “I can do it,” I spat. Finn took a step back and allowed me room to get to my feet.

I stumbled and lost my footing. Finn caught me and again I struggled to free myself from his grip, but this time instead of stepping back he only held me tighter, spinning me around and searching my eyes.

“I’m not him,” Finn said, calmly and assertively.

“I know you’re not Sterling,” I said, wriggling from his grasp. He dug his fingers into my arms.

“No. Not Sterling. You know who I’m talking about,” Finn said. “I’m not him.”

I closed my eyes. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.” I wanted to disappear. From Finn, from the memories. I needed to be alone. To think.

“I don’t know where you went back there, but I know you weren’t here.” He pulled me in tighter. “I’m not him,” he growled, louder this time like he was trying to push the words into my soul.

“Just let me go!” I begged. “Please!” I didn’t want to face it.

Any of it.

“Sawyer, say it. Tell me. Look at me and say it!” Finn shouted.

Wanting to get whatever it was he was trying to do over with, I opened my eyes, glared into Finn with everything I had and screamed, “You’re not hiiiiim!”

After a few seconds of Finn and I staring at one another, I felt the words sink in. “You’re not him,” I whispered, just as I felt the fight inside me turn from bright to dim to dead.

I collapsed forward into Finn’s arms and made no attempt to get away this time. I felt exhausted. Drained.

Finn spoke into my hair. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” I answered, my teeth chattering.

Finn eased back so he could look at me, keeping his hands lightly on my arms. “Where did you go?”

I sucked in a breath. “Home. I went home,” I answered, feeling confused and shaken up. My heart still racing and my head pounding.

Finn raised a hand to smooth some hair from my face but stopped again when he noticed his knuckles. His eyes widened and he dropped his hand.

“It’s okay, now,” I assured him. I reached out and grabbed his hand. I blew air over his wounded knuckles.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Finn said softly.

“Me too.”

Finn bent at the waist and lifted me off the ground with one arm behind my knees and the other supporting my neck. He held me against his chest and carried me out of the woods and back to the clearing.

“When I kicked opened your door,” Finn started, “You were laughing. Why?”

“Because, I knew you’d come,” I said, hearing and feeling Finn’s heartbeat quicken against my temple. “I knew you’d save me.”

“You did?” Finn asked, his voice broken.

I nodded and closed my eyes. “I did. He can’t hurt me here. I’m in my safe place.”

“Your safe place?” he questioned as we approached my house.

“Outskirts. He can’t hurt me when I’m in Outskirts.” I sighed deeply as I echoed my mother’s words from the past. “No one can.”