The previous day’s emotional and physical roller coaster came crashing back to her like a bad hangover. The last words Luke spoke to her the night before still hung in the air. She couldn’t stop thinking Please be kind to me. Please help me survive this. Like a mantra over and over in her head, as if he could hear her if she thought it enough. As if he might care. He couldn’t let her go now, not with plausible deniability. She struggled to find a way to give in to him, to erase her mind and just be her body, which seemed to know instinctively how to please him and submit. She thought back to the day before, lying in the grass after he’d branded her, the feeling of bliss like everything was right with the world. Everything and everyone was in its place. Everything was as it should be. Life was a rich, interwoven tapestry of which she and Luke were only tiny threads. Nothing was a big enough deal to fight over. When you became everything and everything became you, what was there to dispute?
