I took a shuddering breath as I climbed the wall, the wind whipping around me bitterly. It nipped at my wet cheeks and the tip of my nose. My head throbbed and my red, puffy eyes stung from the tears that hadn’t relented even when I thought I had nothing else left to cry out. I kept my left hand on the pillar to steady my trembling form as I peered down over the edge of the bridge.

The water below was as a black as the night sky but I could still see the water moving at speed, smooth as silk but never static. It swirled like an empty abyss. It wasn't inviting me to it like I thought it would. I had imagined that the ribbon of icy water would call to me and make this easier but it too was repulsed by me and didn't want me to enter its frigid depths and thus taint it with my disgusting being.

In truth I didn't want to do this either. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live my life but I couldn't face another day living in this hell. My head hurt, my lungs hurt and my heart hurt. Every bruise throbbed, my swollen lip stung even though the bleeding had stopped sometime ago.

Most girls my age would be preparing for college, spending summer breaks and weekends with friends or earning money at a job. They would have dreams of meeting the love of their life and maybe starting a family. I had those dreams too once but little by little they were crushed. My friends were torn away from me, my self-confidence and self-esteem destroyed until all that was left was a submissive shell, a walking punch bag for Noah Winters to use and abuse.

He was systematically taking everything from me. He isolated me so I had no one to turn to, he ripped my self-belief to shreds and now he was targeting my dignity and body. I could still feel his fingers running over my stomach and ribs like spiders right before they dug into my bruised sides, making me cry out in pain. I had seen the look in his black eyes when he had done it, the sick and perverse pleasure he was taking from violating and hurting me. My sobbing and begging was like a drug to him. I could see him growing high on it, relishing it. He wanted more until it became the only thing he had and cared for.

My misery was his obsession.

The bitter coldness was starting to numb my fingers and toes. I don't know how long I stood on the edge of the bridge, trying to convince myself to just let go but the battle raged on in my head. What would my brother think? How would he deal with me being gone? Would he understand why I was doing this?

I could still hear Noah's voice in my head taunting me, degrading me, reducing me to nothing.

You're disgusting.

You're so worthless even your brother can't stand to be around you.

I'm going to enjoy taking everything from you.

I own you, Ellie.

I shuddered like a snowdrop in the wind, my stomach churning and rolling as I remembered how his eyes left mine and had traveled down, roaming over me. It wasn't attraction that I saw. In fact, I’m not sure what it was but it had been something cold and dark. It had been so primal and inhumane that I had felt the cold fingers of fear grip my chest tighter than ever before. I knew at that moment he wouldn't stop until he had humiliated me in the ultimate way.

"I'd rather die." I whispered to myself, finding that piece of reasoning I needed to peel my fingers away from the pillar and let the wind push me into the abyss.

---

Three months earlier

My knee bobbed nervously as I watched the blue screen in front of me, the sound of a phone ringing coming from the speakers. It was nearly midnight but this was the only time I was going to get to speak with my brother who was thousands of miles away on a military base.

For years it had been just Liam and I. I didn’t know my dad. He had skipped out on us when I was three leaving me with Liam and our devastated mother.

Mom couldn’t handle being a single mother and had turned to alcohol, staying out all hours of the night and sleeping all day. At the time I was too young to understand that my mother wasn’t coping. She had been pretty young when she had me but just a teenager when she had Liam. She had been forced to grow up quickly but the responsibility of looking after two children on her own was just too much for the ex-highschool beauty queen.

Boyfriend after boyfriend would turn up over the years, none of them particularly nice but every one of them was the love of my mom’s life until they weren’t anymore.

Then, when Liam was 16 and I was 9, mom landed herself a new boyfriend with money. He was a bit older than her but that’s all we knew about him because we never got to meet him and he never knew about us. Within a few weeks, they were going on vacation to Las Vegas and that my friends, is the last time I ever saw my mother.

Since then, it’s been just Liam and me.

He took on the role of parent and brother without complaint. He helped me with homework, got a part time job so we didn’t have to rely on our mother’s irregular cheques and when he graduated high-school, he joined the military

Being that he could now be my legal guardian, it meant that he could make sure a roof stayed over my head but at the cost of him having to be away from home months at a time. Between the age of 12 and 16 I lived mostly with a family friend...well I say family friend but actually she was a sweet old lady whose son was also in the military and was more than happy to look after me whenever Liam was away. She didn’t know my dad or mom and she never asked.

Then last year she decided to move to Florida leaving me all on my own. I didn’t mind too much. I was used to looking after myself. I had a small part-time job, I was an okay cook and I wasn’t particularly social so Liam never had to worry about me going to parties or staying out late.

It wasn’t perfect but then, what in life is?

The screen in front of me blinked and darkened before a grainy picture of my brother appeared on screen.

“Hey tater-tots! How's it going?” Liam grinned, his voice tinny through the speakers of the old lap top.

“Stop calling me that.” I whined half-heartedly. “It’s going okay. School starts back up tomorrow.”

“Really? Geeze, feels like just yesterday you were telling me you had finished for the year.”

“Time sure does fly.” I chuckled. “My final year as well.”

“It is! Are you excited?” Liam asked.

I hesitated to answer.

I was a fairly bright kid. I wasn’t naturally smart but I worked hard and did okay grades-wise. I had done enough to consider college seriously and even picked up a few extra credits. However, school was my least favourite place in the world especially if Noah Winters was around.

Noah Winters. He had never really liked me. He had no specific reason for it, he was just a bully who picked on others like me. However, over the last year, he had ramped up his campaign against me. It had started with small things like trying to trip me up and calling me names, things I could ignore but then things got worse. He did anything he could to embarrass me in front of the whole school, shoved me into lockers and got his friends to spread rumors. On and on it went, each week worse than the last.

I tried to ignore it. I had a few friends to balance things out but one by one they began to distance themselves. Either Noah would target them until they stopped associating with me or he would find some other way to push them away. It all happened so quickly that I practically didn’t see it happen.

Suddenly, I was all alone with no one to have my back.

The last day of school before summer had been the worst so far. I hadn’t been in a great mood that day so when Noah tried to trip me up I snapped. I had spun around and slapped him in front of the whole school. I should have known then I was in for a world of trouble but as I stood there, watching this monster rub the cheek I had just hit before storming away, I naively thought I have won.

I was wrong.

My punishment for my mistake didn’t come until the end of the day though. He ambushed me before I could make it out of the school, dragging me to the school swimming pool and holding my head under water until I nearly passed out.

“I’m going to have so much fun with you.” He had growled in my ear before leaving me to cough and splutter on the ground.

“How's everything with you?” I quickly changed the subject, smiling as best as I could at the image of my brother.

“Oh you know, same old, same old.” Liam shrugged. “Hey listen. A friend of mine has just left the service and he needs a place to stay for a while. I figured we could do with the cash so I’ve agreed that he can take the spare room.”

“Oh.” I tried not to sound uncomfortable about the whole thing but how could I not? I hadn’t met any of Liam’s friends and had no idea what to expect. “Okay. What’s his name?”

“Aiden. Don’t worry, he won’t get in your way. He should be there in a week.” Liam explained. “Look, I’ve got to go. Be good tater-tots and speak to you in a few days!”

Liam was gone before I even had a chance to react, leaving me staring at a blue screen once again with a small note saying Liam was now offline. Sighing heavily, I closed the screen of the laptop and sank back against my bed as the darkness engulfed me. My stomach had already been churning with nerves thinking about school tomorrow but Liam’s news had ramped up the anxiety. He knew I wasn’t good with strangers so why was he letting one move into our house? What if this Aiden was an absolute nut job or horrible?

I felt my chest tightening as thoughts began to swarm my mind, joining the tornado of worries and questions that had been storming through my brain already. Each thought added pressure to my chest as if I was being sat on, compressing my lungs until I thought I would stop breathing altogether.

Breathe, Ellie. Breathe…

I forced myself to take a few calming breaths, trying to bring the storm of nerves under control. Liam’s friend wouldn’t be here for a week and there was a chance he might change his mind. What adult male wanted to live with a socially awkward teenage girl?

The small glimmer of hope that this stranger might change his mind was enough to calm me down a little. I knew it was foolish to hold out hope but part of me couldn’t help myself. I already had enough problems with school, I didn’t need some ex-military type adding more issues to the mix.

It’s going to be okay. He probably won’t turn up and it’s just one more year of school. What’s the worst that could happen?

Little did I know back then, I was going to find out.