Free Sterling by Dannika Dark

the sound of birds stirring up a frenzy outside by the feeder. “You were up early.”
    But Adam didn’t want to talk. Not yet, perhaps not wanting to spoil the breakfast he put so much effort in preparing.
    When we finished, nothing was left but a half a strip of bacon sitting on a plate between us. I reached for it when the plate disappeared, hovering out of reach.
    “Don’t make me put the hurt on you, give .”
    “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl eat as much as you. I don’t know where you put it.”
    True. I hadn’t gained a single ounce since day the day we met and he fed me very well.
    “You trying to tell me I’m a pig?”
    “Just observing your overzealous appetite,” he grinned.
    I waved my fork in the air and narrowed my eyes. “I’ve got a fork and I’m not afraid to use it.”
    “Well then, I’ve got a glow stick and I’m not afraid to use it.”
    “You need to keep that stick in your pants,” I laughed as Adam cleared the table.
    “You really should quit your day job,” I yelled out. “Open up your own bistro. I could waitress and flirt with the customers, if I’m flirt-worthy.”
    “You’re definitely flirt-worthy. I bet you have to beat men off with a stick.”
    I carried the remaining plates to the sink and stood beside him. He washed, I dried.
    “You saw what a ravishing delight I used to be.” Sarcasm dripped off my tongue. “Sunny was the flirt, I just hung back and observed the master.”
    “Some men prefer beer over a fine wine. That doesn’t mean much.”
    “So what am I in this scenario—the beer or the wine?”
    Adam dropped his chin and frowned. “The wine, of course.”
    “Sunny would kick your ass for calling her beer.”
    “It’s not a put down. Some girls are the kind that every man appreciates, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
    He ran the plate under the faucet scrubbing it with the bristle sponge and passed it over to me.
    Part of our perception of our looks is shaped from a lifetime of comments, opinions and reactions to it. I always knew where I stood before. But now, I had none of that to go on outside of what I saw in the mirror—was I still wine, or was I beer? Hell, maybe now I was moonshine.
    “I’m sorry I slapped you and said what I did.”
    “Don’t apologize, you were right. I shouldn’t have left you alone like that, you could have been hurt.” There was a delicate stretch of silence. “So who was I chasing?”
    I tensed. Here it was, the moment Adam would decide how far-fetched this whole thing really was. He knew what he found and he knew what the paper said, but he didn’t know the whole truth of it.
    “I was crossing a field that night on my way home when someone jumped me.”
    Adam played statue, holding a bowl under the running water but not looking up. Perhaps he was afraid if he startled me, I might quit talking.
    I continued to dry the plate, every square inch of it.
    Three times
    As I told him the details of what happened to me, my pulse quickened and I was out of breath. While I had replayed the events in my head a million times I didn’t realize how much it would still affect me when I actually verbalized it. When I finished, I recapped.
    “I didn’t even hear him come up on me; he just knocked me over and was doing something with our hands.”
    “Doing what?”
    “I don’t know, it was like he was sucking the life out of me, and then it was back. It was electric, like you described. He tried choking me after I kicked him in the groin, but then…”
    “Zoë.” Adam’s expression tightened. The water was no longer on. My name was a single request to keep going.
    “He said he had done the same thing to others, and that he was going to make mine so much worse. It hurt Adam, it hurt so much when he cut my throat with that knife.”
    An angry curse sliced through the conversation.
    It wasn’t mine.
    “You feel it when you die. You just know. My heart stopped and I had this weightless disconnected