Free The Girl in the Mirror (Sand & Fog #3) by Susan Ward

to fifty in my head, just to make sure he’s not coming back and then I scramble from the bed.
    Ouch!
    My foot makes contact with something sharp. On the ground is my silly jewelry box I’ve had since I was four. The one most girls get as their first, that pink flowery square of wood with the shiny gold latch with the ballerina inside that pops up when you open it and twirls in circles as music plays.
    I lift my leg and underneath my toes I see the ballerina on the carpet next to the box.
    It’s ruined.
    Broken.
    Oh crap, what if Jacob lied and tells my parents everything? He could be talking to my mother now. If he breathes a word of this to Chrissie, the ballerina on the floor won’t be the only one he broke tonight because the shit will hit the fan.
    I’ll never be able to face my parents again. There’s no chance either of them will let me take off to Juilliard next week. I’ll be lucky if they ever let me out of the house.
    Jacob can crush my life with a few words just like he destroyed my pretty box.
    Sinking down, I pick up the tiny ballerina, and I don’t know why but my tears give way.
    Throughout the awful scene of Jacob busting into the bedroom, the humiliating moment of making contact with his eyes and knowing he’d seen me nude, the terrifying moment when he attacked Daryl, the ghastly sounds of his fist crashing into my boyfriend’s face, somehow I managed to hold it together.
    No, I watched it all feeling spacey and almost like I wasn’t really here and none of it was really happening.
    Drops of blood drip from the ball of my foot to the floor. My gaze locks on the red.
    Real, very real.
    Oh fuck.
    I hobble into the bathroom, sit on the edge of the tub, and grab a towel, pushing as hard as I can into the cut. What should I do now? I can’t just wait for Jacob, cowering in my bedroom, because if I do it’s a dead giveaway how afraid I am of him telling what happened here tonight.
    What if he tries to use it against me?
    I don’t know Jacob well enough to be certain he won’t.
    He has power over me now.
    Damn, damn, damn.
    My heart accelerates—does he know that?
    My tears turn scalding as they pour down my cheeks.
    Frantically, I replay the minutes in my head, hoping to find something to make me less afraid of what he might do. I curl into a tight ball, clutching fiercely on the towel, trying to stop my tears and the bleeding. My gaze darts around the bathroom. Maybe I should dress, pack, and get home before he returns.
    Oh crap, I’m too unsure of what he’ll do if I defy him, but I don’t want to stay here, humiliated, to listen to whatever he has to say to me when he returns.
    I hear sound from the bedroom, and I toss aside the towel and rush out of the bathroom.
    Madison is standing in the center of the room, eyes wide, face alarmed, and she’s visibly shaking.
    “Krystal, what the hell happened here?” she exclaims, darting toward me. Her fingers close on my arms. “Who broke all this stuff? Where’s Daryl? Oh God, why are you staring at me that way? Are you OK?”
    I quickly assess her expression.
    Oh thank God, she doesn’t know what happened here.
    She takes me in a tight, protective hug. “Talk to me. You’re scaring the hell out of me. What happened here?”
    “Nothing and I’m all right.”
    She tenses and jerks back, her gaze searching my face. “Nothing! It looks like there was a brawl here, Daryl’s missing, and you look half out of your mind. Don’t tell me nothing happened here.”
    I don’t know what to say.
    I can’t tell her the truth.
    I sink down on my bed, bury my face in my hands, and start crying again. It’s stupid and pathetic and really wrong, but I can’t think of another way to get her to stop questioning me.
    “Oh, Krystal,” she moans, dropping heavily down on the bed beside me and wrapping her arm around my shoulders. “You’ve got to tell me what happened. I’m freaking out here. Did you and Daryl have some kind of a fight? Is that how the