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doubt that what they’d given her not only had an equal or better chance of doing the same but was also probably why she’d felt so sluggish and been so sick. Her brain went haywire enough without adding recreational drugs into the mix.
    Which was why she avoided such things like the plague.
    Then again, Bruno and his goons really hadn’t asked for her opinion. More than that, one of them had slapped a big, beefy palm over her mouth and nose to force her to stop expressing it and swallow what they’d given her.
    For some reason, it was the memory of that man’s hand across her mouth and against her nose—smothering her until she thought her lungs would explode—that removed every last inch of the distance she’d shoved between her rote description of what had happened and the completely irrational but no less avoidable feeling that it was about to happen again right this very minute.
    Ice-cold terror slammed into her out of nowhere. Her heart raced, her breathing shallowed, white spots played around the edge of her vision, and her fingertips went tingly.
    “Jenna?” Sara said. The alarm in her sister’s voice only made her panic worse. “Sweetie?”
    Voices that Jenna couldn’t interpret. Motion she couldn’t make sense of. She grasped at her chest, sure her heart wouldn’t be able to beat this hard much longer.
    Her throat narrowed. Her chest tightened. Her breathing screamed as it sawed in and out of her windpipe.
    Warmth. On her hand. On her face. She turned into it. And found Easy looking into her eyes. Intense. Focused. Determined.
    “E . . . E . . . E . . .”
    “Don’t talk. Just breathe. But slow it down. Can you do that for me?” As she watched, he inhaled an exaggerated breath and slowly blew it out. Then again. And again. Needing him to ground her, she grabbed his arm as she gulped for breath and tried to pace her inhalations with his, using his steady, deep in and out as a metronome of peace and life. After a few minutes, it worked. Staring into his eyes, Easy talked her through the panic, helped her slow her breathing, and gently pulled her back from the brink. “There you go. You’re just fine. No worries here. I gotchu.”
    He has me. Inhale. He has me. Exhale. He has me .
    Jenna nodded. Suddenly, the need to purge every bit of her experience from her soul flooded through her. It almost felt like if she didn’t get it all out, it might stain her forever. On the next exhale, she unleashed the words she knew she wouldn’t be able to say unless she did it right now. And given what she yet had to admit, it was somehow easier saying it to someone other than Sara.
    “I can’t take my meds. They held me down and forced me to swallow something. A drug.” Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “I don’t . . . know . . . what it was. I tried to fight. I did. But then it hit me, and it was like a lead blanket, or maybe a magic carpet, because I was flying but so damn relaxed I couldn’t move my limbs. And then the one guy . . . he, um—” She shuddered and gooseflesh sprung up over her skin. God, she wished she could hold this part in. Hadn’t Sara suffered enough? But the words were right there and falling from her tongue. “—t-touched me, just to prove he could and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop him.” Just saying the words brought back the remembered feel of big, rough hands groping and squeezing her breasts.
    A gasp sounded out from next to her.
    Easy’s only reaction was a ticking muscle in his jaw, as if he were clenching his teeth. “Did he—”
    “No,” she blurted. Jenna couldn’t bear to hear him ask the question she knew he’d ask. Not in front of Sara. Not given what Sara had gone through. “Bruno made him stop.” She gasped for air. “I didn’t want . . . I didn’t . . .” She shook her head—or maybe that was just her whole body shaking. Tears streamed down her face. “I didn’t,” she said again, Easy’s intense gaze, warm, solid touch, and