DRASTIC (Book 4 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 6: Smart Girls Had To Lose To Win

I love this song, Lose You To Love Me, for Marley's experience with Daemon. It's spot on.

Marley, present day, after the early morning call with Bodie

I manage to put thoughts of Bodie away as I shower and rush to work—this morning I'm leading a group at a women's shelter.

As I enter the shelter and see bruised faces and avoiding eyes, Daemon and his world come rushing in with a vengeance. I smile in empathy at a young woman with a black eye and remember how it's even painful to breath with all the swelling and tenderness from an injury like that.

Daemon hit me, a few times near the end. 

I was very confused about his anger. Not that the abuse could ever be justified—but his anger erupted from nothing and was never explained. Always just washed away with tears and gifts and promises it wouldn't happen again.

Except it did.

I didn't understand it at the time. I'd been with him over a year. He was in complete control of my life— and that was a form of emotional abuse in itself—but he had never hit me before.

It was only after Bodie's initiation that I realized, he had people spying on me all along. He paid some of the younger kids to keep tabs on me. He knew the minute I met Clayton. Knew when I started spending time at the library with him. Knew Clayton and I would ride the train together to spy on my birth mother and go to the coffee shop together afterwards and talk about the parents we never knew, and how that made us feel.

Daemon never confronted me about it, and I never felt wrong in my friendship with Clayton. In my mind, it was completely separate from my life with Daemon. Even though Clayton didn't know my real name...I was Marley with him. I was real. I was me. With Clayton I wasn't Jasmine—the girl that Daemon molded. The girl that was a gangster's dimepiece.

It never occurred to me that Clayton could be anything other than a friend to me. I was so overwhelmed and overpowered by Daemon that I would never have thought of being with Clayton like that. Or anyone else—not until Daemon commanded me to. But the minute I knew that Clayton and Bodie were the same person...that was the minute everything changed. I wanted to give Clayton one real moment, before I was forced to give him the betrayal of his young life.

I couldn't understand why Daemon would ever ask me to mess with one of his initiates like that. Daemon was my first and only lover, and he had been good at schooling me the way he liked things, but he had mostly been considerate and protective. I thought what Daemon and I had was love.

I didn't realize that Daemon knew what I didn't—that I didn't know anything about love. That I was just a scared and vulnerable girl over-awed by a powerful man like Daemon and eager to please him. That I had real feelings  for Clayton. There was something growing between us when I hung out with him during all those long days Daemon left me alone to do his deals, run his games, and hang with his homies.

I didn't realize it at all. I also didn't realize that Daemon didn't love me, he only loved making me into the perfect vision of his Trap Queen—a ride-or-die that would do anything for him. I thought I loved him, but in reality I was just a frantic girl that latched onto a powerful man in the middle of a catastrophe.

I loved Daemon like a person loves a life raft after their ship sinks.

I had never even had a boyfriend before Daemon. I didn't know what real feeling was. Not until the night Clayton kissed me in his room all those years ago. So shy and sweet at first, and then it was like...he came into himself as his fingers danced over my shoulders and down my arms, and he found his rhythm where our mouths met. Kissing Clayton was nothing like being with Daemon. It didn't just make me feel safe. I felt more. I felt...him. I felt his thrill and his hope and his optimism and I wanted to give him more...of me... so he could make more of all those good vibes. So we could both feel that.