"Ha. Nice try, love. But I'm a highly trained death machine working for the FBI. I'm nowhere near psychotic. I have the intelligence of a genius-"
"With the mind and dialect of a five-year-old," she finishes for me. "You are outrageously lethal, my dear." She smiles like the gorgeous, preppy nurse that she is, a lurking smirk finding its way to the ends of her face.
--------------------------- ------------------------------ -------------------------------- ------
For starters, I grabbed his arm and shot a hand into the Adam's apple of his neck. Pulling with full force, I rammed his head straight through the headboard of our queen-sized bed. He recoiled in shock at the damage I'd done and sneered. He was bleeding. Jin grimaces when he slowly brings a severed cracked head raised from the ruckus I'd caused him. He stepped one inch closer to me, and that was all I needed to know. He punched me in the face, but I got the memo and evaded them the second and third time by allowing him to punch the wall.
I was becoming very tired and at a loss for all words involving war. Jin-Suk grabbed my neck and strangled me, banging my head off the stove in the kitchen and severing a now splitting lip that was anonymously bursting at the seems. He rammed my head against the wall, probably executing internal damage on the brain. My stomach jumped into my throat as I was flung across the room. Though I was too weak to fight back, I was merely able to evade attacks, basically fighting for my life.
I was breathing heavily, hands tied above my head, his body laying directly over mine, pressing into the curvature of my hip bone. I was defenseless, and I knew it, which made him all the more proudly conceited. My head lulls to one side in defeat, waiting for the finishing blow, when suddenly, I hear something I never thought he would say: "You're cute when you're winded."
Ella is falling apart trying to live a "perfect" high school life. Then she meets Ren, who can see past her scars. Suddenly perfection isn't her only option.
*****
Ella Volkov is a gifted music student, but she's depressed and starting to crack under the pressure of high school. Her overbearing father won't even let her choose what instrument she plays. Then she finds herself alone at a party with Ren, her best friend's crush. She'd always thought he was rude, but after that night he's all Ella can think about. Now she's trapped. If Ella dates Ren, it will ruin her friendship with Jenny. But if she stays true to Jenny, she's losing the one person who can see past her scars. It's up to Ella to decide if she will forge her own path, or stay in the "perfect" box designed for her...
Content and/or Trigger Warning: depression, anxiety, self-harm, violence, sexual assault.
[[word count: 50,000-100,000 words]]