The Price of Freedom

Chapter 7: It's Time

DINAH

Jacob walks towards me and I want to run in the other way, but I feel like my feet have been glued to the floor. No matter how much I want to start walking I simply can’t find the strength to move. He steps up to me and raises his hand to my face, I automatically flinch not knowing what to expect from him. Except he doesn’t hurt me, he caresses my cheek with the back of his fingers.

“Dinah sweetheart, don’t you look lovely.” He says with a smirk.

Then I remembered we were surrounded by people, he’ll act the perfect gentleman now, but as soon as I do something, he doesn’t like he’ll hurt me. I feel like everything around me has come to a stall and his eyes are just burning right through me. I’m paralyzed in fear.

I didn’t even notice that I’ve started trembling until he grabs my shoulders to stop me.

“Are you cold?” He asks me. “Here let’s go get you a sweater.” He says as he garbs hold of my hand and begins pulling me up the stairs.

I can’t be alone with him right now, not ever. I’m terrified to go upstairs with him, but my mouth won’t open up to scream for help and my body refuses to follow my commands. I’m simply forced to watch as my body is dragged up the stairs with no semblance of safety.

Just as I thought I had no hope Serena came running down the stairs and saw the paralyzing fear etched on my face. She didn’t show her anger, she just put on a smile as she came towards me.

“Dinah, I need your help, will you please come with me? Jacob, you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed your date, would you?”

“Not at all,” he chuckled. “Just make sure to bring her back to me.”

“No problem.” She says as she takes my hand and drags me back down the stairs and towards the kitchen.

Serena stops us in the hallway leading to the backyard, there shouldn’t be any people going through here since the party is happening in the main part of the house.

She looks at me up and down and starts looking at my individual body parts trying to see if I have any new injuries. “Holy s**t Dinah, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.” I say with a blank stare.

“Do you want to just leave now?”

“No, it’s okay, if we leave now it’ll be too suspicious and they’ll come looking for us, we need to wait for there to be more guests so we can get lost in the crowd,” I remind her. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine, let’s just go back.”

Serena looks at me hesitantly but then nods in agreement. We make our way back to the party hand in hand and we start greeting guests at the door. It’s all fake smiles from here, guest after guest we thank them for coming and invite them to have as much to drink as they can stomach.

Jacob has been hovering around trying to get an opportunity to swoop me away, but for once I’m glad that Lily decided to invite more people than necessary.

One set of eyes catches my attention coming towards the door, Liam. A small hint of warmth begins to build up in my chest, my heart longed for his soft touch, but I knew that as soon as he came close to me Jacob would be there to tear the one glimmer of happiness away. Liam’s eyes dart towards me, almost immediately a smile begins to form on his beautiful chiseled face.

That beautiful smile of his fades within seconds. Jacob comes up to me, grabs me by the waist and kisses me. His kiss is slobbery and demanding and I’m just existing not moving a muscle. Jacob let’s go of me and wipes the corner of my lip with his thumb before waltzing off.

Liam’s eyes move towards the floor and I’m immediately hit with a pang of guilt. Jacob was staking his claim like the asshole he is, there is no way he didn’t see Liam coming. Maybe that’s why he was just waiting around by the door.

I see Liam and Sacha come up followed by Raul, a gorgeous woman, and Melo, they all look incredible, this distraction better work. Serena starts to bounce on her feet as soon as she sees them, I’m not sure if it’s because of Sacha or because they came, but she seems excited nonetheless.

“Hi, thanks for coming everyone,” she says to them.

“It was our pleasure sweetheart,” Melo responds as he gives her a hug and walks in.

“I hope it’s okay with you that my girlfriend tagged along,” Raul asked.

“Of cour...” she started. “Oh my gosh you’re Catarina Dubois!”

“Oui,” the woman giggles. “Happy Birthday ma chéri.”

I take notice when the woman is eyeing Serena up and down, taking in her every feature. I would be nervous if anyone looked at me that way, but Serena has this undying confidence in her that does not allow her to falter.

“Oh my god I think I’m going to faint,” Serena chuckles.

“Find me later and I may have a surprise for you mon amie,” Catarina said with a wink.

Raul and Catarina made their way into the party leaving Sacha and Liam behind. Sacha wished Serena a happy birthday with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. This kid was smooth, there is no denying that they were cute together. There was absolutely no hesitation when Serena decided to leave me behind to show Sacha around leaving me to continue greeting guests.

“So that’s still happening I see,” Liam said with a pained look in his eyes.

“Can we please not do this right now, I’m pretty sure he’s still watching me,” I said trying not to make eye contact with him, I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be able to pull myself away from him anytime soon. “I’ll come looking for you when I’m free to talk.”

Liam nods and walks off into the crowd. From the corner of my eye I can see Jacob glaring at me, and if his face is any indication, he is not happy.

I continue to greet guests for the next hour, until there doesn’t seem to be a steady stream, so I decide to go find Serena. I find her mingling with a few guests, so I pull her aside and let her know that it’s time for her distraction so I can start moving our bags into the car. She happily complies, so I make my way upstairs.

Luckily Serena packed light and I only had to carry 4 suitcases, so I made my way to the back set of stairs in the kitchen. One by one I lugged the heavy bags and put them into the trunk of the car, I was pretty proud of myself. I got my keys ready, so when it was time to go, I wouldn’t have to go searching for them. As soon as I entered the kitchen, I thought I was in the clear, my mistake for thinking things would go easy for me.

“What were you doing in the garage?” Jacob asked me as he looked behind me towards the door as if he was waiting for someone else to come out.

“I had to take a call from work,” I responded nonchalantly.

Jacob stepped closer to me and placed a hand on my cheek. It didn’t seem like he would hurt me, at least I hoped he wouldn’t, we were at a party and people might notice. Well I guess Jacob f*****g Bennett isn’t the brightest because he slapped me across the face causing me to let out a small whimper. I could feel my cheek begin to heat up with the burning sensation the palm of his hand left me with.

“Who were you with Dinah?”

I stood back up to my full height refusing to let him see me cry again.

“I wasn’t with anyone, you asshole go ahead and check for yourself.” I spat.

Jacob did exactly that, he went to check the garage to see if anyone was in there, and when he was satisfied that there wasn’t, he came back out.

“Stop testing me Dinah,” he commanded as he walked out of the kitchen.

I stood in the kitchen trying to regain some composure before walking back into the party. Deciding against it, I opted for a silent visit to the garden gazebo, I didn’t want to be around anyone right now and my face would bring up some questions I didn’t want to answer.

Sitting at the gazebo I remembered all the times my dad and I used to come out here to talk, how he would just let me ramble on about anything and everything. I miss that, I miss his gentle reassuring voice, even when he was furious with me, he would never raise his voice, he was a good man. Jacob could f*****g never.

“I thought you were supposed to come find me, not the other way around.” My heart skips a beat as soon as I hear that same alluring voice, I don’t have to turn around to know it’s Liam.

He comes around and sits next to me, thankfully it’s not on the side that Jacob hit me so he won’t see my swollen cheek.

“What are we doing Dinah?” He asks me with his elbows on his knees.

“I’m not exactly sure, sometimes I don’t even know what I’m doing.” I respond honestly.

Liam turns to look at me, I can sense his heartache, and all I want for him to do is just hold me, “I really like you Dinah, but it’s hard to see him all over you.”

He makes a move to hold my hand, but I flinch at the sudden contact, forcing him to retract his hand. Liam wouldn’t hurt me, or I hope he wouldn’t, but then again, I thought Jacob wouldn’t either and here I am. I feel terrible at my reaction towards him, all I want to do is wrap my arms around him and be encompassed by an overwhelming sense of safety but I can’t bring myself to be touched.

“I’ll give you some time, I thought I could wait forever, but it’s just breaking me apart,” Liam said as he stood up and left me sitting there.

Silence consumed me, there was nothing I could do, at least not now. Tears began to run down my face and stung the already forming welt from Jacobs fingers.

I decide to just text Serena to meet me in the garage so we can finally leave, hopefully I don’t have to wait long. I run up to my room to leave a note and this gaudy ring before running back down to the car. By the time I get back Serena is waiting for me by the car, anxiously biting her lip.

Her eyes meet mine and she rushes towards me, “he hurt you again,” she utters.

“Nothing a little spa trip can’t fix,” I joked.

She pushes a few strands of hair behind my ear to get a closer look at the damage, so I hold her hands in mine hoping to give her some reassurance that I’m fine, “hey we’ll be okay, as long as we have each other.”

“Together?” She asks.

“Together.”