Breathless 4 (Breathless #4) by Claire Adams Read Free Book Online

just downing drinks
left and right, not even asking what they were.” I shuddered; it would only be
too easy to drug someone acting that way. I couldn’t blame Claire. I couldn’t
even imagine what kind of deep troubles she was going through, and to lose the
man she loved, the one she’d lost her virginity to   — she had probably thought that they’d
be together forever. “I ended up leaving,” Johnny said, and I heard him sniff.
“I hate…I can’t stand myself for doing that.” He brought his fist down onto the
console and I jumped, startled. He took a deep breath. “But I didn’t want to
encourage her. I thought if I left, maybe she’d calm down and one of her friends
would take her home, something like that.” Johnny shook his head. “I went out
with some of my friends for pizza.”
    I took a deep breath. “And then?” Once more, Johnny
was quiet for a long moment and I looked over at him. I could see his face
contorted in such deep sadness, such anger, frustration, and despair that I
nearly told him to forget about it, that I’d heard that part of the story
already. But I had to hear it from him.
    “While I was with some of my other friends, I got a
text. One of the guys who’d stayed behind at the party.” Johnny made a noise
that sounded like a mixture of a growl and a groan, something so intensely
painful it was animalistic. “It was a picture of Claire, naked, passed out on
the floor somewhere.” I heard him take a deep breath and looked over at him
again; I was having trouble paying attention to the road. I had to hear this through
to the end. “I got back to the party as fast as I could, but of course, it…” he
sighed. He brought his fist down on the console again. “One of those assholes
came up to me and congratulated me on loosening her up. He said she was easier
than a blow-up doll.” Johnny made the half-growling, groaning noise again, and
then I heard him sniffle. “One of the other guys, he said something about her
being…fuck. About Claire being just as easy from behind as she was in the
front. Someone said something about her having no gag reflex.” He sniffled
again, and I heard his breath hitch. “I punched one of them — I can’t even
remember who, anymore. I found Claire. She was still passed out, but she must
have been awake at some point — her face, it was covered in tears.”
    “Oh, God…Johnny.” I could only imagine. It was
something out of a nightmare, something every girl was warned about. Don’t drink anything a guy gives you…don’t
leave your drink unattended… Johnny was silent again for a few minutes.
    “I carried her home. I wasn’t sure…I didn’t know
exactly what happened.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. “I told her mother
what I could, but I was so scared.”
    I felt as if I had poured salt into someone’s open
wound, as if I was pressing broken shards of glass into his skin. “What
happened after that?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
    “She…” Johnny shook his head. “She didn’t want to talk
about it to anyone. She went missing from school; the guys…those…they kept
circulating the picture, talking about what a great lay she’d been.” Johnny
made the stomach-deep, groaning sound again. “She just couldn’t take it. I
don’t blame her. Not for a second. The things they were saying about her…” he
shook his head. “She eventually ended up just…I think they found her a few
hours after.” I saw him curl in on himself. Johnny’s voice went quiet,
deadly-flat. “They found her journal and the clothes she’d been wearing that
night. In the journal…God, so many of those — those fucking assholes. They’d
raped her. She wrote it all down. The police found something like five
different guys’ DNA on her clothes.”
    “Jesus,” I said, barely able to keep my hands on the
wheel. Johnny took a deep breath again.
    “I went in to talk to the police; they didn’t know for
sure how many people