Make Me Desperate Read Online Free PDF

feel nice to be with her.
    “Harper?”
    “Yeah?”
    “What did your dad mean? About the X factor?”
    “Oh . . . I think it’s just that nature is tricky . . . hard to predict. Just when you think that you’d understand how someone was going to turn out, nature turns things upside down. Like when a person is born to these great parents and has a nice upbringing and
bam
: They turn out to be a total jerk. Or when someone has really rotten parents or a horrible childhood, but turns out smart and nice. Dad says it happens more than psychiatric journals admit.”
    “Really? I mean . . . nature does that?”
    “Something does. That’s why Dad calls it the X factor.”
    He experienced an overwhelming, inexplicable need to hug Harper McFadden. Embarrassed by his rush of feelings, he remained very still and silent.
    “Jake?” she asked after a pause.
    “Yeah?” he said, rolling his head on his backpack. He sensed her hesitation.
    “What do you think your uncle was planning on doing to me?” she asked in a very small voice.
    “I don’t know exactly,” he evaded.
    “Yes you do.”
    “I think he wanted to hurt you.” He swallowed a lump in his throat. “Did he? Already? After he snatched you, and brought you to his place?”
    “He hit my head really hard. When I woke up, there was a sack over my head and he was ripping off my clothes.” Her voice had gotten so quiet, he almost couldn’t hear her. “His hands . . . the way he was touching me, it was like he didn’t even think I was a human being. Like I was a piece of meat or—”
    “Garbage,” Jake finished dully. “Did he force himself on you?” he asked at last, dreading her answer.
    “Rape me, you mean?” she whispered. “No.”
    He exhaled in relief.
    “But he took all my clothes. He . . . he saw me naked and treated me so rough, bruising me up with his hands.” Something about her voice made him think she was close to tears.
    “He’s horrible.”
    “He’s going to go to prison, for what he did,” she said, sounding fierce and miserable at once.
    “Yeah,” Jake agreed, even though he seriously doubted anything could stop Emmitt from doing exactly what he wanted, let alone a local police presence that Emmitt regularly paid off or ran circles around.
    “So . . . do you think that’s why he did it? Because he planned to . . . rape me later? You said he was going to give me to someone else. Were
they
going to rape me?”
    “I don’t want to say, Harper.”
    “Tell me. I deserve to know, even if it is horrible. I’m not a little kid. Don’t treat me like one.”
    “It happened before.”
    “You mean . . . he brought another girl there?”
    “Yeah,” he replied, his voice just above a whisper.
    “What happened? Did you help her get away, like you did me?”
    “Damn it, will you go to sleep, Harper?”
    “
Jake
, I just wondered—”
    “Just shut up! Give me a break, okay? I was a little kid. I was eleven years old, and when I did try to talk to that other girl, Emmitt caught me at it, and he—”
    He broke off, horrified to realize the truth had almost all come spilling out of him, that he’d almost just revealed something so deeply shameful to
her
, of all people. One second, they’d been talking calmly, and the next, his weakness had been in the spotlight. He swiped his hands over his cheeks angrily, thankful for the darkness so that Harper wouldn’t see him crying like a baby. Neither of them spoke for a moment as he got a hold of himself, and his breathing evened.
    “It must have been awful. I’m sorry for asking you so many questions,” she said finally.
    “It’s okay,” he mumbled, deeply ashamed of his outburst.
    “Do you really think he’ll kill you if he finds us?” she whispered, and he heard the tremor of fear in her voice.
    “Maybe not. Maybe he’ll just beat me. It’ll be okay. I’m used to that.”
    “That sucks.”
    “I can take it.”
    “Not the beating. That you’re