“It’s not a cell, and no.” I don’t think being alone will be good for her right now. Instead, I gently lift her and pull her into my arms, cradling her close to me. She’s stiff in my arms, not reciprocating her affection, but this is for me more than it is for her. I need to hold her right now, remind both of us that she belongs to me, and ground myself. Seeing her panic took a big fucking toll on me.
“Tell me how to fix it,” I whisper. “I… I hate seeing you like this.”
“There is no fixing it.” Her voice is sad and withdrawn. “This is just how I am. I’ll deal with it.”
“Not alone.” My voice is stronger. “You won’t deal with anything alone, ever again. You have me now, and I’ll protect you from everything. Nightmares, terrors, whatever it is… I have your back.” I have to ask again. “Were you… were you dreaming about me?”
She glances over her shoulders, confused. She looks over my face, and something in my expression prompts her to respond. “No,” she whispers. Swallows. “It was Cain.”
Fuck. I don’t know the specifics of what Cain did to her when he was interrogating her, but I do know that he took all her fingernails and toenails. He is an unabashed sadist at his core, so he probably got a kick out of doing so.
My woman is having night terrors about my boss, and there isn’t shit I can do about that but hope they go away and help her through them. It probably makes me a bastard that some part of me is relieved thatIwasn’t the star of her nightmare.
“How often do you dream about him?”
She sighs. “Rarely. It’s usually my father.”
She really has been surrounded by cruel, abusive men her entire life, and a strong conviction, a need, afireto protect her from that takes root in my soul. I have a sudden, all-consuming urge to kill Cain just for hurting her… but I can’t. It’ll result in my own death, and worse,Scarlett’s. I can’t allow any harm to come to her. Iwon’t. Instead, I’ll have to assure her that Cain will never hurt her again… and do my best to chase away the demons in her past.
“Can you please let me go?” she asks softly.
“In a bit,” I murmur against her hair. “I need this right now, baby.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m not an infant.”
My lips pull up at the fire in her tone. My Scarlett is still sassy. “What helps the nightmares?”
“Not being stressed to the point of panic.” She clears her throat. “So, in current circumstances, probably death. There are no nightmares in eternal oblivion.”
“That’s not funny.”
“No, it isn’t,” she agrees softly. “But it feels like the damn truth.”
“We’ll find something else,” I assure her.
“We?”
“We.” Whether or not she ever accepts it, we’re a unit now. We’re each other’s support systems. I expect it’ll take time to get her to accept that… but the fact that she isn’t fighting me right now is a good sign. Or maybe it’s just a symptom of her exhaustion.
I’m suddenly exhausted, as well. “Give me a chance to help you, Flower,” I murmur, kissing her cheek. “Can you do that for me?”
“Would you do that, in my shoes?”
I think on that for a moment. “If I knew how much you cared about me, yes.”
“But I don’t know, Monster. I only know what you tell me, and I don’t actually trust you enough to believe any of it.”
Only time and consistency will help build that trust.
Scarlett falls back asleep after an hour or so of me holding her. I’m well aware that it’s exhaustion which enables her to fall asleep in my arms so easily, but I tell myself it’s a mark of progress… even if, deep down, I fear that there is no making progress with her. Not in the way I truly want. She’s too shut off from me, too resistant, and the belief that she can’t give in is too fundamentally embedded in her brain and her heart.
She barely stirs as I lift her up from the couch. I start heading in the direction of her room, but impulsively switch gears and bring her intoourroom. I wasn’t planning on having her here for at least a few weeks, but I can’t resist. Not while she’s so calm and pliant, resting so peacefully.
She only wakes up for a few minutes when I draw a bath for her in the large clawfoot bathtub in my bathroom and sink both of us into the steaming water. Even then, she quickly falls back asleep. Either the scene earlier really tookthat muchout of her, or she hasn’t been sleeping properly for a while.
I get her into bed after a while, just as a buzzing on my phone alerts me to my next meeting—which happens to be with one of the doctors here.
Since I don’t want Scarlett wandering once she wakes up—not that I think she could get into much trouble with the mitts, but still—I lock her necklace to the headboard by a small chain. If she does wake up in my absence, I’ll get a motion sensor notification on my phone, so I’ll be back in under a minute.
