“What do you mean freaked?”
“She yelled at me. Was mad that I took her.”
“Hold up.” He frowns, turning to face me and I do the same. “Are you telling me she didn’t want to go?”
“Well, I didn’t really tell her she was going…”
“The fuck?” Sin snaps. “Are you kidding me?”
“You told me to take her,” I argue.
“No. I said if Eve wanted to go.”
I glance back at the observation window, and she’s pulling on the restraints but still isn’t fully awake yet.
“Christ, Kash.” Sin gets my attention again.
“Elli goes,” I argue defensively.
“That’s not how things work. Elli was the one who came to me and said she wanted to go to therapy. She decides if I stay in the waiting room. She decides if I sit in on the session. And she decides if I just observe or if I get to participate. Elli controls the situation.”
“I just wanted to help,” I say on a sigh, crossing my arms over my chest. Eve is the type of woman who doesn’t think she needs anyone else. So I tried to give her a little shove.
We fall silent once again. After what feels like hours, her body begins to shake. She arches her back and the words that come out of her mouth tear at my chest.
“Ka-sh?”
I’m right here, Eve. Right here. I step closer to the window and place my hands on the glass.
“Kashton. Please don’t…”she begs.
My stomach drops at the sound of fear in her voice. I thought I was helping her.
“I don’t want to be here. Just take me home. Please…?”
But I’m the one who’s hurting her.
I take a step back and let myself lean against the bathroom wall. I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept in days, too worried about my girl.
“Sin met us there. He brought a couple of things I thought I would need. I was instructed to put you in a room; you were given a drug that the Lords ordered you to have.” It was hell listening to her scream, not knowing what she was experiencing but knowing that it was me she was picturing hurting her. She seemed awake, but she wasn’t. Her eyes were open, and her body shook, and she begged me…fuck, she begged me so many times to stop hurting her. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
I’ve watched men and women beg for their lives at Carnage, but I’ve never given a fuck about them. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. To know the one you love thinks you’re hurting them is a different kind of hell.
Everett steps into me, and I keep my hands to myself. “So you didn’t let them rape me?” Her watery eyes search mine, but they look hopeful. That just maybe I’m not the monster she saw me as.
“No.” I hate that she could even think I’d let that happen. She sees me as a monster, otherwise she wouldn’t have hallucinated it. Even if it is far back in her mind, it’s still there. “I’d never let anyone touch you, let alone hurt you.”
Her eyes drop to my shirt, and her soft cries fill the room before she pushes her body into mine.
I wrap my arms around her, and she breaks into a sob. “It felt…so real.”
“I know.” I kiss her hair, letting out a long breath. “I’m so sorry, Eve.”
I’ve been there. I of all people know how real a hallucination can feel. Isaw all my brothers and Ashtyn dead. I heard Ashtyn scream for me to save her and carried her body in my arms after I watched the Lord slit her throat while he was raping her. I felt my brothers’ blood on my hands as they hung from the ceiling.
“You’re okay.” Eve tightens her hold on me. “I’ll never hurt you.” I’ll kill myself before I ever let her think I’d do her any harm.
FIFTY-FOUR
