If I was going to love him, I had to love all of him.
Even the parts that scared me.
Chapter 24
Mia
The metal pressed against my skull.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The roof of the car had collapsed inward, crushing down on me inch by inch, and my legs were pinned beneath the crumpled dashboard. Blood ran warm down my face, pooling in the hollow of my throat.
But something was wrong.
Trees surrounded the car. Tall pines, their branches scraping against the shattered windows like skeletal fingers. This wasn’t the road outside Billings. This wasn’t black ice and January cold. This was a forest—Oliver’s forest—and somewhere beyond the broken glass, I could hear his voice.
“Ten… Nine… Eight…”
The counting echoed through the trees, calm and measured, the way he’d announced the hunt. The way he’d smiled when he said my name.
I tried to scream. My mouth opened, my throat strained, but no sound came out. Just silence where there should have been terror.
“Seven… Six… Five…”
The walls pressed closer. Metal groaned and shrieked as the car compressed around me, the space growing smaller with each number. I clawed at the door, at the window, at anything I could reach, but my arms wouldn’t work right. Too heavy. Too slow.
“Four… Three… Two…”
A face appeared at the shattered window. Pale eyes. That cultured smile that never reached them.
“Run, little prey.”
The car folded in on itself. Metal met metal, closing like a coffin, like a fist, like the closet at the compound where I’d screamed myself raw?—
I woke up fighting.
My hands clawed at sheets instead of metal, my body jackknifing upward as a scream finally tore free from my throat. The sound was raw and broken, nothing like a voice, more like something being ripped out of me.
Arms wrapped around me. Strong and solid and warm.
“You’re safe.” Coop’s voice cut through the panic, low and steady. “You’re out. I’ve got you.”
I grabbed on to him like he was the only solid thing in a world that had liquefied. My fingers twisted in his shirt, the fabric bunching in my fists as I pressed my face against his chest. His heart beat steadily beneath my ear—thump, thump, thump—a rhythm I could anchor myself to while my own pulse screamed chaos.
“Breathe,” he said. He moved his hand up and down my spine, slow and even. “Just breathe. You’re in my house. You’re safe. Oliver can’t touch you here.”
I tried. God, I tried. But my lungs wouldn’t cooperate, hitching and stuttering with each attempt. The phantom pressure of metal still pressed against my skull. I could still hear the counting, feel the walls closing in.
“Match me, Kitten.” His chest expanded against my cheek, slow and deliberate. “In…and out. That’s it. In…and out.”
Kitten. I latched on to the silly nickname that had always meant so much to me.
Minutes passed. Maybe longer. Time had gone slippery, the way it always did after the dreams. Eventually, my breathing steadied, syncing with his, my body remembering how to function without the adrenaline screaming through every cell.
Neither of us reached for the lamp.
The dark felt safer somehow. Softer. Like a blanket we could hide beneath while we said things that daylight would make too sharp.
“The nightmare’s changing,” I finally said, my voice still rough from the scream. “It used to just be the accident. The road, the ice, the car crushing in. But now…”
