“I’m trying to keep my feelings out of all this, but god, Scarlett,” he huffed. I could picture him running a hand down his face. “I feel so fucking helpless.”
“You helped,” I said, feeling drained. “More than you can imagine.”
“Scarlett.” My name was a sigh on his lips.
“I’m okay. Well, right now I am. Just...I don’t want to do that again.” That was an understatement.
“Did you meet your therapist yet?”
“Yeah. She’s seems nice enough. I have another session soon.”
“Tell her about your attack,” he demanded. “Promise me you’ll tell her.”
“Sure,” I yawned.
“I mean it.”
“I will, Dominic. Don’t worry, all right?”
“I’ll always worry, honey.”
My hands were between my knees, my shoulders hunched inward. Slow, deep breaths were the only thing that was even slightly helping me not to fall into another attack. This feeling of doom was really starting to get on my nerves, and I was now officially lost as to what to do about it.
Sleep hadn’t found me well the past couple of nights, which didn’t help me or my situation.
“How are you this afternoon, Scarlett?” Dr. Mayes asked, folding one leg over the other in the chair across from me.
“OK,” I gulped.
“You’re on edge. Talk to me.”
“I don’t even know where to start,” I whispered, meeting her eyes for a moment before dropping them again.
“You haven’t been sleeping,” she started off, leaning forward. “Tell me why.”
“Nightmares.”
“Understandable,” she said. “Nightmares will make anyone lose sleep. Tell me, what are they about?”
“Alan hurting me. Him killing the people I love in front of me.”
“You fear him,” she stated. “Who is he? Alan?”
“Ace didn’t tell you?”
“Even if he did, I’d want to know your answer.”
“He’s the man who kidnapped me when I was almost five. Then he did things to me that no person should ever do.”
“Like what?”
I gave her a look that said more than words ever could.
“Words, please,” she said, leaning back in the seat.
With a long sigh, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared out the window. “I learned less than three months ago that I was kidnapped, and I was led to believe that Alan was my father all those years. It turns out, he’s not. That man isn’t even related to me. He only had a sick obsession with every part of me. He…he did everything he could possibly think of to destroy me.”
“And did he succeed?”
