Inside, my blood was boiling. I knew shit was bad. I knew what she’d been through. Hell, I knew what she was still going through, but this, this was a whole other level. This was bat shit crazy. I wanted to slap her. Pick her up and shake her. I wanted to demand to know what the fuck she thought she was doing. But the fear on her face stopped me dead in my tracks. Ranting and raving might help calm me down, but it wouldn’t help Zoe. And if it wouldn’t help Zoe, then what the fuck was the point?
Taking a very deliberate and calculated step towards her, I never let her break our eye contact. I needed her to stay with me. Stretching out my fingers, I watched as indecision flitted across her pained face.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that. I could hear the blood roaring in my ears. Every breath felt like it was being ripped painfully from my body. And my heart, well, it was beating as if it had suddenly joined a rock band. Then it happened. Slowly. Painfully slowly. Zoe reached out and dropped the bloodied blade on my palm before breaking our gaze and breaking down.
Throwing the blade in the sink, I knew it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was Zoe. Sinking to my knees, I reached out for her, and before I had a chance to drop my ass on the tiles, she was in my lap, shivering and sobbing.
“It’ll be okay, Princess. We’ll get through this. Together,” I cooed against her cheek.
I didn’t know if I was telling the truth or if I was lying through my teeth. I had no fucking clue what I was doing or how the fuck I was going to fix this, but I was going to. I may have failed Zoe before, but it sure as shit wouldn’t happen again. As I stroked her hair, she sobbed against my chest, soaking my shirt. I risked a look at her still exposed legs. They were a fucking mess. The scars and scratches stopped about two inches above her knee. She didn’t want anyone to see them. Some were still new. Raw, red, and angry. Others had scabbed over, but they couldn’t have been more than a week old. They hurt. But what fucking destroyed me was the fine, white lines that criss-crossed her creamy thighs. They were older. They’d had time to heal and fade. This had been going on for a long time. Too fucking long.
I don’t know how long I sat there holding her, but when the sobbing stopped and was replaced by soft snores, somehow, I managed to stumble to my feet, Zoe still in my arms. I carried her to her bed. Looking down at the sheets, the nausea I’d been battling when I’d first entered her room came back with a vengeance. Her once white sheets were a grey colour with tiny red dots all over them. She couldn’t sleep in that squalor. She shouldn’t have to. Changing my mind, I carried her into my room and placed her on my own bed. Carefully I pulled up her pants before covering her with a soft blanket. As I made my way out of the room, I heard her mumbling. It was an incoherent babbling mess. All of it. Except Spencer’s name. It was another kick in the guts. One I didn’t need. I didn’t need reminders that I wasn’t him. Every day I was reminded. Every time she looked at me. Every time I looked at me. He wasn’t coming back. Now we had to figure out a way to move on. To get past the hurt and start to live again. Leaving the door cracked open a fraction, I stepped out of my room on a mission.
I’d just cracked the cap off a much-deserved icy cold beer when a piercing shriek shook the windows.
“What the fuck?” I grumbled as the froth overflowed and splattered my shirt.
Dropping the bottle on the coffee table, I vaulted over the lounge and was in my room in seconds. Zoe looked freaked. I’d only seen her like this once before. I’d prayed that day I’d never see it again, but there it was. Unmistakable terror.
“Zoe! Zoe, it’s me. Derek. You’re safe. You’re okay. You were sick, so I put you in my bed. That’s all,” I explained clearly as I stepped through the doorway, holding my hands up in surrender.
I needed her to know I wasn’t a threat. She needed to believe it. Not because I was pissed that she thought I could be, but because it fucking killed me that anyone would ever have to think that a guy was a threat. As a cop, I’d seen it too many times. It was a sight you never forget. No matter how much you wanted to.
“D…D…Derek?”
I’m not going to lie, the moment my name fell from her lips I thought I won the fucking lottery. She knew who I was. She was still there. It’d taken a moment, but once she’d brushed away the sleep fog, she knew.
“Yeah, Zoe, it’s me. How you feeling?” I asked, taking a deliberate step towards her. Her eyes widened but she didn’t flinch. This time.
I wasn’t nervous. I was absolutely shitting myself.
“I’m…I’m just so tired, Derek.”
The tears were back. Balancing on her eyelashes. Before reason could kick in or I had a moment to consider the consequences, I was on the bed beside her, wrapping her in my arms, and placing a kiss against her temple.
“I know, Princess. I know. Before you go back to sleep though, we need to talk.” I heard the words come out of my mouth and couldn’t believe how much of a pussy I sounded like. What self-respecting guy ever started a conversation with the words ‘we need to talk’?
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t be. I don’t need you to be sorry and I don’t need your apologies, Zoe. I need you to talk to me. What’s going on?”
“I…I…don’t know. Everything is just…just so much. And Spencer’s gone. And I miss him. Fuck, Derek, I miss him so much. And I feel stupid…”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you feel stupid?”
Zoe looked up at me with watery eyes. She tried to pull away but I didn’t let her go. She didn’t try very hard. If she really had wanted out of my arms, I never would have stopped her. But right now, for this particular conversation, she needed to be right where she was. Safe in the cocoon of my arms.
“’Cause I miss him so much, and I have no right to. I mean, we weren’t even together. Not really. We’d only just started reconnecting again after so long. I shouldn’t…”
“Zoe.” I tilted her chin up with my finger so she was looking straight in my eyes. This wasn’t how I’d planned it, but something told me now was the right moment. Jenna had told me I’d know the right time when it hit me and I hadn’t believed her. I hated when she was right. “Go open the top right drawer of my dresser.”
With a confused look, Zoe just stared at me. When I nodded and loosened my grip, she wriggled from my lap and padded across the timber floors, not making a sound. With her eyes locked on mine, she pulled open the drawer. I never meant for my eyes to drift closed, but I couldn’t watch this. Even knowing what she was about to find wasn’t making this any easier to bear witness to.
“The black box. Open it. It’s yours. From Spencer.”
