Seth
We should not have spentthe night sleeping on the floor.
I could barely move this morning, and I had the Captains run this afternoon, and I was hobbling along like an eighty-year-old man. As soft and fluffy as the carpet looked, it was not great to sleep on. But still, I couldn’t complain. I was in much better shape than Claire. Poor girl had carpet burns on her hands and knees. I tried to apologise, but I couldn’t help but grin like a fool. I was damn proud of those burns and hey, it wasn’t like she was complaining at the time either.
After fucking each other’s brains out, we were both too exhausted to move, and there was nowhere else I’d rather be. Instead, we’d spent the night curled on the floor, sharing a cushion with the tablecloth draped over us.
It’d been perfect.
Well, it’d been perfect until Claire started talking.
Now I understood why she’d ghosted on me and why everyone was treating her like she was fragile.
The woman had balls of steel.
Some prick had held her at knifepoint and dragged her from her car. Even now, I couldn’t shake the look on her face as she stole the breath from my lungs as she filled in the details.
“I wasn’t paying attention. I was fiddling with my phone or the radio or something. I don’t even remember. I didn’t see him coming. There I was, off in my own little bubble, completely ignorant of the world around me when he opened the door and pressed the knife to my throat. He kept yelling at me, spit covering my face to ‘shut the fuck’ up. I couldn’t move. I didn’t even fight back.”
She started shaking in my arms, and I couldn’t hold her tight enough.
“He was on something. His eyes were bloodshot, and he stunk like a brewery. God, the smell. He just kept yelling at me and no one came to help. No one helped me. He pulled me from the car and tossed me on the ground like I was nothing. When he stomped on my arm, I remember it feeling like it was on fire. I thought he was going to stab me and leave me for dead in the car park.”
“You’re safe now, Claire. No one’s going to hurt you.” I attempted to reassure her while trying to keep my blood from boiling over. How dare someone treat her like that! How dare someone think it’s okay to treat anyone like that.
“You don’t know that,” she sobbed against my shoulder.
But I did know that.
I most certainly fucking did.
If someone wanted to even try then they were going to have to get through me first. And I had a feeling Isaac wouldn’t be more than two steps behind me.
But there was more to this story. I knew it. And as much as I was afraid of what the ‘more’ was, I needed to hear it. Claire needed to tell me. Get it off her chest. Let me carry the weight of it for her. She’d been through enough already. The least I could do was shoulder the load for her.
“Then what happened,” I pushed as gently as I could.
When she pulled away my arms felt empty. Wrong. Claire stood up, wrapped the tablecloth around her shoulders and stood in front of the glass doors, staring out into the inky black nothingness that was the night sky.
“He bent over me. The knife he was waving around was so close to my face I could see the rust and dirt on it. I thought he was going to stab me. Cut me. Hurt me. Kill me.” Her voice shook, and I wanted to hold her. Reassure her. Reassure myself, but she needed space and I had to give it to her.
“He slurred, and he swore, and he spat on me. He stepped on my fingers with his muddy boots, and I must’ve made a sound that pissed him off. He dropped to his knees beside my head. I thought he was going to make me…make me…make me…” She was choking on the words. From where I was sitting on the floor I could see her shoulders shake as sobs tore through her.
“I’ve never been more relieved for whoever’s car alarm it was that blasted in the distance. It must’ve spooked him.”
“Keep going, Claire.”
“He kicked me in the side of the head.”
“Fuck, Claire!” I grabbed at my hair and tugged on the ends. I didn’t know what else to do. What else I could do. This was so completely fucked up.
“I don’t really know what happened after that or how long I was out. When I came to, a woman was standing over me. She was on her phone speaking quickly and I couldn’t keep up. When she saw I was awake she introduced herself as Eliza. She was an off-duty nurse who found me slumped in the corner of the car park. Eliza waited with me until the ambulance arrived and they took me to the hospital.
“When I got there, I had nothing with me. He’d taken my car, my handbag, my wallet. Everything.”
I couldn’t sit there a second longer. I’d heard enough. Jumping up, I’d edged my way in front of her making sure she understood what I was doing before I did it. The last thing I wanted to do was startle her. Especially after what she’d already been through.
“Claire,” I said, forcing my voice to remain soft and calm, while inside a storm of emotions raged. “I really need to hug you now.”
When she looked up at me with tear-filled eyes, I knew I was done. I’d fallen completely head over heels in love with Claire Hayes.
