“We should try to sleep. Mrs. M will be back to check.”
“I don’t need my mama scolding me again,” Linc confesses. “I feel like I let her down when she does.”
“Me too.”
Linc goes to reach for the light.
“Can we leave it on? I’ve got a feeling this isn’t going to be a good night for me,” I admit.
“I bet not. Being grabbed from behind, that’s going to fuck with your head for a while. I’m here, E. I’m right here,” Linc reminds me.
I nod. “I know, but in dreams, that’s where the monsters hide.” And I don’t mean made up ones. These are real, live, flesh-and-blood monsters—from my childhood.
“I’ll be here to help you slay them,” Linc tells me.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, E.”
Those words. I know he means them with everything he is. They make me feel a little less broken.
34
LINC
Ethan’s nightmares begin shortly after he fell asleep. I didn’t allow myself to sleep. I knew this would happen.
“Stop! You’re hurting me. Please don’t hurt me,” Ethan whimpers in his sleep.
Christ. This kills me. Every single fucking time. If his whore of a mother wasn’t already dead, I’d put her in a grave.
“Ow, no. Please, no more.”
I slowly rub a hand over Ethan’s face, the one place I know is safe to touch when he gets these dreams. With the way he’s thrashing, he’s got to be in severe pain with the cracked ribs.
“Ethan,” I say softly.
“No, no. Don’t do that! Please, no!” he cries, tears falling down his cheeks.
I grit my teeth. It breaks my heart to see him this way, and I’m so fucking angry at the men who took advantage of a kid whose mom was a whore and too busy on her back to look out for him.
“Ethan, baby, wake up. It’s me. It’s Linc,” I croon.
He doesn’t stop twisting.
“Ethan, wake up. It’s Linc,” I say more loudly.
He stills.
“Come on, E. All the way,” I coax. “It’s Linc.”
His eyelashes flutter, and he opens those smoky-grey eyes. He blinks away the tears and through the nightmare to reality. I run my fingers through his hair, gently, reminding him it’s safe here.
“Ethan?”
He nods once, still curled in a ball, shaking.
“Do you want some water?” I ask, turning to get some.
