“Help!”
Zach jerked his hands away from her clammy skin, holding them up in surrender. “You’re safe.”
Lauren scrambled away from him until her back hit the headboard. She pulled her knees to her chest and jerked the blanket over her legs. Her breaths were labored as she asked, “What are you doing in my room?”
He didn’t dare move a muscle. Keeping his hands where she could see them, he spoke slowly. “I heard you screaming, and I was trying to wake you up.”
She let out two choking sobs before flinging the blanket off and standing to her feet. Her hair was unkempt, and she wore only a baggy white T-shirt that hung to the middle of her thighs.
Don’t look at her. Don’t look at her.
She paced across the room before turning and pacing the other way, flinging her arms as she spoke quickly. “It was just a dream. It was just a dream.”
Then the sobs broke free. She covered her face with her hands as her whimpers rang in his ears.
Why did it rip him in two to see her hurting? Why was he so helpless?
Because he was a monster—the monster who’d done this to her.
Suddenly, she rounded on him, pointing a straight finger at him as tears rolled down herface. “I fight with you in my sleep! I fight with you in my sleep because I’m too weak to fight you when I’m awake!”
Gasping for air, she pinned him with an icy stare that chained him to the ground. Her voice lowered as she spoke slowly. “And the worst part is that I lose in my dreams too.” She flung her arms wide and let them fall against her sides. Her words broke as she whispered. “I can’t win.”
Shecouldn’t win? He was the one screwing everything up. She was the one who had her life together despite the terrible things he’d done to her. She was smart and beautiful and absolutely perfect even when he made life hard for her.
With her teeth bared and her chest heaving, she drove the stake home. “That’s what I get for making friends with the devil.”
There it was. The truth he deserved—black and deadly straight from the angel’s lips.
19
Lauren
Her stomach sank the second she heard the words.
Oh no. She hadn’t said that out loud had she? The delirium of sleep still clung to her, and her breath rasped past the tightening of her throat.
Zach’s lips pressed into a thin line, and his jaw tightened. “I’ll leave you alone then.”
“Zach, wait.”
She was still coming down from the panic of her nightmare, and reality was blending with the dream world. Zach hadn’t hurt her. Not today, at least. He hadn’t deserved the arrow she shot at him.
The argument they’d had a few days ago had cooled off, and she’d planned to call him. Instead, she’d labeled him the worst and pushed him away.
Just like everyone else. She was just as bad as the rest of the world. She’d taken away his chance tochange things—stripped away the hope she’d been planting for weeks.
She reached for him, but he moved fast. His long strides took him out of her bedroom and down the hallway, and she couldn’t keep up. Her T-shirt was damp with cold sweat and clung to her body as she scrambled through the house.
“Zach, I’m sorry. Please stop.”
He’d just reached for the knob on the front door when she caught up to him. Her hand wrapped around his wrist, and he stilled.
There was a coldness in his eyes she hadn’t seen in years, and the urge to shrink away from him was strong. Still, she kept her hold, praying he didn’t pull away this time, begging him to let her fix what she’d broken.
He glanced down at her hand, then up to her eyes. “Let me go, and I’ll do the same for you.”
No. That wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to erase the fights. She wanted her composure back. She wanted sleep and safety and their fragile friendship.
