“You’re strangers, Rose. You and Ollie.” Stopping mere feet from the porch, he meets my gaze. “But you’re not. He knows you better than anyone else. Better than even me.”
“But you’re my best friend. No one knows me as well as you do.”
“That’s not true anymore.” He tilts his head to the side and presses his lips into a sad smile. “It used to be. But you’re there and I’m here, and you’ve changed since we were last together.”
“I-I didn’t mean to.” Dark storm clouds roll closer behind him, stealing the spring-like warmth and casting Ollie’s yard in shadows. “I woke up like this. I don’t even knowhowI’m changing, because I don’t remember who I was before.”
“It’s okay that you’ve changed.” He wanders just a little closer and rests his arms on the porch surface, his feet remaining five feet below on the grass. “Change is good,” he murmurs. “It means you’re growing and evolving. It means you’re trusting the people around you. But it’s coming now.” A lightning bolt bursts from the sky in the distance, the booming crack loud enough to make me jump. “Get up, Rose. Go inside and lock the door.”
“No, I…” My heart thunders painfully out of control as a cold wind whips across the yard, tearing through the trees and bending their powerful trunks. I crawl onto my hands and knees as panic bubbles in my blood, then to my feet. And all along, Liam remains where he is, his shirt flapping in the breeze and his glasses fogging from the chill in the air. “Why don’t you come inside with me?”
“You know I would if I could.” He wiggles his fingers, a wave goodbye. “Run, Rose.” His eyes turn dangerously ominous. “Run.”
“Liam—”
“Now!”
ROUND NINETEEN
OLLIE
“No! Stop.”
I shoot up in bed, confused as I glance around in the dark, but when Rose screams, I bound off the mattress and stumble to the floor. My feet tangle in the blankets, tentacles refusing my release, and my elbows and knees sing when I slam to the hardwood. Scrambling to my feet, I crash against my bedroom door and tear it wide open, straining the hinges under the strength of my pull. Scooping up my trusty slugger, I skid into the hall.
It’s my job to save her. I brought her here, and so now it’s my job to keep her safe.
I race to her door and burst into the room that already smells of her, and though a part of me says to turn the lights on, to expose whoever has come for her, I decide against it. Because my eyes are adjusted to the dark, and all the way across the room, I see her thrashing in her bed. Unharmed. Alone. Sobbing. Sleeping.
“Fuck.” I set the slugger down and press my palm to my thundering heart. Crossing the room, I do as I’ve done a thousand times since knowing her; I sit on the edge of her bed and lay my hand on her arm. “Rose. Hey. Wake up. You’re having a bad dream.”
She explodes away from my touch, her eyes flinging wide and her back slamming to our shared wall. And because I’m still here, still too near, she screams like her life depends on it. “Don’t touch me!” She kicks out and slams her heel into my hip, flattening herself to the wall as tears torrent onto her cheeks. “Please don’t touch me!”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t…” I skitter to my feet, my breath bursting from my lungs. “Rose, I’m sorry?—”
“Please stop!” she cries. “Stop!”
“I’ve stopped.” I stand a full six feet from her bed in boxer shorts and socks, my hands raised between us. “Rose. I’m not touching you.”
“No more,” she weeps, hissing and squeezing herself into the corner of the bed. “I’m sorry! Okay? I won’t do that anymore.”
“Rose? You’re having a bad dream.” I want to scoop her up. To wipe the tears from her cheeks. I want to shake her awake and force her out of the nightmare where someone, some motherfucker, hurts her. “Rose!”
“Please stop.”
“Hey!” I shout so loud my voice turns hoarse. “Rose! Wake up. Right now.”
She sobs, chest wracking, heart aching, lung wrenching cries that hold her captive and trap her in her mental prison. “Please. I’m begging you.”
Unable to stay away, I stalk forward again, but for every step closer I come, her cries grow louder. When I grab her arms, she fucking screams, kicking and wailing and howling for safety. Still, I hold on and yank her away from the wall, shaking her until her teeth chatter and her scream turns to a whimper. “It’s Ollie. It’s Doctor Darling, Rose. You’re safe.”
She weeps, fresh fat tears scorching her cheeks and dribbling off the edge of her jaw.
“You just have to wake up, okay?” I crush her in a hug. Even when she fights it. Even when her voice breaks and her cries remind me of those in the ER, not from a patient in pain, but from a grieving mother standing over her dead child, or a man forced to say goodbye to his beloved wife. I press her against my chest and wrap my arm across her back, pinning her close even as her nails dig trenches in my side. “It’s okay, Rose.” Tears burn the backs of my eyes, clogging my throat and sizzling on the way down. But I bury my nose in her hair and ride this pain with her. “You’re safe, Rose. It’s Ollie. You trust me, remember? You know me.”
She gasps and trembles, heaving for breath and whimpering when it’s all too hard.
I rock her in my arms, the bed frame croaking and groaning under our weight. “You’re asleep, Rose, but if you follow my voice and come back to me, you’ll see nothing can hurt you.”
