Page 70 of Ricochet

Shaking my head, I braced to leave, and felt a cold grip on my wrist.

“Please don’t leave. I won’t push.”

My body relaxed and settled beside her once more.

Feather light, her fingers drifted across my neck, presumably tracing the scorpion tattoo. “Will you stay with me tonight?

I nodded. “I’ll be right here. Get some sleep.”

***

The screams. I can’t get them out of my head. Blackness keeps me from seeing, from feeling. I could be alive. Or dead. This would be my hell if I were dead. Those screams rattling my bones, pushing me over the edge. Hurt. Kill. What made me a good man has turned me into a killer. Love. My muscles tighten as the screams intensify, and through the dark, I feel around, searching for the source.

Lena! Jay! Their names echo and fade beneath the undercurrent. I have to find them. I know what comes after this. I know the pain that will follow if I don’t find them. Frantically, I pat around the walls, the floor. The dark room seems to shrink, squeezing me into this box where the screams become louder.

A cold, sticky substance glides beneath my fingertips as I crawl along the surface—up, down, I have no sense of direction. I rub my fingers together, and somehow, the biting tang of copper hits the back of my throat, as the smell penetrates my nose. Whose blood?

The screams drone on, kicking up my heartbeat, driving me mad with the desire to find the source. They need me. The desperation in the voice tells me they need me to find them. Help them. Save them.

A warm but stiff body hits the palm of my hand, and I explore the surface, anxious, searching. “It’s all right, I’m here,” I whisper to her.

The screaming subsides. A sharp blow knocks my jaw, kicking my head to the side. A hand grips my wrist, and on instinct, I draw back a fist.

A light flips on.

Movement in my periphery snaps my attention to the left. A streak bleeds into the darkness, swinging like a pendulum, back and forth, back and forth. I focus on it, concentrating.

Aubree’s wide eyes stared up at me, her hand off to the side, waving back and forth, back and forth. Beneath me? A sweep of the room showed the light of the nightstand flipped on. I’d straddled her body, pinning her down. Her arm was drawn back beside her head, frantically vying for my attention, the other gripping my wrist at her throat. My arm was drawn back, too, as if the two of us were frozen in a standoff.

Fuck. Scrambling backward from her body, I fell to the floor and backed myself to the wall. “I’m sorry.” I cradled my face in my hands and rubbed my skull back and forth. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Aubree.” With both hands planted at either side of my head, I rocked, wishing I could crawl out of my own skin to get away from myself. What the fuck was I doing? What would I have done? Hit her?

I could’ve hurt her! The agony of that thought left a caustic burn in my gut.

Warm hands across my skin set my muscles flinching, and my palms flattened against the floor, my spine pressed into the wall, as her sad eyes searched mine while she gently stroked my arm.

I shook my head— please don’t ask why—but then she took my hand and kissed my knuckles.

“I’m sorry.” Drawing my hand to her chest, she held it tight to her. “Please don’t go.”

Sorry? What the fuck was she sorry about?

She bowed her head, and I caught a glistening stream of tears down her cheek. “I woke from a nightmare. I thought … I thought you were one of them. I didn’t mean to hit you.”

My brows came together. “Your nightmare?”

Wiping the tears from her cheek, she nodded. “You tried to calm me down. And I … I hit you. I’m sorry.” She sniffed, lifting her gaze. “I didn’t mean to hit you, Nick.”

Quiet followed as I attempted to process what the hell just happened.

Her eyes flitted to the side. “You called me Lena.”

Jesus Christ. Drawing in long, easy breaths, I slowed the apeshit pounding of my heart. “I thought she … you were hurt. I heard screams and … blood.” My gaze fell to my hands, and I opened them, studying the marks where I’d tightened my fists so hard, my nails had gouged the shit out of my palms. Puffing my cheeks, I blew a sharp breath and double-blinked. “What was the waving about?”

“A trick I learned. Helps break nightmares.” Her eyes shied away, then flicked back to mine. “Who’s Lena, Nick?”

What’s your wife’s name? Do you remember? What’s your name? The therapist’s voice rolls through my head.

A sting hit the back of my neck, and I suddenly realized I’d scratched the hell out of it.