Ilara: Chapter 4
I was caught in a nightmare and I couldn’t break free. Todd was holding me down and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get away from him. His satisfied smirk made me sick. I tried to break his hold on me, but he was too strong. I knew what was about to happen. I couldn’t go through that again. I made one more attempt to break away.
I came up in the bed gasping for air and thrashing around. Hands were gently holding onto my arms. I cried out and tried to get away from them to the other side of the bed. I was in an unfamiliar place. Oh God, where was I?
“Ilara, stop, honey. It’s just me, Bear. You’re alright. You’re safe,” I heard a gruff voice say. As I looked around the room, bits and pieces started to come back to me. I’d been coming back to the car, two men, Madisen and Jessica, more men, Bear, and then finally an angry Bear coming at me. I scrambled out of his hands and fell off the side of the bed. I tried to get up. When I did, there stood Bear. He was running his hand through his hair and he had a weird look on his face. It was one that was a combination of pain, worry, anger and something else. I backed up until my back was to the wall.
“Where’s Hope?” I asked him raggedly. I needed to find my daughter and get the hell out of here. Wherever here was. He took a deep breath.
“She’s with Madisen and the other old ladies downstairs. I need you to calm down. If she sees you like this, it’ll only set her off again. She’s been crying for you, Ilara. She doesn’t like to see her momma upset.”
“Fine, I’ll be calm. Just give her to me. We need to leave,” I told him as I slid along the wall. Maybe I could get to the door before he caught me.
“Jesus Christ, stop looking at me like that! You’re fucking killing me. I’d never hurt you. I’m sorry I scared you earlier. I didn’t mean to. I was just mad. The idea of those men touching you and then finding out you’re living in your car was too much. I shouldn’t have let you see me like that,” he murmured softly. Something in his tone and the look on his face had me relaxing a fraction. I had no idea why. Me, of all people, knew you couldn’t trust men.
“Please, I don’t want any trouble. I just need my daughter and we’ll leave. You won’t see us or hear from us again. I need to leave. It’s time anyway,” I pleaded with him. All I could think was if I got out of Hunters Creek, everything would be okay.
He sank down on the end of the bed I’d been lying on. He hung his head. “God, you’re tearing out my heart, Ilara. Please, baby, listen to me. I’m not going to hurt you or Hope. All I wanna do is help you, protect you, hell, if you’d let me, I wanna have a chance to love you. If you leave, it might just kill me.” His whispered words sank in and I stopped moving toward the door. I looked at him. He has such a look of despair on his face.
“What are you talking about, Bear? You’re not making any sense. Why would you want to help or protect us? What in the world do you mean by love us? You don’t know us. We don’t know you. You’re talking crazy.”
He looked up at me. “I knew the second I saw you that you could be the one I was looking for my whole damn life. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but it happened anyway. When I saw you earlier today, I knew you were. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get you to stay. Then Ajax called, and we went to the bakery. I found out you’ve been attacked and have been sleeping in your damn car. I lost it. I couldn’t handle it. But I never meant to scare you like I did. I’d cut off my own hands before I’d touch you or that sweet little girl in anger.”
I swallowed the lump that rose in my throat as I listened to him. He sounded so sincere. I felt myself wanting to believe him. However, I knew monsters didn’t always look like monsters and they could say sweet things.
“Bear, I don’t know what to say. I mean… I don’t think you’re thinking clearly. There’s no way you could have any kind of feelings for me. We’ve known each other for two days. You know nothing about me and I know nothing about you. Even if we did, that’s not a guarantee we’d want to be with each other. What does that even mean, you want me? You want to have sex with me? No thanks, that’s not something I want with anyone,” I told him without thinking. His head snapped up and his eyes began to smolder.
“It would be more than sex, baby, but why would you say you don’t want that with anyone? Is it because of Todd?” As soon as I heard him say Todd, I broke. I ran for the door. Before I could make it even halfway there, he caught me and swung me up in his arms. I hit him and tried to wiggle free as he took me back to the bed. He laid me down on it and then he came down over top of me. He didn’t crush me or try to do anything other than hold me, but it made me hyperventilate. The room started to close in on me and I couldn’t catch my breath.
He laid his head beside mine and whispered, “Breathe, Just breathe. I’m not hurting you. I won’t. I just want you to talk to me. Tell me why you’re so scared. Tell me why that name causes you to panic.”
I fought to regain my breath and my wits. How did he even know Todd’s name? When I calmed a little, I asked him. “How do you know the name Todd?”
“In the alley when I was stopping you from leaving you said, I won’t let you do it again. I’ll kill you this time, Todd. Who’s Todd and what did he do to you, Ilara. Is he Hope’s father?”
I started to sob. Oh my God, I’d let his name slip. I must have been out of my mind earlier. I never said that bastard’s name. I tried to never think of him at all if I could help it. Bear eased onto his side and pulled me gently against his chest. I curled my hand in his shirt and let my tears soak into the material. I couldn’t seem to help myself. His arms felt so comforting now that I wasn’t half out of my head. His scent filled my nose. He smelled like the woods and something a little spicy. His hands were rubbing up and down my back.
“Shh, baby, you have to stop. You’re going to make yourself sick,” he said. I had no idea how long I’d been watering him. I pulled away from him. He didn’t let me get far. “No, don’t move away. I like you in my arms. I just don’t want you to make yourself sick. I can see whatever happened is tearing you up inside. Talk to me, please.”
I shook my head. “I can’t, Bear. I can’t. If I do, then I might never get it out of my head again. I can sometimes forget and go a few days without remembering. If I talk about it, I might not get even that much of a break.”
He looked deep into my eyes. I knew I had to look frightful. My eyes felt swollen. I’d never been a pretty crier like some women were. My eyes would always get red, swollen and the tip of my nose would turn red. I tried to roll away from him. He caught my chin.
“Don’t turn away. Getting it out will help. How about I tell you what I think happened?” I gave him a puzzled look. How would he know?
“This Todd obviously hurt you. From your reaction, I think it was more than he hit you. I think he did the worst thing a man could ever do to a woman, didn’t he?” I stiffened but didn’t answer him. “He raped you, didn’t he, Ilara? He raped you and you’ve been scared ever since, haven’t you?”
I gasped in shock and pain then covered my mouth. I felt sick. I pushed on his chest. This time, he let me move. I ran to the open door in the room. I prayed it was a bathroom. Luckily, it was. I hung over the toilet and threw up, as scenes from that night invaded my head. My chest burned. Tears welled up again in my eyes and the feelings of shame, fear, and disgust came roaring back to me. They were as real and intense as they had been that night.
From a distance, I heard my name being called urgently, but I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t move or say a word. As the scenes ran faster and faster through my head, I collapsed to my knees and then on my side on the floor. I closed my eyes and screamed, then everything went blessedly blank.
Bear:
I watched in horror, rage, and helplessness as she was sick over and over then collapsed onto the floor, screaming before she passed out. A pounding on the door of the bedroom had me yelling to whoever it was to come in. I was lifting her off the floor when footsteps rushed inside. I looked up to see Bull standing there with Jocelyn. He looked from me to Ilara and back. He had a look of worry and anger on his face. Jocelyn looked worried. I walked past them to put her gently down on the bed.
“What the fuck happened? We could hear her screaming downstairs, Bear,” Bull growled.
“I’ll tell you what happened. She wouldn’t tell me who this Todd person was or what he did to her. She yelled out his name when we were in the alley. So, I guessed what he did. Apparently, I guessed right. She came running in here, got sick and then lost it. She passed out after she screamed.”