“Don’t they sell matte black ones? I feel like that’d be more suitable for you.” I paused. “For me.”
His eyes were hard. “No. This is perfect. For you. For me.”
He let the words and the weight of them hang between us as he cleaned me. The best he could.
We were lying in bed afterwards, me wrapped in his arms. That was a feat in itself. To be curled against his chest, him stroking my back, without wanting to crawl out of my own skin?
A miracle.
Catching a glimpse of the cuffs in his closet had been horrific. An instant ticket back to that room.
It had also been something else.
Him seeing it. Me. I was an ‘it’ now. Stripped down raw to the nerve. He saw it and yet there I was, in his arms.
We hadn’t spoken as he climbed out of the shower, cradled me in a fluffy towel like a child, and put a clean-smelling shirt over my head. He’d changed from his soaking clothes and there we were.
“The fuckers who did that to you, they’re monsters.” He broke the silence, his voice sandpaper.
My head lifted from his chest and I met his eyes, shaking my head. “No, there’s no such thing as monsters. People did that, which I think is worse. Monsters were conjured up as a way to excuse the treachery that man is capable of. Because there are some acts that we want to put on an inhuman creature rather than admit that our fellow man is able to do such a thing.” I stared at him. “Monsters, real ones, the ones made of nightmares, they don’t exist here.” I held my arm out into the open air. “They exist here.” I moved the same arm to point to my temple, swallowing hard. “Sometimes there’s so many of them I don’t know if I can fight them anymore. Then I look in your eyes and I see the same monsters. They haven’t killed you. You’re still here.”
He tightened his arms. “Yeah, I’m still here,” he rasped. “And I’d die for you, firefly.”
I held his eyes, even though it caused me physical pain to see the devotion, the truth in them. “Don’t say that,” I whispered. “Anyone can promise death. To die for someone is a split-second decision, an instant. I don’t want you to die.” The thought of a world without him turned my tongue to dust. How close to reality that had been. Because of me. “I don’t want you to die for me. I want you to live. Make a conscious decision every day. That’s so much harder. Means so much more, to brave the shit of this world and keep going. That’s it.”
He kissed my head. “Okay, I’ll live. Only if you make that same promise.”
I stared at him. “Okay, I promise.”
Or I’d try my best.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“The demons are back and stronger than ever. They are looking for a fight. Looking to win. And this time, I might just let them.”
-K.C.W
One week later
It was Sunday night, and we were at Evie and Steg’s.
And I was drowning.
The entire night, I was wrapped in the warm glow of the unlikely family. And there was a lot. In addition to Gwen, Amy, Mia, and Lily and their hubbies, there was Rosie, her friends, Lucy and Ashley, and about the whole freaking club. And me and Gabriel.
Evie and Steg had a huge fucking compound out on a plot of land. They needed it, to fit everyone.
And everyone fit. Literally and figuratively.
Except me.
Because I was embraced in the warmth at the same time as the ice settled over my insides. The dirt.
Gabriel’s arms around me were almost too much to bear. I’d come so far, but I felt like a rubber band that had snapped back into its original form.
I lasted through the whole night, somehow.
Then, like the universe was giving me a sign, Gabriel pulled me away from Gwen and Amy, who I’d been chatting with, playing my part to.
“You okay, Becky?” he asked, frowning at me.
“Peachy,” I lied, doing my best not to flinch away from the simple touch.
He didn’t seem convinced but nodded anyway. “We’ve got some club shit to do. You okay if Rosie takes you home?”
Home.
That wasn’t real.
Just another place I didn’t fit.
I couldn’t speak so I nodded.
“I shouldn’t be too late,” he promised.
I nodded again.
He frowned once more, kissed my head, and left.
And when Rosie dropped me ‘home,’ I got straight in my car and looked for something.
Nothing.
I was staring at it. Or it was staring at me. I wasn’t sure which. All I knew was that its presence, its fucking allure, filled up the entire room and I couldn’t actually move.
I was terrified of moving.
Because if I did, I knew exactly what I’d do.
Without hesitation.
I’d fall headfirst into the fire that I’d only just escaped.