My blonde hair curtained my face in thick wet strands as the rain pounded harsh, relentless pellets into my body, over and over again. My shirt and sweatpants stuck to me like heavy cool blankets; blankets of pain and a weight of memories that refused to die.
I raked my fingers into the wet earth and crawled. I had to get the numbness back, kill the emotions, but there were so many faces, so many monsters. Gerard. Alexa. Olaf. The men, who grabbed and pulled at me, touched me, ripped me apart. Even their whistles and hollers haunted me, just like the wind.
Nature tried to defeat me, but I wouldn’t break under its rage.
My knees suctioned into the earth as I continued to crawl up the hill. With each ragged breath, my chest burned as if it had been set on fire. But pain drove the body to do more than you’d think possible. I knew about pain and anguish. I knew if I pushed hard enough, the pain would fade into the darkness again.
It made you stronger.
It made you do things you never thought you could do.
It made you fight harder.
The skies lit up in a flash of forked lightning, and then a few seconds later, a thundering boom crackled. My trembling thighs buckled and I lay flat on my stomach. Blades of grass tickled my lower lip and I tasted wetness mixed with soil on the tip of my tongue.
The rhythmic drum of rain hit the surface of my body, a comfort as I lay heaving on the ground. I needed this to drive my pain back so no one would see it.
Especially Ream. I saw the way he watched me and it was with fear, afraid of what I’d suffered while we were apart for twelve years. I’d never tell him. I’d never tell anyone. That was mine to own, bury and destroy.
Ream was leaving with his band, Tear Asunder, to go on tour and he’d refuse to go if he knew what stormed inside me. Even after being separated since we were sixteen, Ream still wanted to protect me. But there was nothing of me to protect anymore. And it was my turn to protect him—from me.
The memories had tried to weed their way back into me, but running trapped them. At that moment, it was all I had. I could keep the brewing storm at bay and make my way to normal. I had to find normal.
“Jesus. What the hell?”
I jerked and my breath hitched as the voice sounded behind me. I knew who it was and leapt to my feet, but the mud gave way and I slipped as I tried to get my footing. I didn’t bother to look at him as I finally gained traction and took off up the hill for the maze of the woods in the distance.
“Haven.” Booted feet came after me.
Shit. No one could see me like this. Crisis was my brother’s best friend, his foster brother and bandmate. He’d tell Ream.
I heard a loud thump, a grunt and then, “Fuck.”
I ran faster, while putting my hand in my coat pocket and touching the familiar hard metal. Even if Olaf was dead, I needed this. My control. My safety. My protection. I gritted my teeth, fighting the urge to yank out the gun and make him stop. Make everything stop.
But I had splinters of sanity still inside me and that would lead down a path far from what I was searching for.
It was as if I ran in slow motion, the weight of the rain, the mud, my exhausted limbs, and the wind attempting to push me back down the hill. Vulnerability. It led to pain so horrific that it bled your insides into a sea of poison. Weakness killed. Weakness destroyed.
I heard his heavy breathing and a tremor of fear shot through me as the flash of men panting, eyes glazed with alcohol and lust.
God, the lust. I hated that the most.
His body hit hard as he crashed into me, sending us both to the ground. He took the brunt of the fall as he rolled at the last second, so I landed on my back on top of his chest.
Still, the wind knocked out of me and it took a second before I was able to breathe.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” he shouted above the roar of the storm.
“Let. Go.” I twisted to escape him, but his muscled, tatted arms were unmoveable as they curled around my chest. I’d been in his arms once before a couple months earlier, when he grabbed me at the cottage and jumped off the cliff into the water. It had been two months after I’d escaped and I hadn’t wanted to go to the cottage with the band, Kat and Emily. But the only way my brother would go was if I went with them.
I didn’t know how to swim though and when Crisis snagged me around the waist laughing as we sailed through the air and submerged beneath the cool surface, I clung to him. I’d had no choice.
Now, I did.
But as I lay against his chest, both of us breathing hard, his arms like a cocoon of protective warmth . . . I wanted to stay here and forget why I carried a gun. Why I was better alone. Why I had to run to keep the memories away.
I wanted to feel protected and safe for one moment before I had to fight again. Because that was what I did every single day—fought. It was just a different fight than it was before.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
Maybe not, but he was a threat to my numbness, my cool exterior I’d taken years to build. Because when I looked at him, the brilliance of his bright blue eyes often filled with laughter, mesmerized me.
“Why did you run from me? Fuck, why the hell are you running in a goddamn thunderstorm in an open fuckin’ field?”
I tried to elbow him in the ribs, but he was quick and tightened his arms so I had no momentum.