On automatic pilot, he turned and let them remove the chains while he kept his eyes closed.
“They’re off. Move away from the door.”
He followed their orders.
He always did.
He was a model prisoner.
His eyes finally opened as he moved closer to the bed and dropped to the mattress, his legs no longer willing to hold him up.
Quinten rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands.
He stayed like that for a long time.
* * *
10:45pm
* * *
Her body hardly had any life left in it.
She was fading fast.
So cold.
The pain.
“You’re safe now. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.” He caressed her face with fingers that felt like icicles. “Saige, it’s me.” He softly kissed her lips.
His eyes so familiar...
Shooting up in bed, Saige reached out and struggled to turn the lamp on.
As soon as there was light in the room, she scrambled and rested against the headboard. Sweat poured off her as she wrapped her arms around her bent knees.
She’d had dreams before, but none that she remembered once she woke.
Trees had been behind the man who’d crouched over her. She remembered the sound of the birds chirping, and the sound of the man crying, promising to protect her. The man she’d seen had been the one who was sitting on death row.
The dream felt real. Too real. She felt like it had been the pain that had pulled her under. No fight had been left in her and she wanted to go to sleep so that she wouldn’t hurt so much.
Then he came.
She’d felt his presence and knew he’d help her.
She’d known not to fight him when he wrapped her up in something.
Why had she felt safe with him?
“Saige, it’s me.” His voice whispered in her dream…maybe even in her memory.
He knew her.
He’d expected her to know him, recognize his voice.
Unable to hold her tears in any longer, she let them fall unchecked down her face while a feeling of overwhelming grief surrounded her.