“There’s always something else,” I repeat and then add as I stand up to leave, “It’s something you so desperately need, but you don’t even see it.”
Chapter 16
Aria
* * *
Part of what keeps me from giving in to Carter and the feelings that have been taking over my every waking moment is obvious.
The fear of the past returning. The truth in the terrors that devour my nights.
And the nightmares I remember of a past monster erase everything I’ve felt for Carter. There is nothing that will change that.
Sometimes it’s the feeling of Stephan’s hands on me that wake me up screaming. It’s been so long since I’ve felt it. Or at least since I’ve been aware of it.
It used to be every single night. I couldn’t sleep at all without seeing his face. Without feeling him rip me away from my mother as I begged her to stay with me. She was already gone though. Even as a child I knew she was dead.
He’d killed her.
The sleeping pills the doctor gave me at my father’s request worked for a little while. Then I stopped and even though everyone else would say I was screaming, I didn’t remember. I couldn’t remember a single dream. Nothing but darkness as I slept.
It’s come back to me though in the last few months. Even the pills can’t dull the nightmares anymore. They don’t stop them from lingering once my eyes have opened.
It’s like I’ve gone back fourteen years, and my nights and days are both haunted by the memories.
* * *
“Please, Stephan,” I begged him. I looked up into the eyes of the man dragging me away from her. My nails scratched and bent on the wooden floors as I kicked him, falling hard to the ground.
And he snarled, “You little bitch.”
* * *
My heart races and the tears stream down my face. My fingers dig into the mattress and the sweat turns to ice along my skin. I don’t know if I’m asleep or awake, but I know what’s coming. I can’t move; I can’t breathe.
I can see myself rocking, but I’m still. I’m aware of that. It’s a different time, in a different place.
I’m safe, I whisper and try to will the images away. I’m safe.
But when I open my eyes and try hard to keep from crying any more tears, I remember where I am.
It’s been years since the nightmares have tortured me like this. It makes sense that they’d come back now. But without a place to hide, not in my sleep and not while I’m awake, I don’t know how much longer I can go on.
I can’t live like this.
I can’t and I won’t.
I want to call out for Carter of all things. He could hold me and take it away.
The bed beneath me groans as I roll over, and for the first time since I’ve been here, my back is to the door. I’m conscious of it. As conscious of it as I am the feeling of Carter’s hand on my jaw. The strength, the power, the heat, and fire that lick their way up my body when he holds me like that.
Like I’m his.
I remember his words, “I made a deal I shouldn’t have. But I need to go through with it.” How he said I have to help him. I’ve spent weeks in this cell with no hope, until now. My imagination is wild with thoughts of what could come. But each and every one of them leads back to one scene. One that makes my thighs clench tighter.
Slowly, I lift my fingers to where his were and close my eyes as the tips of my fingers tickle my skin. The memory calms me and yet, it makes my heart beat faster.
It’s his hands on me that I think of as I try to drift back to sleep. And I almost do.
But the realization of how much power he has over me with something so simple as a touch meant to control me, easing my pain steals any chance I have of falling back to sleep.
Chapter 17
Carter
* * *
Stephan. Alexander Stephan.
It’s his name screamed. He’s who terrorizes her in her sleep. I know it is.
I’ve listened to it over and over again, each time the anger intensifying.
Last night she screamed his name.
All these nights I thought it was me causing the terrors. I thought she hated me and that she truly dreaded what I could do to her.
I’ve never been so fucking wrong in my life.
The door to her cell opens with a small creak, but it cries out loud in my ears as Aria’s bloodshot eyes stare back at me.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask her, leaving the door open and walking with evenly paced and deliberate steps to the side of her bed.
She looks so frail beneath me. Barely eating and not sleeping for more than a few hours for over a week will take its toll on anyone. She doesn’t answer me. Her eyes follow me though.