Chapter 15
AURORA
It's not morning yet when I wake up. It's hard to tell in Seven's cave of a bedroom, but I think I heard something. I blink into the darkness and hear Ellie make a soft whining sound from where she lies on her fluffy pink bed in the corner of Seven's room, beneath the jawbone flowers.
Whatever woke me, she heard it, too.
I'm careful not to wake Seven as I squint into the dark and slip from beneath his arm. I strain to hear, my heart starting to thud harder in my chest.
"Did you hear something, Ellie?" I whisper, and she gets up to pad over to where I'm sitting on the edge of the bed, nudging me with her cold nose. "What is it?"
There it is again.
"Shh," I hush Ellie, listening more carefully.
"What…?" Seven asks in a sleepy rumble, but I hush him, too.
He sits bolt upright and springs from the bed like a coiled snake. I hear the tearing of Velcro and then the click of a magazine sliding into place as he checks it and chambers a round.
"What is it, Ro?"
"I don't know," I admit in a whisper as Ellie starts to whine again. "I thought I heard—"
My blood turns to ice in my veins as a bloodcurdling scream fills the cabin.
Elijah.
Bile rises in the back of my throat as I tear past Seven toward the door, throwing it open to thud into the hall. I almost fall down the stairs in my haste and I have to pick myself up off the floor at the bottom to sprint on unsteady feet down the hall.
"Ro!" Seven bellows after me, but I can't hear what he says next. It's swallowed up by another scream that makes my eyes burn and my throat feel like it's filling up with razor blades.
"Elijah! Elijah!"
Seven curses behind me as he shouts something at someone, and Ellie's claws are scrambling over the hardwood as if someone's holding her back, but I can't worry about that right now.
Not with Elijah's sounds of anguish still coming through his door.
I yank it open and race inside, looking for someone to rip apart with my bare hands, but I find no one. No one except for the tangled shape of Elijah in his bed as he shouts again, a sound that sinks into my flesh like broken glass.
"E-Elijah?"
I rush to him. His skin is hot and slippery under my touch, and my mind immediately conjures up images of blood, but the hall light outside his room flicks on, and I don't see any red.
Just gray. Gray sheets and blankets. His pants tangled up in them.
His sleep shirt darkened with sweat across the middle of his chest.
The tendons in his neck strain as he twists his fists in the covers and thrashes through another choked scream that ends in a sob that's like being punched in my own chest.
He's asleep, I realize, as Seven brushes past me to go to him, and my hands lift to a hover but don't touch. I can't remember what to do. Are you supposed to wake people from night terrors? Or is that sleepwalking?
He shakes and chokes out another sound that physically hurts to hear and I'm rooted in place on the floor, unable to breathe through the aching in my chest as Seven takes my place.
He finds handholds on both of Elijah's shoulders, pinning him to the bed.
The touch wakes him in an instant, and Elijah growls, trying to attack Seven.
"It's me. It's me, Eli. You're safe. You're safe."
It takes a second to register, but when it does, Elijah sags against the mattress.
"Fuck." The curse is a whimper on Elijah's lips when Seven releases him.
"I thought the night terrors were gone for good."
Elijah sniffs and shudders, still trying to get control of his breathing and the sobs I can see still swelling in his chest. "So did I. G-guess we were b-both wrong."
"Shit, Ellie," Atticus barks from out in the hall, and then she's racing in the door, jumping up onto Elijah's bed with a panicked bark, licking at the sweat on his forehead with a whine in her throat.
Elijah, disoriented, recoils, but as he lays a palm on her head, she settles, lying next to him. She nuzzles into the crook of his neck, laying her body next to his like she does for me when she knows I'm upset.
She's the best damn dog in the world.
Elijah sags into the mattress, his eyes closed, but his chest still heaving as he brings himself back.
I still hear the echo of his screams in my head. I don't think I'll ever be able to get them out.
"I'll grab the heating pad," Atticus mutters from the door, going to Elijah's dresser to pull out a brown pad and plug it in beside the bed.
He sits on the edge of it, dragging Elijah's hand to rest atop the pad and then wrapping the extra length of it around his scars.
When he gives it a tentative squeeze to push the warming fabric against his injury, Elijah sucks air in through his teeth.
Seven moves as I approach, offering me his spot next to Elijah. I take it and touch the top of Atticus's hand, silently telling him to let me do it.
He places Elijah's wrapped hand into mine, standing. "I'll get him some water."
Elijah has his opposite forearm slung over his eyes as his breaths finally, mercifully, start to even out. I watch his throat bob, and then he wets his lips.
"You should go, Angel," he says in a pained whisper. "I don't want you to see me like this."
I shake my head even though he can't see me. "I'm not going anywhere."
As gently as I can, I unwrap his hand, now warm from the heating pad, and delicately begin to massage his palm.
He flinches, and I pull my hands away. "Is that too much?"
It's his turn to shake his head. "No. No, it's good. Keep going."
I massage my thumbs over his palm, keeping the back of his hand pressed to the heating pad, hoping the combination of both will provide him some faster relief. I saw how hard he was fisting his hands in the blankets. He must've really hurt it.
It's quiet while Atticus comes back with water and clean sheets, and Seven sits against the wall, humming a quiet tune that sounds familiar and seems to calm Elijah down even more.
It strikes me as the tension in his hand begins to ease and his stiff fingers become pliable again, that this is something they've done more than once. Probably many times.
The heating pad. The water and clean sheets. The humming. The way Seven knew he'd have to hold Elijah down while he woke him to prevent being attacked.
How many times has Elijah had to go through this?
And how many times have they had to listen to his screams?
Hearing Elijah's screams once has to rank as one of the most terrifying and heart-wrenching moments I've ever experienced. I don't even remember coming down the stairs.
Actually, I don't remember anything between hearing him scream and barging through his bedroom door.
I'd been so sure someone was hurting him in here. That I'd open it and find one of Ambrose's assassins had come to finish him off. And maybe I'd be too late.
Once Elijah's hand is relaxed in mine and my fingers are sore from massaging him, he lets his forearm slip from his eyes and blinks into the diffused light from the hall.
He finds me first, and then Seven lounging against the wall.
Then Atticus leaning in the doorway, and finally Ellie snuggled up against him.
He sighs. "How bad was it?"
"Not that bad."
"Bad."
Atticus and I speak at the same time, and I cut him a glare at his lack of sensitivity. Of course it was bad, but did he really need to tell Elijah that? Isn't it obvious he's already embarrassed enough?
Atty drops his gaze, mouth in a tight line.
"I should shower." Elijah starts to push himself up, but it's obvious his body is weak as he falters. "I probably smell like—"
I wrap my arms around him once he's sat up, uncaring about the dampness I feel through his shirt. I cling to him, and his left arm wraps around my middle, holding me against him tightly.
"I'm all right, Angel," he whispers against my neck. "I'm sorry if I scared you."
I shake my head against him. I want to tell him it's okay, but that fear I felt when I heard him from upstairs…
I think I'm starting to get it now—how he feels about me being their Trojan horse in the revenge scheme against Ambrose. Because if the roles were reversed, I would never want him anywhere near the man who could provoke such nightmares.
Unbidden, an image of Elijah on his knees, a whip connecting with his back, splitting flesh and making him scream, comes to life in my mind.
How many times did he have to endure that?
How many times did he think he might never see his brothers again?
That he would either continue to paint in that room until madness or death claimed him?
My fingertips brush over the bumps of his scars through his damp shirt and a rage unlike any I've felt in a long time simmers hot in my stomach.
"Everything is going to be okay," I say, willing myself to believe it.
I'm going to make it be okay.
Elijah leans his cheek against my temple.
"I hope so, Angel. I really fucking hope so."