Chapter 53 Everett #2
Sin steps back, and I remove her boots, skinny jeans, and T-shirt. Then I start with her shoulders while Sin does her ankles. We meet in the middle, and I tighten the last one around her waist.
Bill turns around and nods to the door. “You may leave.”
“No.” I shake my head. Is he crazy? “I’m staying.”
“You’re leaving.” He looks at Easton as if he expects him to pull me out of here. Bill sighs when he sees Sin isn’t on his side here. “The sooner we get started, the sooner you can take her home.”
“What are you going to do to her?” I don’t think Bill will kill her, but I also don’t trust anyone with her other than myself right now.
“I’ve been instructed to administer a drug…” He trails off.
“You’re going to make her hallucinate,” Sin finishes, knowing exactly where he was going. “The mind is a powerful thing.”
Bill nods. “Yes. And I can’t do it with you in the room.”
“Why the fuck not?” I snap.
She begins to pull on the restraints, her body gently rocking back and forth, straining against the worn-out leather.
“You’re going to make it worse. Get the fuck out and let me do what they want before she wakes up.”
I watch her lashes start to flutter, and with reluctance, I back out of the room. The moment we step out, Bill locks it.
My hand goes to the knob, panic rising. “Unlock the door.” I bang on it, but he ignores me. “Bill. Open the fucking door.”
I hear her cry out on the other side of the door.
“Come on.” Sin grabs my arm and pulls me away. “There has to be a place where you can watch it.”
I rush into the room next door and flip on the light to see it’s an observation room. We have one at Carnage, and it makes me nauseous to think what they did to her in that room while others watched when she was here.
Bill fills a syringe and then walks over to her, administering the drug into her arm.
“I know it’s not much, but at least when it’s over, you can tell her it was only a hallucination.” Sin speaks softly as he watches Eve. “I had to look my wife in the eye when they forced me to break her heart.”
I don’t have anything to say about that because I couldn’t imagine having to make her think that she means nothing to me.
But something tells me this won’t be any easier on her.
If we’re lucky, it won’t be me she sees in her hallucination.
Eve knows I love her, right? I haven’t given her any reason to see me as the bad guy.
To make her think I’d cause her real harm.
Except for in the woods. The Lords wanted her to hate me for forcing her hand in being here.
“Saint told me that you and Haidyn are fighting,” Sin says while we wait for her to react to the drug.
I run a hand down my face. I was here at Dollhouse with my brothers when I was notified that Eve had left Carnage. Thankfully, they rushed back home while I went to the motel to get her. “Yeah.”
“Over Eve?”
I nod.
He turns to face me. “She’s yours, Kash. Sometimes you have to remind someone to stay away from what isn’t theirs. I’d kill a brother over my wife. She will always come first.”
Sin thinks Haidyn wants to take her away from me. In a way, he does. He wants her on prescription drugs. I’ve seen her self-medicate with alcohol. She doesn’t need it. I’m what she needs. I can help her.
Sin thinks Haidyn wants her in a different way. He and the others don’t know that Eve is his sister and that Haidyn is afraid of losing her. That she will try to commit suicide again and succeed.
A silence falls over the room and Eve starts to move, but she’s still pretty out of it.
“How was therapy?” he asks. I know what he’s doing. Sin’s trying to keep my thoughts off the woman that I’m about to hurt. “Did it help?”
I snort. “Nope. She freaked. Ran out of the building and then punched me.” I smile. That’s the Everett I fell in love with. She’ll get back to that eventually. I’ll make sure of it.
“What do you mean freaked?”
“She yelled at me. Was mad that I took her.”
“Hold up.” He frowns, turning to face me and I do the same. “Are you telling me she didn’t want to go?”
“Well, I didn’t really tell her she was going…”
“The fuck?” Sin snaps. “Are you kidding me?”
“You told me to take her,” I argue.
“No. I said if Eve wanted to go.”
I glance back at the observation window, and she’s pulling on the restraints but still isn’t fully awake yet.
“Christ, Kash.” Sin gets my attention again.
“Elli goes,” I argue defensively.
“That’s not how things work. Elli was the one who came to me and said she wanted to go to therapy. She decides if I stay in the waiting room. She decides if I sit in on the session. And she decides if I just observe or if I get to participate. Elli controls the situation.”
“I just wanted to help,” I say on a sigh, crossing my arms over my chest. Eve is the type of woman who doesn’t think she needs anyone else. So I tried to give her a little shove.
We fall silent once again. After what feels like hours, her body begins to shake. She arches her back and the words that come out of her mouth tear at my chest.
“Ka-sh?”
I’m right here, Eve. Right here. I step closer to the window and place my hands on the glass.
“Kashton. Please don’t…” she begs.
My stomach drops at the sound of fear in her voice. I thought I was helping her.
“I don’t want to be here. Just take me home. Please…?”
But I’m the one who’s hurting her.
I take a step back and let myself lean against the bathroom wall. I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept in days, too worried about my girl.
“Sin met us there. He brought a couple of things I thought I would need. I was instructed to put you in a room; you were given a drug that the Lords ordered you to have.” It was hell listening to her scream, not knowing what she was experiencing but knowing that it was me she was picturing hurting her.
She seemed awake, but she wasn’t. Her eyes were open, and her body shook, and she begged me…
fuck, she begged me so many times to stop hurting her.
It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
I’ve watched men and women beg for their lives at Carnage, but I’ve never given a fuck about them. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. To know the one you love thinks you’re hurting them is a different kind of hell.
Everett steps into me, and I keep my hands to myself. “So you didn’t let them rape me?” Her watery eyes search mine, but they look hopeful. That just maybe I’m not the monster she saw me as.
“No.” I hate that she could even think I’d let that happen. She sees me as a monster, otherwise she wouldn’t have hallucinated it. Even if it is far back in her mind, it’s still there. “I’d never let anyone touch you, let alone hurt you.”
Her eyes drop to my shirt, and her soft cries fill the room before she pushes her body into mine.
I wrap my arms around her, and she breaks into a sob. “It felt…so real.”
“I know.” I kiss her hair, letting out a long breath. “I’m so sorry, Eve.”
I’ve been there. I of all people know how real a hallucination can feel.
I saw all my brothers and Ashtyn dead. I heard Ashtyn scream for me to save her and carried her body in my arms after I watched the Lord slit her throat while he was raping her.
I felt my brothers’ blood on my hands as they hung from the ceiling.
“You’re okay.” Eve tightens her hold on me. “I’ll never hurt you.” I’ll kill myself before I ever let her think I’d do her any harm.