Chapter 6
Sage
It was fucking torture.
Pure hell.
And a little bit of heaven, too.
It’d only been a week since we’d brought Daisy home with us, and nothing about the adjustment had been easy. We had plenty of room, so that wasn’t the issue. No, the issue was me.
Because my anxiety was through the roof.
And there was little Cash could do about it.
With Daisy potentially always within hearing distance, Cash was reluctant to give me the very orders I needed so badly in order to cope with Daisy’s presence. It was the cruelest of double-edged swords.
In the privacy of our bedroom, Cash tried to make up for what he couldn’t provide me with otherwise, but it wasn’t enough.
Having Daisy so close and yet so far out of reach was making me crazy with guilt. I wanted her so badly, I could taste it. But my need for Cash hadn’t changed… if anything, it had grown exponentially with Daisy’s presence. I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
And that was what was dragging me into the darkness that had held me for so very long in its grip before I’d met Cash.
I can’t do it anymore, Sage.
I flinched and closed my eyes as the voice from my past filtered through my head.
“Sage?”
Cash’s voice broke through the darkness and I sucked in a breath. We were getting dinner ready. Daisy was still in her room getting her computer set up. Ronan had gotten all her stuff sent from her apartment that she’d need until she found her own place.
Wherever that ended up being.
Because I couldn’t allow myself to believe that she would stay.
“Sage.”
The firmness in Cash’s voice had me tearing my eyes from the vegetables I’d been cutting. I looked at him, but all I felt was pain when I did.
I was drowning.
He knew it.
I knew it.
There weren’t enough life preservers in the world to save me.
“Why don’t you set the table?” Cash suggested.
Suggested.
Not ordered.
“Can I help with something?” I heard Daisy ask as she entered the kitchen.
I couldn’t look at her, just like I couldn’t look at Cash anymore. I turned my attention back to the vegetables.
“You can set the table,” Cash said after a moment.
I felt a searing pain in my head, but ignored it. I ignored the darkness threatening the edges of my vision too.
I could do this.
We were three people temporarily sharing the same living space and having a meal together. All I had to do was make the fucking salad.
Easy.
So fucking easy.
My fingers shook as I cut into the cucumber I was slicing.
“Are you all set up?” I heard Cash ask.
“Yeah,” Daisy responded. “I told Ronan I should be back to full speed tomorrow.”
I only half-listened to their easy conversation.
God, they fit together so perfectly. I loved the way Daisy made Cash laugh and I loved how relaxed she was around him. I normally loved to listen to their banter, but it was hard to focus on anything as the noise in my head got louder.
“Please, Sage, I can’t take it anymore. You have to make it stop. You promised.”
I shook my head, but couldn’t find the words to tell her I didn’t know how to stop it. I knew what she wanted… I knew the promise she was begging me to keep.
“No, I’ll find another way, Mouse,” I whispered. “I’ll figure it out and I’ll make them stop. I’ll get us out of here.”
She began to cry and then she turned her back on me and curled into a ball. I heard the footsteps coming down the hall. She did too, because her sobs grew louder. I covered her mouth with my hand to stifle her cries, because it would only make things worse.
God, they were so close. Maybe they’d stop at one of the other doors.
Shame curled through me even as I wished for that to happen.
I needed more time. I had to prove to Mouse that I still had a plan – that I could still make it work.
That I could still save her. She just had to hang on a little while longer.
But I knew the footsteps wouldn’t stop.
It was our turn.
We’d already been prepared. That only ever happened when it was our turn.
Mouse turned over and pressed against me. I released her mouth and held on tight.
“Please, Sage!” she cried. “Please do this for me!”
“No,” I hissed.
She began screaming and I quickly covered her mouth again.
“They’ll punish you!” I snapped at her. “Is that what you want?”
She didn’t stop screaming. Every muffled cry against my palm cut into me like a knife. I bled and bled, but there was no relief. Not while her frantic eyes held mine, her plea louder than any scream she could have made.
And I knew in that moment that I couldn’t save her.
I’d been making her that promise for months, even a year, maybe…
I didn’t really know, since I’d lost all sense of time.
I was as powerless now as I’d been the first time I’d been forced to kneel next to her on the steps leading up to the small alter.
“I can’t stop it,” I whispered to her as something inside of me ripped wide open.
She stopped struggling beneath my palm, but I didn’t move my hand and she didn’t try to make me. She looked at me with something akin to relief and just like that, the tears stopped. The footsteps stopped outside our door and the familiar chanting began.
“Mouse,” I whispered as I shook my head.
She nodded and I felt her say something against my palm.
I love you, Sage.
I didn’t try to stop the tears as I leaned down to whisper that I loved her too. Then I told her I was sorry.
And I shifted my hand to cover her nose in addition to her mouth.
I wanted her to close her eyes, but she wouldn’t, so neither did I. She tried not to fight me, but her body’s instincts to survive kicked in and she grabbed hold of my wrist as her body began to thrash as it realized there was no more oxygen coming its way.
It was then that I realized why she’d kept her eyes open. If she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have seen it.
The resolve.
The silent plea for me to keep going.
The hovering right there on the edge of fear and peace.
I sobbed as I threw a leg over her lower body and held her down. Every second that passed was pure agony, but only because I’d made my own choice to follow her and I wanted to be right behind her when she went.
Her eyes didn’t close when she finally stopped struggling, so it was hard to be sure she was gone. It wasn’t until her hands slipped from where she’d been holding onto my wrist and a single tear slid down her cheek that I knew it was done.
I’d saved her.
I’d saved us both.
I turned over on the bed and reached beneath it to search out the piece of the metal I’d been working free of the mattress frame for weeks.
I’d finally gotten it loose this morning.
My intent had been to use it as a weapon during the grand escape plan I’d come up with – the one that never would have worked – but it would serve another purpose now.
I turned on my back and without any kind of hesitation, pressed the tip of the metal against the skin along the inside of my forearm. The relief masked the pain as blood welled around my makeshift blade, and I closed my eyes and pressed up against Mouse, ready to follow her over to the other side.