Rosabelle 37
Rosabelle
When I open my eyes, I think I’m underwater.
The room swims around me, inky, milky. Moonlight, starlight. Ghosts stretch toward the walls like cold breaths, gauzy illumination glazing my skin.
I’m heavy. Sinking into dark depths and somehow weightless. Particles in the air, like all of me is static.
My heart is racing for no obvious reason.
I feel electric.
There’s a charge in me that hums under skin, aching somewhere deep, a low heat simmering. A breathless awareness unfurls in my veins at pulsing, unnerving intervals.
I realize, gradually, that I’m in a bed, but I can’t remember how I got here.
I can’t remember the last time I slept so well.
The sheets are luxurious, the pillows are decadent.
Fabric glides against my skin and I get that underwater sensation again, like I’m adrift in a tide.
Softness everywhere, bobbing against me.
I feel light and clean. Floating. Sinking.
Suspended.
Where am I?
I’m trying to remember what happened. I blink, feeling slow but not stupid. Confused but, somehow, unafraid. I’m conscious. Present.
My mind is working: buffering.
I force myself to sit up, sheets rustling as I move, and my head is an extraordinary weight, surprising me. The effort to remain upright is so great I already want to lie back down.
I fight the instinct.
I turn my tired eyes toward the moon, gauzy light streaming in through the large window beside the bed.
My long hair feels heavy, sweeping around my shoulders as I move, and a fresh and floral scent releases into the air.
I still, surprised. I fold a length of my own hair between my fingers, inspecting it in the ghostly glow before lifting it to my nose.
I smell nice.
No, more than that: I’m altogether suffused in a delicious, familiar scent. I pinch the dark cotton away from my body, studying it. I’m wearing an oversized T-shirt, the collar so big it slips off, baring one shoulder to the moonlight.
“Hey,” he says.
My heart stops.
Then picks up so violently my breath stalls in my chest.
I turn at the sound of his voice, then seize at the sight of him. James is half standing, pushing up from a chair in the corner of the room, where the cold glow of a tablet casts his beautiful face into stark, shocking relief.
Memory rises up without warning and crashes over my head. Remembered sound and sensation storms my mind, drowning me in the deluge.
Blood. Pain.
Panic.
I lift an unsteady hand to my throat, recalling the deafening explosion, the jagged edge of glass. The dream of his hands on me, his arms around me. The impossible sound of his voice.
Baby, please, open your eyes
I take a sharp breath.
James stands up and steps into a shaft of moonlight. He’s not wearing a shirt.
This is already too much.
I can’t breathe.
His body is exquisite, broad and powerful, curves and ridges of defined muscle, corded sinew, a scatter of scars.
A pair of dark sweatpants rides low on his hips.
His hair is soft and disheveled, like he might’ve been running his hands through it.
His chest lifts as he breathes, and I catch the movement of his throat in the soft light.
“Rosabelle?”
This steady charge inside of me, the static pulsing in my veins, the unrelenting pace of my heart—
My body knew he was here before my mind could even catch up.
James takes a step toward me.
That’s my bed. You’re in my room. I won’t leave this house while you’re in it, I swear.
I’m half tucked under his sheets. I’m wearing his shirt. I’ve been sleeping on his pillow.
You’re safe here.
He saved my life.
“James,” I whisper, terrified.
He draws closer, studying me. He’s near enough now that I can see his eyes properly, his irises almost black in the half dark. His face is inscrutable, but his body seems tightly wound, his muscles tensed.
My heart is beating too fast.
I can’t seem to think beyond the space he’s occupying in front of me. It occurs to me, faintly, that I’m upset about something, though I can’t remember what. The rest of the world—my worries and fears—have winnowed down to white noise.
I can’t focus.
He’s so gorgeous it feels like an act of rebellion simply to perceive him. To record this in human history. To acknowledge the existence of art.
I’m drinking in the sight of his face, fixing him in my memory like this: painted under moonlight, the hard planes of him like cut glass, the soft give of his mouth, the inky lashes framing the dark heat of his eyes.
Need shatters under my skin.
I have the sudden, alarming instinct to sink back against these sheets and surrender.
James is nearly at the bed when he says, “Are you really awake?”
He’s close enough to touch.
I could reach out, drag my hands down his bare torso. I could push up onto my knees and press my face to his skin. Taste him. Touch him. Something is wrong with me. I can’t slow my pulse.
I can’t turn this off.
I don’t know how to turn this off.
I can’t control my sensory input around him. In his presence every fail-safe inside of me seems to shut down. Every nerve ending flares to life at the same time. The low heat inside me grows suddenly hotter, making me dizzy. I’ve never known desire like this.
I’m so consumed by this fire I nearly say a word out loud. I feel it forming in my mouth, the start of it parting my lips, a puff of air—
Please
It’s this that finally triggers reason, mortification reorganizing my mind.
I need—
I need to get away from him.
All this suffering was intended to put James behind me. I have to focus on Sebastian, on my greater plans, on getting home before it’s too late—
I push out of the bed in stumbling movements, nearly killing myself in an effort to get free of these sheets, to move past James without so much as grazing his skin.
I need space.
I need room to think.
James turns to face me as I back away, my hair whipping around my face, glinting in my periphery. I have to physically resist the urge to search this room for a weapon. Cool air raises goose bumps along my skin. His too-large T-shirt slides off my shoulder again, its hem hitting my bare thighs.
I’ve never been this vulnerable.
I wish I had a gun.
“Why did you bring me here?” I say breathlessly. “You’re not—you’re not allowed to—to be near me—”
“Great,” he says, his mouth flattening into a grim line. “You’re definitely awake.”
“This isn’t a joke,” I say, panicking. “I made a—a deal with your brother—”
“Yeah, I know all about your deal,” James says darkly. His face clouds over in anger, any lingering softness leaving his eyes. “Consider it dead. Your deal is done. You’re back to being my full-time problem.”
“What?” Alarm lances through me. “What do you mean? You can’t—You don’t have the authority to—”
“Authority?” He laughs, the sound ominous.
“You think I need permission to care about what happens to you? You really thought I could find out you got your face shattered by an abusive psychopath and act like it wasn’t my business?
Who do you think I am, Rosabelle? How could you ever think I’d be okay with that? ”
Heat suffuses my body.
That’s exactly what I expected. No one’s ever tried to protect me from Sebastian.
No one’s ever protected me from anything.
James steps forward. “If I knew where to find that piece of shit I’d hunt him down right now and skin him alive,” he says. “Then I’d douse him in kerosene. Strike a fucking match.”
“You can’t,” I say, panicking.
“I can,” he says. “And I will.”
“James—”
“Let me make something absolutely clear.” He draws closer, his eyes flashing.
I feel suddenly faint.
“You can tell me to go to hell because you hate me. You can cut me out of your life because you don’t want me. But you will never, ever try to protect me again by hurting yourself. I won’t fucking allow it.”
“I wasn’t trying to—to protect you—”
“Sell your lies to the rest of the world,” he says. “I know you. You can’t hide from me.”
I’m now frozen in place, fighting for a full breath, anxiety branching through me. This conversation feels surreal. I can’t process this; I don’t even know how to respond to this.
I can’t think straight standing this close to him.
My right arm is trembling badly, and I clasp my good hand around my bad wrist, trying to hold it steady.
Pain has been the only reliable presence in my life.
I managed to hide my suffering from my sister; I managed to hide my suffering from myself. I was always dead inside and numb to the world.
No one ever noticed my damage.
The abusive dynamics of life on the Ark are my only normal. I’ve grown to accept abuse; to expect it. And now it’s critical that I use these experiences as leverage.
I knew I’d never be able to explain this to James.
I knew he’d never understand that I have no choice but to deal with Sebastian, which will inevitably expose me to harm.
“James,” I force out. “You don’t—you don’t understand—”
“This is not a discussion.” He cuts me off, his voice rising. “I’m telling you, right now: You will not put yourself in danger. Try something like this again and next time I won’t be so patient.”
My heart is hammering. “What does that mean?”
“It means I will track you down, throw you over my shoulder, and put you back in this bed.”
My eyes widen. “You can’t do that.”
“Fucking try me, Rosabelle.”
I can’t take this.
I need him out of my mind, out of my skin. I need to get away from him. I need to sort out my head.
I can’t—I can’t think—
“Stop,” I say, heat pressing against the backs of my eyes. “James, we can’t do this. You never should’ve brought me here. I’m not—I’m not your responsibility—”
“Bullshit,” he says angrily. “You get to make decisions about what’s best for me, without my input or approval, but I don’t get to have an opinion about whether you spend time alone with someone who’s trying to kill you?”
My heart is out of control. “He wasn’t—he wasn’t trying to—I need you to understand, I have to get back to the Ark, and I need Sebastian—”
James looks suddenly murderous.
He steps forward and I take a desperate step back.