Chapter 13 #2
“Boss, your company is here.” I turned to see another of Emerson’s men at the door. This guy stood about three inches shorter than Emerson and reminded me of a weasel. The only thing tough about him was the snake tattooed on his cheek and the scar that ran through his left eyebrow.
“Good. Keep an eye on this one.” He rose, cracking his knuckles as he walked up to the man. “You one of Pack’s new hires?”
“Yeah, started a few days ago.”
Emerson didn’t respond but stood there, holding his stare, his muscles tense below his shirt. “Show me.” I could see the tension in his back.
The guy pulled his shirt up, and I peeked my head around to see the variety of tattoos. Embedded in one was the Omens marking.
“Guess Pack thought you were good enough to skip my approval. Make one wrong move and he’ll be cleaning pieces of your brain off my floor.”
The image was one I didn’t want to imagine, but it was there now. Emerson walked by him and, without a glance at me, he walked away, leaving the man to babysit me.
I slumped back in my chair and chomped on my toast. Every time it seemed like there might be something more to this, Emerson reminded me of my place in his world. Hostage. I didn’t know why I was having so much trouble remembering it.
Emerson was gone for a while and, in that time, the guard stoically stood vigil.
I tried making small talk, but he wasn’t like Breaker or Emerson’s other guy, Pack.
This guy stared at me like I was his prey, his beady brown eyes never leaving me.
It made my skin crawl like it should have crawled this entire time.
I pulled my shirt closer to stave off the chill he was causing me.
Panic crawled into my throat. It locked down my lungs and seized my muscles.
The all too familiar tingling started, like a swarm of bees in my limbs.
By the time Emerson returned, I was ready to bolt and run back to my room. Emerson dismissed him, and the air seemed to lighten. My anxiety, however, didn’t, and I continued to stare at the space in front of me, frozen and helpless to fight the panic that now held me hostage.
“Ava?” Emerson’s concerned voice came through the haze, but it wasn’t enough.
I gasped for breath, my head swimming as I clung to my shirt.
“Ava?” Hands took my face, forcing my eyes to his, but still I was lost to the rise of adrenaline and emotion that overtook all other senses and functions. I heaved in breaths, my heart racing. “Ava, what’s wrong?”
All I could see was the man’s face, his eyes burning a hole in me.
This wasn’t some holiday, some fun excursion.
I was a prisoner, and that man wanted me dead.
I was going to die. The thoughts pounded me, and my body went weak, my pulse slamming in an unsteady rhythm as I panted, the air never reaching my lungs.
The sensation of a forehead resting against mine added to the soothing strokes over my back.
“Shhh,” I heard. “No one’s going to hurt you.”
The steady caresses melted the frozen locks on my limbs, waking them up and quieting my thoughts. My body inclined toward him, the sound of the waves, the seagulls, the breeze returning to my senses along with the smell of salt air and Emerson.
He brought his hands back to my cheeks, the move causing my eyes to meet his.
Embarrassment rushed me like a bull charging its target.
Here I’d boasted about never wanting to look weak and I’d done just that.
If I’d been on my medications, I would have noticed the impending threat of an attack, but this had come on so suddenly I hadn’t been able to stop it.
“I… I didn’t—” He put a finger to my mouth, stopping my words. The moment lingered, an unspoken need, a flush of desire ricocheting through me that matched the flicker in his eyes.
“Are you all right?” he asked, dropping his finger and removing his hand from my cheek. His features sharpened. “Did he do something to you?”
The embarrassment faded, anger replacing it. I worked hard to maintain an image of strength and confidence, and then things like this would remind me I wasn’t infallible. That the demons of my past would never go away. I brushed my hair back, looking away.
“No, he didn’t. I’m fine. I just…your guy gave me the creeps, that’s all.”
He took my chin in his fingers and turned my head. “He’ll never watch you again.”
I twisted from his hold, pushing away so I could stand. A move that forced him to his feet. His eyes creased and I could see him trying to figure me out.
“You don’t always have to be strong, Ava.”
My eyes leaped to his. He read my emotions like he had known me forever. I didn’t know how to tell him I had to be strong or the past would devour me.
“I know,” I whispered, rubbing my shoulder against my ear and feeling too seen, too open, too vulnerable. “Where did you go?”
“We should talk about what just happened,” he pushed.
“Why do you care? It was just a panic attack, nothing more.”
He hadn’t been able to control how his body reeled back slightly. But he covered it, his eyes shifting into that emotionless look he’d had the night I met him.
“Your medicine came.” His tone cut, reminding me of who he was and who I was to him. Only a commodity. A trade. A pawn in some war he had with his brother. My sight flicked to the bottles on the table. I hadn’t even noticed him bring them.
I grabbed the bottles, looking at the generic labels printed on them. No name, no indication of who they were for or where they had come from. Only a simple medication name with the dose.
“Take what you need, and I’ll have Breaker return you to your room.”
The disappointment reflected in his tone had me clutching the bottle with my shaking hand and peeking back at him.
His blue eyes were hard, but I could see the emotion below the exterior.
How I could read his expressions so well after so few days, I couldn’t explain, but I could see what he didn’t want me to see.
I placed the bottle on the table, staring at the things that had been my island in a sea that thrashed against me viciously for years with the goal of drowning me.
Emerson’s steps resounded in the silence and tugged at something inside of me.
A desperate need to have something else as my island.
To admit that my smiles, my jokes, my confidence were all lies.
Falsities to build some fantasy version of me no one could ever hurt again.
The island had gotten smaller over the years; the tide eroding it until only my uncle, my therapist, and the drugs kept it intact.
And I’d told myself that was all I needed, but after three nights in Emerson’s arms, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
I stared out at the ocean, watching the waves slam into the shore as his steps grew further away.
“He reminded me of my stepfather.” My words were so soft I wasn’t sure if he had heard me, but the footfalls ceased. I rubbed my arms, a chill scraping past the fabric of my shirt. “He always looked at me the same way. Like he would eat me alive if he could.”
I swallowed, never having told anyone this, only Den and the psychiatrists.
“You asked where the nightmares came from.” All the weaknesses I had fought for years to hide resurfaced.
“They come from him.” My voice broke, and I hated it.
I didn't even know if Emerson was still there, but saying the words and voicing my living hell seemed like the right thing. A time for my secrets to spill even though I couldn’t give one rational reason why this was the man who needed to hear them.
“My father left my mother when I was a baby. It destroyed her. We moved from town to town, and she spiraled more each time. First alcohol, then drugs. By the time I was six, I was taking care of myself. It’s a wonder she made it that long.
” I had hated my mother for years, but over time, the hatred changed to pity.
“She remarried when I was eight. He seemed nice at first, but that changed quickly.” My eyes dropped to my hands, seeing the tremble in them.
I crossed my arms, tucking my hands under them.
“I can’t remember a day when my mother wasn’t high or drunk or without bruises after that.
My bruises he kept to places no one would question. ”
I sucked in a shaky breath, knowing the worst was coming.
The darkness sat at the fringe of my sight, and I fought it.
“When I was twelve, he started to look at me different. Leering stares, touches that made my stomach turn. He would catch himself and the creepiness would turn to anger. That’s when he started…
” The crack of my voice was like glass cutting it.
I hated going back to that time. It hurt even after all these years.
Emerson’s hands slid over my arms like a support structure that fortified me in ways nothing ever had.
“The first time he locked me in the basement, he left me there for hours. He broke the bulb and threw me on the glass. Then he closed the door. I was terrified and bleeding, but no matter how I pounded on the door, no one let me out. It became his favorite punishment, and soon my mother started using it. Hours at a time in the pitch black. Things would scurry at the bottom of the steps. I know now they were likely mice or bugs, but back then I imagined hell existed at the bottom of those stairs and the demons were climbing to get me.”
Tears fell, and I rested on his chest. He said nothing, just gave me the space to talk and the time to tell my story.