Chapter 3
THREE
“Morning, love.”
A man’s voice smashes into my nightmare of the dollhouse, ripping me out of the silent terror with a violent scream.
Noah’s name is out of my mouth before I even realize I’m awake, my arm swinging wildly at the blurry figure to the side of the bed. Gulping for air, I blink frantically until I finally see the outline of the stranger clutching the scratches I’ve left on his face.
“Fuck, goddamnit,” he hisses.
My chest heaving, I try to scramble back against the unfamiliar headboard, but a blooming pain forces me to stop. My ankle throbs from inside a medical boot I don’t remember getting, triggering a sharp nausea, and I try to still myself as the night before starts to trickle back into my memory.
The door slams open, Noah’s wild eyes finding me and taking in the two men I now see in the corner. God, I can’t stand the relief I feel at seeing him burst into the room to check on me, so I just scowl and focus on the men before he notices.
Now that I’m half-conscious, I see the one cradling his cheek is Landon, Patrick’s apprentice—or whatever the term is for a vigilante in training. The other carries a doctor’s bag and crutches.
“I’m–I’m so sorry,” I sputter, a shake slipping into my voice and spreading to the rest of my body. ”I didn’t know who you were.” My ankle throbs angrily and I freeze the best I can with the shock seeming to make my muscles quake. “Who put this on me? When?”
“Last night,” Noah answers, and I startle at how much closer he’s gotten while I was distracted.
He lifts my injured foot and gently straightens it, resting it on a pillow.
Assessing eyes meet mine, and when I don’t immediately try to kick him in the face, he comes closer and presses my shoulder back to the pillow. “Try to relax.”
When he turns back to Landon, his softness evaporates quickly. “I told you to knock on her door, not fucking scare her.”
“That's what I tried to do! I just came in to wake her up, I didn’t know she’d claw me.” I flinch as he pulls his hand from his cheek, showing the swelling scratch marks.
That’s now two men in this room that I’ve recently harmed. The butterfly tape on Noah’s temple holds his sliced skin together, though I struggle to feel bad for hurting him.
The second man takes a hesitant step forward.
“Um, hi. I’m Doctor Langley. Last night I was able to do a small physical exam and I believe you’ve just got a bone bruise at this time.
” His eyes cut to Noah, standing there with stoic attentiveness.
“Noah’s informed me a trip to the office isn’t a possibility at this point, but even without an X-ray, I do believe your bone is not a significant fracture.
I’ve explained to Noah the timelines for how to help you heal. ”
I nod, dazed from the flurry of information and people.
It’s overload, and I’m still reeling from yesterday.
All I want is to be alone so I can think.
“Thanks.” I peek at Noah again, only to be irritated that he’s watching me too.
Technically this isn’t his fault, but I find myself blaming him anyway.
Yeah, I know now that I’d been tricked into attacking him and trying to run off, but he’d chased me down. Like a rabbit, or some other animal he can hunt. As if I didn’t have the right to leave.
“I’ll be back every week to check on you.” The doctor heads for the door, indicating the crutches he’d brought with him. “Please use these. If it is a hairline fracture, we don’t want to worsen it, or you'll need to come into the office.”
Noah gives a sharp nod, pinning me with that even, blank look of his that’s making me crazy. “She won’t be going anywhere.”
The way he says it implies that I’ve done something wrong, and as punishment I’ll be locked down again, back to how I was when I first met him. When he’d rewarded my good behavior by allowing me to leave my room from time to time like a dog.
But the doctor tips his head at me, and an automatic smile forces its way onto my face. Manners are so deeply ingrained in me, that I can’t stop them, even in this mess of a situation.
“Landon, see him out.” Noah jerks his thumb at the door and then puts his hands tensely on the footboard, head tipped down as they make their exit.
There’s a terse silence after the door closes that stretches on and on, until I can’t take it another second and scoot down into the blankets the best I can to stare at the ceiling instead.
“We need to talk about what happened yesterday.”
His dark hair is tousled, tension rolling off his body.
Because I understand him, I know he’ll be punishing himself for missing that there was a traitor inside Mercy, and they’d gotten close to us.
Somehow he’ll make it his fault, and recluse himself to the computer room to work on securing our safety from any other threats.
I want him to feel bad. Kind of. I want him to recognize that he fumbled the trust I had in him in the aftermath of yesterday.
That he’d accidentally let me see the feral side of him that didn’t let me leave him.
But there's another part of me that can’t help but need it again.
That possessive edge to everything he does somehow both scares me and makes me feel so incredibly safe.
I swallow, lacking the clarity to explain this…hollow feeling. I’m empty of emotion, so instead I just shake my head, hands fisting in the sheets.
Frustration is all I feel right now. That, and a need for something that even I don’t know how to put into words.
My head snaps back up when his hand brushes mine, rubbing the back of it with his thumb. A trace of my Noah has crept back into his face, softening the mask he wears that blocks out any emotion.
“I will fix this, Em. I can’t take back that someone was able to get access to that footage under my watch.
” I shudder, and he puts his large hand over mine.
The touch is too gentle, and I curl my hand into a tight fist to avoid it.
“I can’t change what happened, but I can promise you that I’ll make them pay. ”
“You filmed everything that happened in that house,” I say, and my voice sounds flat. Angry.
His grip on my fingers tightens, and the corner of my mouth quirks up at his irritation. “The cameras were running, yes.”
“And you had the footage saved. Everything that happened with us.”
His jaw clenches, and I know he’s trying to resist the urge to fight with me. “It’s for security, Emma. It’s a safe house, I needed to have eyes on every part of it all the time.”
“So are we being recorded now?” I peek around the room. “I feel like a lab mouse. Some kind of test subject, just being pushed to see how far I’ll go with you.” The sheets crinkle beneath the death grip I have on them. “How quickly you could turn me into a slut for you and Jesse.”
His chest rumbles with a snarl, hand shooting up to my jaw, gripping me just tightly enough that he can feel my breath catch in my throat.
My pulse jack hammers against his palm as his breath warms my ear.
“Now, why don’t you think about that again.
Do you really feel that way? Or are you just saying that because someone betrayed us and now you don’t feel safe in my care? ”
His amber eyes drill into me with a dizzying intensity and I like it.
I hate that I like it, but I do. This is the Noah I know.
The one who refuses to let me hide. And even though it drives me insane, it’s one of the things that draws me to him.
His requirement that I show my real self, not the one that hides the ugly parts of who I am.
It’s irritating, but I do believe him. I believe that his feelings for me have completely changed. That he cares for me, even if he does it in an insane way.
Noah should know more than anyone why I’m angry, because he forced me to open my eyes to the manipulation Eric had put me through during our marriage. He forced me to see how my husband had slyly cut me off from the world until all I had was the bubble of our home, and him.
Noah should know why I’m terrified to be locked up again, by anyone. Even by him, though I’ve arguably let him push my boundaries in every other way.
I try to make myself remember yesterday morning, when I’d woken up in his bed. How blissful I felt after the night in the woods, after sharing his space with him, but it’s a struggle. Last night somehow ruptured my view on the world, and now I can only feel a shadow of the bond we’ve created.
“I don’t know.” It’s the only honest answer I can give. “Noah, it feels like something’s broken up here,” I say, tapping my head. “I don’t feel okay.”
His grip tightens for a moment, then relaxes as he slides his hand up the side of my face to cradle my cheek, the roughness of his palm settling me. These hands have committed untold violence, and I still can’t make myself afraid of him.
My eyes implore him, but I don’t know what I’m looking for.
It feels like I’m being swallowed whole by fear—like I’ve woken up to the world flipped on its head, and monsters are right outside the door.
Despite the pain of yesterday, Noah’s all I have to hold on to.
He’s the provider for everything, as much as I might resent it.
“I’ll find them. They’ll pay for all of it, Em.”
My lips curl into a ghost of a smile. “Maybe. But it won’t erase this feeling. This humiliation. It will only be me that’s judged, not you, not Jesse. Not even Bo. They’ll all be laughing at how easily I let you have me.”
I sniff away the only tear that falls, noting that even my sorrow feels shallow. I have no control. I’m stuck, never going home. My husband is someone I never truly knew, and my parents sold me to him like an animal.
Everything has been a lie, and I’ve been surrounded by wolves the entire time.
It’s too much. “I’m tired. Please leave me alone,” I say, turning to my side, the slice of pain through my ankle making me flinch.
I stare at the wall until I can’t take his silence anymore and close my eyes. There’s a creak of the floorboards and then I feel the blankets pulled up to my chin.
I barely manage not to reach out for him, especially when his hair tickles my face as he leans forward to kiss my forehead.
When he retreats, shutting the door behind him, I exhale a shaky breath, and then let myself slowly sink into a pool of nothing. I don’t cry, or think, or feel sorry for myself. I stare at nothing, feel nothing. And it’s a relief to let the numbness spread.