Prologue
H er silver eyes looked like liquid mercury as they peered up at me from beneath her dark lashes. While there should have been shame swirling in their depths, there wasn’t. Instead, there was a malicious glint dancing inside them, and that’s what made this all wrong.
Where was the humiliation?
Where was the fear?
Where was the devastation?
When a sly smile graced her face, that’s when I finally looked around and noticed how no one was saying a word. Though everyone was looking at her, no one was laughing at her, taunting her, or calling her names. Everyone was just staring at her, almost as if they were waiting to see what she was going to do next.
They weren’t the only ones.
As my eyes raked in every inch of her body, she was covered in filth, her uniform a mess, and not only her uniform. Used condoms were littered at her feet, some of them sticking to her skin, white slime coating her legs, arms, and face. There was even some semen dripping from her hair, the dark silk no longer looking clean and styled.
When I looked around again, everyone’s eyes had turned grey, and they were all looking at me with that same malicious gleam, and rage quickly shot up my spine. If they’d forgotten who made the rules here, I’d be more than happy to remind them. This was my world, and I was being gracious by allowing them to live in it.
“What’s wrong, Reed?” she asked, her voice a raspy whisper of power. “Have you forgotten who I am?”
“I know exactly who you are,” I replied, my voice hard, showing not an ounce of weakness.
She took a couple of steps forward, tilting her head a bit, that sly grin still on her face. “I don’t think that you do,” she countered, her voice now a deep, heavy, distorted mess. “See, you think that I’m the girl that loves you, but I’m not.” The silver liquid in her eyes started cascading down her face, and she looked like she was crying melted steel. “I’m the girl that’s going to live in your nightmares for the rest of your life.”
My eyes popped open as I jackknifed on the bed, my chest heaving as I took in the familiar surroundings of the bedroom. Even in the dark, I could make out everything in its place, and though it helped calm me down a bit, I was far from relaxed.
After a couple of seconds and a few deep breaths, I looked over to my right, and Emerson was sleeping soundly on her stomach, her arms tucked underneath her pillow, her quiet breaths as familiar to me as my own heartbeat. She looked comfortable and peaceful, and that only made things worse. How could she sleep so soundly, as if she didn’t have a care in the world?
As if she had no regrets.
Turning from her, I glanced at the clock on the nightstand, and seeing that it was already five in the morning, I saw no point in trying to go back to sleep. Even though it was the weekend, I was used to getting up around five, and so I rarely slept in.
Running my hands up my face and through my hair, I laid back down, letting out a few deep breaths to steady my nerves. Though the nightmare was a familiar one, I hadn’t had it in a while, and I couldn’t help but wonder why it was back.
Nonetheless, instead of trying to psychoanalyze all the ways that I was fucked-up, I turned onto my side, then wrapped my arm around Emerson’s waist, hauling her back against my body, not caring if I woke her up. Besides, twenty-five years later, my wife was used to my need for her. To say that Emerson and I were co-dependent on one another was an understatement, but it worked for us.
“You okay?” she muttered sleepily.
“I love you, baby,” I said, needing for her to hear it, needing her to always hear it.
“I know,” she mumbled. “I know you love me, Ramsey.”
No, she didn’t know.
Oh, she thought that she did, and after everything that we’d been through, she probably felt like she knew, but she didn’t. What I felt for Emerson couldn’t be simplified to one four-letter word. I only existed because she existed, and I refused to believe that I was only going to get one lifetime with her.
I needed thousands; I needed thousands of lifetimes with Emerson by my side.