Chapter 39
Roni
Iwake up choking on my own breath. My heart thumps in my chest. And my skin is drenched in sweat, thick and smothering. I must’ve tried to scream, but it never made it out. All I hear is a broken, gasping wheeze, like I’ve been drowning and just broke the surface.
I thrash. My legs kick out, tangling in the sheets, and for a moment it’s not fabric, it’s hands. Clutching. Grabbing. Dragging me down. I don’t know where I am. Not really. Not yet.
The dark closes in, thick as the woods still living under my skin.
I don’t see walls. I see trees. Tall, black silhouettes clawing at a cold sky.
Moonlight slicing through branches like knives.
My feet are bare. The ground is damp and soft and full of things that cut.
Every step—pain. Every breath—burned. Every sound behind me—my worst fears.
I feel it again. Helpless. Hunted. Like my body is nothing but raw meat waiting to be taken.
I gasp, clawing at the bed, urgently trying to dig myself out, and then—
“Roni. Hey. Little Temptress, it’s me. It’s okay.”
Phoenix. His voice is low. Steady. Like the world finally found a floor to stand on.
A warm arm wraps around me, pulling me into him, and suddenly I’m back.
The trees are gone. Just shadows now. The whir of central air blows gently overhead, and our bedframe creaks the way it usually does when we’re making love.
His chest is under my hands. Broad. Solid. Warm. Real. He smells of faint cedar and whiskey. I press my face into him. Wishing I could crawl inside to escape the nightmare’s grip.
“I—I couldn’t.” I try to say it, but the words fall apart in my mouth.
“Shhh.” He pulls me closer, his beard brushing against my forehead as he kisses me there. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
I collapse into him fully. His arms wrap around me, strong as ever, even with the soft belly he loves to joke we share, which I secretly adore. I bury my face in the curve between his shoulder and chest, shaking like a leaf in a storm.
“It was the woods again,” I whisper, so faint it barely counts as sound. “He was chasing me. I couldn’t see where I was going, and I knew if I fell—” I can’t finish. I don’t need to. He knows. He always knows.
He exhales, slow and deep, like he’s trying to pull the fear out of me with his breath. One of his hands finds the back of my head, fingers threading gently through my hair. Grounding me. Holding me still.
“He’s not here. No one’s chasing you. It’s just us now, sweetheart. Just us.”
I nod against him, but my body doesn’t believe it yet.
My breath still stutters, and my throat feels raw from whatever silent scream I must’ve let out in my sleep.
I hate how much this still owns me. Two years later, and some nights I feel like my soul is back there, fleeing, naked, through those woods.
“I’m tired of being scared of my own sleep,” I croak.
“I know.” His voice hitches, just a little.
He always tries to be strong for me, but I can feel the cracks sometimes, in the way his arms tighten like he’s trying to keep me from ever slipping through them.
Like he’d fight the whole damn world if it meant I’d never be afraid again. “I’d take it from you if I could.”
“Some days I think I should just leave this place and let you find peace without me.”
He rocks me in place, gently, quietly, trying to shake the pain from my bones. I want to say more, to do something, to make him understand how thankful I am for him. But also, to explain to him why he should let me go. Because I’m worried this is me now. And he’ll never be free from my bullshit.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I thought I was going to end it—my life?” His whispered question jostles me and hurls my mind into another dark corner.
“What? No. Why would you—”
“A decade ago now. I was haunted by my past. Still am, truth be told. But it got bad. I was drowning myself in bottles of brown liquor every night, reaching for something to quiet the demons in my head. It felt like every time I stepped into the daylight there was someone mocking me. Reminding me I wasn’t good enough.
I’d never be good enough. Until I met a man, sent by the person I now work for, who promised to help me find my strength.
It took a long time. But I did. I found it.
And then it got ripped away from me, again.
Like it always does. Until I found you out in those woods.
And now we’re here, and I’m telling you, I will die before I let another horrible thing happen to you, Roni. ”
I tilt my head up to look at him. Even in the faint hallway light sneaking under the door, I can see the silver streaks in his beard.
The soft lines around his eyes, glossy with the tears he’s trying to hold in.
He looks at me like I’m both a miracle and a wound.
Not fragile, no. But precious. Sacred. Something he guards with his whole being.
“You always make me feel safe,” I whimper.
He brushes his thumb along my cheek and smiles. “That’s my job. Husband duty.” I let out a little laugh, but it cracks halfway through and turns into a sob. He doesn’t flinch. Just holds me tighter. And he keeps holding me, long after the shaking stops. He never lets go.