7. Lily
7
LILY
“ A ll right, I’ll, ah, I’ll leave you to it… go and check in with your father.” Charlie’s gaze darts around the bathroom. She hasn’t met my eyes since I returned to the Shamrocks compound, and still won’t, even though I’ve told her, more than once, that I know she didn’t send me the text that set today’s drama in motion. “If you need anything, just holler.”
“Will do.” She hands me the brush she was using to comb the tangles out of my wet hair, and I catch her wrist. My skin crawls, my inner voice warning me that I will infect her if she remains this close to me. Gritting my teeth, I push through the discomfort. “Thank you. For the shower. For staying with me when I lost my shit.”
“Lilianna,” my stepmother says my name in a steely tone that’s also laced with love. “There’s no need to thank me. I’m here for you, no matter what.”
As much as I want to believe her, it’s hard. She abandoned me four years ago. For months, I didn’t see her as she chose to remain at Dad’s side while he manipulated his way back into the Shamrocks, and eventually into the president’s role. Still, I appreciate the sentiment, so I let her promise pass without comment.
“Now.” She pulls free of my grip, her focus fixed firmly on her feet. “Everyone else will want to check you over.” I grimace, hissing as the stitches Doc put in my lip and my eyebrow pull tight. Charlie shakes her head at my reaction. “You know they mean well.”
“Sure… that still doesn’t stop me feeling like a carnival attraction.”
When she leaves me alone, I take pains to avoid the mirror. It’s easy in the steamed-up bathroom to stop myself from looking at the damage Alex has done to my face and neck. Unfortunately, the bruises on my wrists and ribs aren’t so easy to escape as I pull on the boxer shorts and t-shirt that Zeke provided for me to change into.
He wasn’t happy when I asked Charlie to help me shower after Doc was finished with me.
I felt bad, but I didn’t backtrack.
He has questions.
Questions I don’t want to answer.
As I think about the strip tease I gave Alex, his palms holding the weight of my breasts as I used them to distract him, my stomach flip-flops and my chest gets tight.
My reasons might have felt solid at the time.
That doesn’t help me from second guessing everything now that I know the Black Shamrocks were literally minutes from saving me.
“Little Cherub.” Slash’s mother, Crystal, knocks on the bathroom door. “Do you need help?”
“I’m good,” I call back to her. Blowing out a deep breath, I smooth my sweaty palms down the silken material covering my thighs and do my best to put my game face on. To myself, I mutter, “Must give the people their pound of flesh.”
I unlock the main bathroom, exiting via the second door that bypasses the end of the hallway that connects the sleeping quarters to the main bar. Zeke will likely be in there, stewing as he’s forced to wait for me to grant him an audience.
“One battle at a time,” I tell myself as I step into the rumpus room that Doc turned into a make-shift infirmary.
“Cherub!” The wife of one of the few brothers I dislike pushes her way to the front of the group of old ladies crowding the room. “We were so worried about you.”
My entire body stiffens and my breath catches in my lungs when Honey takes hold of my arms just above the elbows. Her acrylic nails bite into my skin. Every nerve ending, every hair on my body, stands on end when she pushes onto the balls of her feet to plant a hard kiss on my least swollen cheek.
“Thanks,” I reply as calmly as I can.
“You stay outta trouble now,” she tells me. Letting go of my right arm, she fluffs her hair. “Poor Venom was beside himself… not a one of us could console him, but I tried—” Honey smirks at me as she runs her eyes over my bruised face. “—for you , of course. A man like yours can’t be expected to suffer alone… plus I know you’d do the same for me if I had an ex like yours to contend with.”
Her mention of Alex is like nails down a chalkboard and I want to correct her categorisation of him as my ex. We barely dated. I used him. He used me. Up until the night of my eighteenth birthday, he hadn’t even made it to second base.
We kissed a few times.
Full.
Stop.
Everything else that happened was non-consensual.
It takes me every ounce of control I possess not to give her the reaction she seeks.
But I get her message loud and clear.
She would love to add Zeke to her list of conquests.
Over my dead body…
Rallying, I smile at her as sweetly as I can.
“Of course… we must pull together in times like this.”
Nadia rolls her eyes when our gazes meet. One of the other old ladies, a regular at my Moscato and Monet parties, purses her lips as she shakes her head at the antics of the woman we’ve tried our hardest to accept into our sisterhood, even though she deliberately baits us with comments like this.
“I’m sure he appreciated your texts ,” I remark as we stare at each other.
Keeping my expression from betraying my annoyance, I ignore the pain of my stitches to widen my smile. Confusion flickers in Honey’s gaze—obviously she doesn’t know that I’m aware Zeke was arrested when the compound was raided and that he rode directly from the police station to our house after his processing because Gabriel arranged for his bike to be waiting for him. Her perplexed expression morphs into outrage when I add. “Maybe he even had Siri read them to him while he was riding home—you know, after he was released by the cops?”
“He’ll have them framed,” a familiar man-bunned male offers from behind me. “We all know how much he enjoys a vapid platitude. ‘Live, laugh, love’ is definitely in his top ten.”
Giggling, I pull free of Honey’s claws and turn around to face the owner of the voice. Slash slings an arm over my shoulder and pulls me into his side. I slip my arm around his waist and lean on him. The tension coiled inside me recedes long enough for me to shrug off Honey’s goading and politely greet the old ladies who genuinely wish to inquire about my health.
Thankfully, with Slash draped around me like a protective teddy bear, no one tries to touch me. The memories of my behaviour the last time Alex hurt me loom large in their tentative approach. Each woman tries her best to make me feel their love without encroaching on my personal space. I appreciate it, even though the idea that I need handling with kid gloves rankles my pride.
The entire time I’m answering their quiet questions and assuring them that I’m all right, I’m aware Honey is glowering at me. In the three years she’s been part of the MC, I’ve never been able to work out the cause of her animosity toward me. Like, I know she finds Zeke attractive, and that her man, Joker, doesn’t mind her acting on her urges, but I’m not conceited enough to believe that lusting after my man is the only reason she goes out of her way to pick at me.
“Your soul certainly annoys her demons,” Nadia remarks when I’ve made my way through three-quarters of the women in the room. “I swear she grows horns the second you’re within breathing distance.”
“Maybe I should invite her to one of our parties?” Honey is married to the step-grandson of one of the founding six. Sure, he was previously a patched member with our east coast enemy, the Mavericks of Mayhem, but he is family of sorts at the end of the day. “I know the last time wasn’t pleasant, but if we try?—”
“If she turns up, everyone else will leave,” my best friend cautions me. “She’s fucked every old man who’ll have her—they’re not gonna socialise with a woman who’s bumped uglies with their man, old lady or not.”
Slash’s arm tightens around my shoulders. I glance up at him to ascertain the source of his sudden stiffness, only to look away when I see the sympathy in his eyes. It’s directed at Nadia, who somehow remains unaware of the rumours that her man, Bear, has sampled Honey’s wares more than once.
Now, I’m not a terrible best friend.
I’ve tried to tell her.
Every time I broach the subject, she cuts me off.
Rock meet hard place.
My hard-headed best friend can be frighteningly stubborn when she wants to be. I swear that’s half the reason her relationship with my twin never worked out. They’re too alike. The love they share isn’t strong enough to withstand the constant arguments since neither one of them is capable of backing down for the sake of peace. Somehow, what doesn’t work between them is the foundation for our decade-long friendship. Where she holds a grudge with Sander over the minutest slights, when we argue, it’s nuclear until we hash out our problem, then all’s forgiven and forgotten.
As another trio of old ladies descend on me, weariness takes hold. While I appreciate the bond I share with the other old ladies, I’m wilting. Today has been a trial. A walk down nightmare lane. A physical and emotional battering. I don’t want to be alone with Zeke, not until I’ve come to terms with what I did and I’ve found a way to explain it to him, but I can’t deal with this many people either.
Maybe I can talk Nadia into hiding me in her room?
“Mumma,” Slash raises his voice above the din. “Think it might be time for everyone to give Cherub some space.”
Crystal Hudson has a painful past of her own.
I don’t know the exact details.
But scarred souls recognise similar suffering, so she understands me better than most.
Therefore, after her son’s comment, Crystal takes one look at me and bursts into action. A flurry of orders follow as she sets about shooing everyone out of the room. Some women are sent to tidy the kitchen, others are dispatched to check on the kids in the family quarters and set up the beds. Nadia disappears out of the door behind me before she can be given a chore, but Honey isn’t so lucky.
She gets laundry duty.
If I said I didn’t giggle at that, I’d be lying.
Sometimes a little pettiness is good for the soul…
“Take your time, Cherub, I’ll make this area off-limits,” Crystal tells me. She pats Slash’s jaw. “Look after her, mo ionmhas.” When she pinches her son’s chin between her fingers, he obligingly leans down and presses a kiss to her cheek. “Venom will be breathin’ fire as soon as he finds out you’ve commandeered his Lily… make the most of it.”
Ice-blue eyes filled with misery, he nods. “Always.”
I’m not sure what to make of her comment, and I’m even less certain as to the meaning behind Slash’s bleak response. My plan to ask him what they meant as soon as we’re alone dies when I find myself mute and frozen like a statue after Crystal hugs me.
Her embrace is quick.
It’s comforting.
It breaks me.
The door closes behind her, whisper quiet, yet I jerk like it was a thunderclap. As my skin ripples with awareness and my pulse races, I waver on the spot. Crystal’s small gesture, human connection at its most basic, was the final straw. I could deal with everyone’s sympathy, the sadness in their eyes as they took in my battered face, the bruises around my neck, my limp. The fear in their eyes that spoke to the shock of their discovery that the Shamrocks’ influence isn’t always enough to keep us safe sits heavily in my heart.
Yet a simple touch from one of my favourite women was the final straw.
She was scared for me and of me.
I wasn’t just her little treasure in that instant. I was a broken woman, someone she had to placate, someone she had to protect, someone who brought violence to her doorstep. My stupidity five years ago put her husband and sons at risk. My bad decision made her life a target.
I am poison.
Toxic.
She’d never say that to me.
None of them would.
But it’s the truth.
While my thoughts whirl around my head, and my body rebels in the wake of Crystal’s touch, I waver on the spot. Sightless eyes show me a future I thought I’d escaped. Agonising pain flares within me; an indictment of the physical torment I recently survived. The pulse that pounds in my ears reminds me that I’m a hollow shell of the woman I thought I was this morning.
“Little Cherub. Fuck … I-I?—”
I thought Crystal’s empathy and alarm was the final straw.
I was wrong.
The way Slash enunciates my nickname is the final blow. My pride, the capricious shield that is supposed to protect me from their pity, disintegrates. Tears run from my swollen eyes. A pathetic whimper, one that comes from the bottom of my broken heart, erupts from my lips. His inability to offer me any words of wisdom is a bleak condemnation of my pathetic state.
Slash is never lost for words.
He has something profound to offer everyone.
“Come here,” he orders, even as he closes the distance between us instead.
Sweeping me off my feet, his strong body is comforting as he easily supports my full weight. I fist his cut, clinging to him as I press my face into his neck.
“Shit’s hard, right now. But it will get better. I promise.”
Lifting my tear-covered face towards his, my chin wobbles as I ask, “Promise?”
“Promise.”
That single word hangs in the artificial quiet that we’ve found in the midst of the chaos that is the Shamrocks compound on lockdown.
Then, the door is swept open.
Zeke steps in.
Chest heaving, fire breathing. He takes one look at me, and the anger evaporates. The intent in his step as he strides over to us is clear. Wordlessly, I’m pulled out of Slash’s grip and cradled against Zeke’s chest.
“’Preciate your help today, brother.”
Slash’s reply is strangled. “Always.”
The way he says that word is reminiscent of his conversation with Crystal. I peer at him over Zeke’s shoulder, but he turns away from me. He heads out of the opposite door to us.
Growling whenever anyone dares look our way, Zeke carries me through the bar and into the attached building that was added to accommodate the single man quarters. Because we don’t have kids, and we’re not married yet, my father hasn’t granted us a room in the separate building designed for families.
Normally, the snub upsets me.
Tonight, I’m thankful for it.
No one will hear our upcoming argument.
Three seconds after he lowers me back to my feet, Zeke asks, “You gonna tell me what really went down between you and that piece of shit?”
I suppress a grimace.
I knew this line of questioning would recommence the moment he got me alone.
Which is why I’m avoiding him.
“Treat everyone else like a mushroom, sweet thing, I don’t give a fuck.” Zeke runs his hands through his hair, an agitated exhale the only other sign of his frustration with me. “But you and me, we’re straight with each other. I want answers… I need answers.”
When I force myself to meet Zeke’s gaze, the blue ring around his multi-coloured eyes is pronounced. The hazel depths are clouded with love and concern, but the feverish gleam that demands reprisal illuminates the azure-blue ring and the green and gold flecks from within. The manic light warns me that he’s close to snapping, and the sight of Zeke’s pain and suffering makes the guilt I thought I could suppress engulf me.
“I don’t want to get into this. Not tonight, probably not ever.”
“ Metukà shelì. ” I flinch at the depth of love in his whispered endearment. “Talk to me.”
Turning my back to him, I lower my aching body onto the bed we share at the Shamrocks clubhouse. Every part of me hurts, from the lump on my forehead to the battered ribs that stop me from taking a full breath to the knees I grazed when I tripped outside Alex’s window. Doc did his best to be gentle as he checked me over, liberal with the pain relief, administering local anaesthetic before he stitched up my eyebrow and my top lip. Charlie was careful, her movements measured, her manner placid, while she helped me shower.
Unfortunately, their ministrations have only taken the edge off my discomfort.
My ribs are bruised, and while my cheekbone and my nose are tender, they’re not broken. Doc used his portable X-ray and ultrasound machines to double check when Zeke wouldn’t accept his initial assessment. Knowing that my soreness is more a case of painful but superficial injuries colliding with five years of mental anguish and a giant-sized dose of exhaustion doesn’t really fill me with comfort.
I want to forget the whole thing happened.
But I also know that in the morning, my father, uncles, and the rest of the Shamrocks will demand a total retelling of everything that went down this evening. They won’t care that the embarrassment I feel over Alex getting hold of me again has found a permanent home in my bone marrow. It won’t bother them that everyone’s been reminded, once again, exactly how filthy and used up I am.
It won’t even cross their mind that the perpetual humiliation is choking me to death.
That I feel dirty.
Used.
Broken.
Ruined.
“Answer me.” There’s an edge to Zeke’s voice that’s at odds with the patience he’s trying to exude. Flames of regret lick the length of my spine, even as I refuse to engage. “I’m not fuckin’ around here, Lily… I needa know.”
In my logical brain, I know I should just tell him and let the chips fall where they may.
My heart, the delicate organ that’s filled with love for the hardarse biker I can hear pacing the floor behind me, refuses to cooperate. Even though I know my man, know in intimate detail the lengths he’ll go to for me, I can’t bring myself to respond. I’m aware that he’ll repeat his question once more, offering me two chances to come clean—which is one more than everyone else in the world gets—before he reverts to the scorched earth policy he prefers.
Despite that, I remain silent.
Because, while Zeke is being his usual steadfast self, what I did to escape Alex is sitting at the forefront of my mind, eating me alive. Taunting me with my disloyalty. It’s a big, glaring, neon sign shining the spotlight on my disgusting behaviour. Not only am I drowning in a Shamrocks sympathy, but I’m also collapsing under the weight of my conscience.
My pride can’t handle their pity.
My heart is crumbling beneath my shame.
I don’t know if I can find my way free of Alex’s poison this time.
“Talk to me, sweet thing.”
I let the tiredness that’s dogging me show in my voice as I finally answer him. “I don’t know what more you want from me, Zeke. We went over everything half a dozen times on the way back here… just let it be for tonight. Maybe tomorrow when I’m being interrogated by the club, I’ll remember some silly inconsequential detail in the light of the new day, some stupid little detail that I missed that’ll make you all feel better about what happened.”
His nostrils flare and he growls at me. The hurt on his face, coupled with his clear belief that I’m lying to him, makes my heart lurch in my chest. Before I break and give him the truth that will change our relationship, I roll away from him.
The king-sized bed that dominates our room sits between us, yet I feel claustrophobic within his proximity.
My hair is still damp after my shower. It sticks to my neck, reminding me that I should’ve piled it on top of my head before throwing myself on the bed like a drama queen. I’m struggling to breathe through my conflicting emotions, lying as still as I can to hide my turmoil from my man. Ducking my nose inside the shirt I pulled on after my shower, I draw in as big of a lungful as my sore ribs will allow. I want to distract myself with Zeke’s scent, use the Tom Ford cologne that clings to the t-shirt and shorts he gave to me to wear as a shield.
I smell leather and spiced amber.
Somehow, I still taste Alex’s cloying scent.
It’s stupid. I’ve showered. I’m clean as can be.
There’s no way I can actually smell him.
Tell that to my muddled brain.
“I need time,” I mutter, mainly to myself.
Time to get my head back on straight. Time to bury the memory of my betrayal. Time to push today’s events into the dark recesses of my mind where the rest of my nightmares hide.
Those pleas I leave unsaid.
“Wish I could give you that,” Zeke tells me a heartbeat later. “Can’t let you gloss over things, though… we both know what happens when you bury the truth.”
He leans over me to softly trace the scar at the bottom of my calf.
It’s from the surgery to fix my broken ankle.
I swallow down the bitter taste that his reminder leaves in my mouth and concentrate on my breathing. If I keep thinking about Alex, what he did to me all those years ago and again today, Zeke’s reaction, and my twin’s heartbreak when he returns home to find out what’s happened in his absence, I’m going to slide back to square one. My PTSD triggers will spike again, the need to grab a razor will overwhelm me, and my foray back into a world where I believe I have a future will abruptly end.
I don’t want to backslide, however, I fear it may become unavoidable.
When Zeke lies down behind me, I roll as far out of his reach as I can. “You should get back out there. Sounds like there’s a good party ramping up. Fret will get his guitar out soon, no doubt. The stripper poles will be mounted once the women and kids are asleep. Fun. Fun. Fun.”
The pounding music and laughter coming from the bar is proof that everyone is making the most of lockdown, my latest crisis be damned. It’s mean, and I know he’d never do it, but part of me hopes that Zeke will allow it to entice him to leave me alone.
Maybe he can find a cut slut to occupy his night?
Then we’ll be equally disloyal when we face each other in the morning.
I can excuse my strip tease for Alex.
He can console himself with the knowledge he one-upped my betrayal.
Of course, Zeke doesn’t leave me.
He doesn’t have an ounce of quit in him.
It’s something I both love and hate about him.
Instead of stalking off like a normal man, he snags hold of my hips and gently pulls me backward until he’s spooning me from behind. Zeke stripped down to his boxer briefs before he climbed into bed with me, and as undeserving as I feel aside, I can’t ignore the warmth of his body against mine and the way the tension leaves my frame as I immediately melt into him like he is my home.
We lie together without speaking.
Our synchronised breathing is the only sound in the room.
I fight the darkness that’s trying to capture me while Zeke’s arm tightens around my waist every now and then, as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear in a puff of smoke. I’m not sure how long we stay like this before he sighs and kisses the back of my head. His sudden movement jolts me out of my dark thoughts, my body instantly tenses as if I’m about to be attacked. As I remind my traitorous mind that it’s only Zeke, and then force myself to relax, tension invades him in a way that tells me he noticed my reaction.
“Don’t shut me out, Lily,” he pleads. “I know somethin’ happened… there’s no way he went to all this trouble just to lock you in a room, let you find a gun and handcuffs, shoot him, restrain him, and climb out of a fuckin’ window—For fuck’s sake, your clothes are missing, and you have bruises all over you.”
My version of today comprised four thugs snatching me from our driveway and delivering me to Alex, who roughed me up a little when I wasn’t happy to see him. He tried to seduce me, but when I rebuffed him, he locked me in a bedroom at the back of the house. After searching his drawers, I found a gun, and managed to shoot him when he came to check on me. While he was bleeding, I told them that I handcuffed him to the bed before escaping out of the window, after Toker knocked our code on the windowpane on the off chance I was listening, and Cub, unbeknownst to me, shut down the power.
Hearing Zeke recite the CliffsNotes version back to me just proves how much I wasn’t thinking when I spun this tale… because Blind Freddie could drive a tractor through the holes in my attempt to salvage my pride and my relationship.
Not that this epiphany matters.
I can’t allow him to learn the full truth.
If I tell Zeke that I offered my submission to Alex, that I stripped for him, that I willingly let him touch me, I might lose him. He’s dealt with so much on my behalf and, instead of running for the hills like most men would, he stayed.
In my heart of hearts, I know he loves me, but his love has to have a limit to what it can withstand. Giving in to Alex, no matter my reasoning at the time, could finish us. There’s a big difference between loving a woman who’s been violated and loving a woman who bartered her body for freedom. While it’s true that Zeke has never once looked at me as if I’m broken or less than I once was, I fear admitting what I did today could become the catalyst for him to see me differently.
It hurts when the other Shamrocks look at me like I’m damaged.
I couldn’t handle that from Zeke.
So, even knowing that he loves deeper than most, I refuse to risk it.
“Talk to me, metukà shelì . I needa know what the fuck happened... and you needa let it out. It’ll eat you up if you try to pretend it was nothin’. Remember what Dr. Louise told you last time? That you didn’t fuckin’ deserve any of this and none of it’s your fault,” he murmurs to me. “The same applies this time… I can help you deal with it—just like I wanted to last time. All you have to do is tell me what really happened.”
Tears pool in my eyes as I absorb his words.
I know he’s right, but my fear has me prisoner.
Alex’s voice reverberates around my head—taunting me.
He’s in me.
Poisoning me.
Turning my love toxic.
Drawing my darkness to the fore.
I don’t want to infect Zeke with my filth.
As panic pounds through me in waves, and my fear that Zeke will see through me rips the breath from my lungs, I push myself into an upright position. Sitting up when I do, he tries to hug me. I slap my first love’s hands away, drawing my knees to my chest, and holding an arm out to fend him off when he attempts to come closer.
“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m fine… I just need you to give me some space.”
“Sweet thing, come on.”
“No.” I swipe at the tears welling in my eyes. Hissing when my fingernail catches the stitches in my eyebrow, I use the flare of pain to power me through my next words. “You want to talk, huh ?”
“Yeah, Lil… I want to talk.”
Angst and regret floods me, still I dig my metaphorical heels in and proceed with my plan to get rid of him. “ Cool. Then, let’s talk about why you couldn’t be bothered to tell me that Alex was being released.”
“ Metukà shelì … that’s not important now,” Zeke protests. He holds his hands out, then attempts to placate me. “You have to understand, I’m fuckin’ sorry that it turned out to be a mistake, but I’d do it again… ’cause I’d do anythin’ to keep the happiness in your eyes from ever bein’ dimmed.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“No, sweet thing, I’m full of love for you.”
When his simple admission makes my heart flip-flop in my chest, I clumsily surge back to my feet and point at the door. “Please… just leave me alone.”
Zeke rolls off the bed after me. He regards me for a moment, indecision in his eyes, then nods to himself. I back up as he stalks over to me. The muscles in his legs ripple with each step, the tight fit of his boxer-briefs emphasise every ridge and cord in his strong legs. His six-pack flexes as he uses his bulk to trap me between his body and the wall. He gently cups the back of my neck and pulls my forehead to his. With his gaze locked on mine, Zeke allows me to see every emotion he’s experiencing.
Love.
Sorrow.
Hunger.
Patience.
“I don’t wanna leave you alone, but I’mma give you the space you’re askin’ for… for tonight only. Because you will be tellin’ me what happened today, whether you like it or not.” There is assurance in his touch, certainty in his movements, as he pulls me closer. Wilting, I rest my cheek against his shoulder, concentrating on the rapid beat in his throat as Zeke lays down the gauntlet. “Tonight, you wallow. Tomorrow, you tell me the fuckin’ truth… we can get past anythin’ as long as we’re honest with each other. You’ve gotta know that by now.”
In the face of his candid pledge, I want nothing more than to melt into his arms and confess my sins… but I can’t. I won’t run the risk of ruining our relationship with the truth.
When I stiffen in his embrace, Zeke gives me one last light squeeze, then kisses my forehead. He pulls his jeans on and shoves his feet into his biker boots. After scooping his cut from the hook on the back of the door, he turns to face me.
“I love you.” Averting my gaze to avoid the honesty in his expression, I keep my focus on the floor as he pulls the door open. “Nothin’ will change that, metukà shelì. ”
The moment he closes the door behind himself, I break down. Climbing under the covers, I roll myself into a ball, despite the protests of my aching body, and I cry. I weep over the man I love—the man I let down today. I wail for the life we could’ve had if I’d made the right choice when I was seventeen. I sob over the lies I’ll need to tell from this day forth to keep from ruining the only good thing I have left. I’m not sure how long it takes, but eventually the sedative Doc gave me kicks in, and I’m pulled into a fitful sleep.
For the first time in a long while, my nightmare pays me a visit.
Degrading me.
Invading me.
Ruining me…