Episode 55
Episode 55
Nightmares Can Be Memories
MAIA
“Lies! Lies! Lies!” my stepfather screamed when I finally admitted to him and my mother what his deplorable son had been doing to me. “You’re nothing but a lying, conniving brat. You have hated me and my son since the day we moved in. And now you’re trying to ruin his life with your disgusting lies!” he roared.
“It’s true! He’s hurting me! Every night. Every chance he gets to put his hands on me, he does. When you’re not looking, he crawls into my bed at night!” I screeched, tears sliding down my face faster than I could wipe them away.
My mother tried to interfere, her arms opened and ready to embrace me. Before she could, my stepfather, Damon, grabbed her around the waist and shoved her against the nearest wall. He locked her in place with a hand around her throat, then pointed a finger an inch from her face. “Don’t you fucking dare console that lying little bitch. My son would never do the things she’s claiming he’s done.”
“But he does! For years!” I cried. “He comes into my room and holds me down, covers my mouth, and then he…”
Damon let Mom go, stomped over to me and backhanded me so hard I fell to the side from where I’d been kneeling on the hardwood floor. My face was on fire, stars flickering in and out of my vision as my cheek burned.
“Don’t touch my daughter!” Mom howled as she skidded across the floor, fell to her knees, then wrapped her arms around me.
“Mom, I’m not lying. I’m not.” I clung to her.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.” She held me so tight I could feel her warmth seep into my bones.
“Get out of my fucking house!” Damon growled, grabbing Mom by the arms and ripping her off me.
“No! She’s only a child!” She kicked and flailed.
“Mommy, what’s happening?” My little brother Zach appeared bare-footed and wide-eyed at the entrance to the living room. His bright blue Batman pajamas with the yellow and black emblem emblazoned on the front stood out like a beacon in the middle of a horrifying storm.
“Go back to bed, son!” my stepfather yelled.
“It’s okay, buddy. Sissy loves you. Go back to bed.”
“Take care of our son,” Damon hissed at Mom.
She trembled and nodded, walking over to my brother. “Come on, buddy. It’s okay. Let’s get you back to bed. School tomorrow,” she said in a fake sing-song voice, leading my brother back down the hallway to his room. She looked over her shoulder at me, her eyes filled with desperation. “I love you, Maia.”
“Go!” my stepfather snapped.
Then he turned back to me, his eyes pitch black, hands curled into fists. “You have ten minutes to get anything of importance to you and get the fuck out of my house and our lives,” he snarled.
Seeing the crazy look in his eyes, I did as he ordered and jumped up and dashed to my room. With my backpack in hand, I stuffed as much clothing as I could into it, then grabbed my meager savings. I’d been doing babysitting jobs the last two summers, so I had a few hundred dollars, but that wouldn’t last long. I grabbed the picture on my desk of me, Mom and my two siblings, Zach and Maisie. We’d been at the park and had a great day. Mom had a stranger take the photo of the four of us together. It was probably the last time I’d see them for a while. I stuffed it into my bag, put on a hoodie over my pajama tank and shorts, and slipped my bare feet into my combat boots.
“Time’s up.”
Before I turned around, Damon had a hand around the back of my neck, his fingers pinching painfully as he forced me to walk in front of him. I stumbled through my bedroom door and down the hallway to the front door. When we got to it, he shoved me through it. I fell down the two steps that led up to our door and skinned one of my knees bad enough it was dripping blood.
“Get the fuck out of here, Maia, and don’t you ever come back. You are no longer welcome. I see you sniffing around, and you’ll be looking at the barrel of my gun. Try me, I dare you!” he snarled, spittle flying from his mouth.
I limped backwards down the walk.
“You’ll regret this,” I swore at the top of my lungs. “Someday, somehow, I’m going to make you pay for what you and your son have done to me and my mother.”
Instead of responding, he slammed the door and turned off the porch light.
I was alone.
Completely, hopelessly, alone.
No place to go.
No home. No family.
* * * *
I trembled against the unbelievable warmth surrounding me.
“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay, Maia. I’m here,” said a low rumbling voice against the back of my neck.
An arm tightened around me, and my eyes snapped open, white-hot fear pouring through me.
I was back there. Back in my old room. Darkness all around me. And he was there, hands like an octopus, grabbing and touching where I didn’t want to be touched. Acid swirled in my stomach, bile coasting up my throat as I felt one of his hands on my bare stomach where my shirt had crept up in my sleep.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” I hissed, knowing if I screamed, my mother and stepfather would come running in. Derrick swore he’d blame it on me. Tell them I begged for it. And his father would believe him.
“Maia, sweetheart…” That voice. Was that Derrick?
The room was dark, and I couldn’t see anything. My fight or flight instinct kicked in so fast I flopped around like a wild animal, punching and kicking at the arms holding me down.
“Jesus Christ! Ouch!” that voice said again, but I was finally free.
I flung myself out of the bed and slammed right into a wall that shouldn’t have been so close to my bed. I whimpered as my wrist came down hard on a piece of furniture that I didn’t own.
“Where the fuck am I?” I screamed, fear now flooding my system like a tidal wave. My heart hammered in my chest, and I couldn’t catch my breath as I felt along the wall, looking for a door. “Let me out! Let me the fuck out!” I pounded the wall.
The lights suddenly came on. I spun around to find myself in a room I didn’t recognize. Rhodes stood panting, wearing only a t-shirt and his underwear, his eyes wide with concern, his arms up, hands palm out facing me.
“Maia, honey, it’s me. Rhodes. You’re safe. You’re at Madam Alana’s house.”
I looked around the room, my mind split between the past and the present. Confusion clouded my vision as I scanned the room, looking for Derrick.
“He’s not here,” I whispered.
“Who?” Rhodes asked gently.
“Derrick?” I gulped in a breath of air, still tracing every corner of the room until I recognized the door to the bathroom.
Rhodes clamped his mouth shut, then peeked inside the bathroom. “No one here, Maia.”
I backed up until my ass hit the wall. I could feel the adrenaline from what I now realized had been a dream leave my body to be replaced by an exhaustion unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. My shaking legs could no longer support my body, and I slid down the wall, ass smarting when I hit the floor. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them to tuck myself into a little ball.
Along with the tears came a warm, soft voice.
“Maia, honey, you’re okay. I’m going to touch your shoulder, sweetheart,” Rhodes said in a calm and clear tone.
He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’m here. You are not alone. Whatever is happening, I’ve got you. I think you had a very bad dream, but Derrick is not here. I am. Your fiancé. Remember?” The tender way he stroked my arm helped reality return and slowed the tears.
“I remember.” My voice sounded as though my vocal cords had been put through a food processor. “I’m s-sorry,” I managed to get out as the entire experience came flooding back.
“Don’t be sorry. Bad dreams happen,” he said and then sat down on the floor next to me. He put an arm around my back and nudged me against his side.
I lifted my head and looked at him. His tortured expression made me feel worse. My bottom lip trembled as I stared into his kind eyes.
“It wasn’t a bad dream…” I whispered, feeling like I couldn’t hold it all in any longer. If I didn’t tell him something, it was going to mess up everything I’d gained with him. And as much as I never wanted to admit the truth behind my past, more of these episodes were going to happen when I least expected it. This one had been brought on by him sleeping next to me, the same condition the last time I’d had a freak-out.
A couple years ago, I’d taken one of the bikers in Sam’s club into my bed and fallen asleep after our festivities. I woke him similarly as I had with Rhodes tonight. It seemed my trauma was triggered if I woke in a man’s arms, something I was pretty good at preventing most of the time.
“Then what was it?” Rhodes asked before placing a kiss on my forehead.
“A memory.” I gritted my teeth and held my breath.
His body seemed to stiffen for a moment, then he took a deep breath. “Will you tell me about it?”
I bit down on my bottom lip, closed my eyes, and nodded. I kept my eyes closed because I didn’t want to see his response to what I was about to share.
“It was the night I was kicked out of my parents’ house. Well, my mom and her husband, Damon.” I let out a long sigh.
“Okay. What happened that night to make you respond the way you did? Because sweetheart, you scared the hell out of me. Acting like a wildcat who’d been tased.”
Trying to be brave, I opened my eyes, turned my head and rested my cheek on my knees so I could look at him. For a few long minutes, I just stared, unable to speak.
“Come here, Maia.” Rhodes opened his arms. “Come sit in my lap. I have a feeling I’m going to need to hold you when I hear this.” The way he said it was as though the request had been torn from his soul. He knew what I had to share was going to be hard to say and hard to hear.
I unfolded my legs and cradled my aching wrist as I turned around and slowly crawled into his lap.
His gaze tracked the movement of me protecting my bruised wrist and his jaw tightened. It hurt but nowhere close to how much my heart did at that moment.
He settled me sideways in his lap, pressed against his chest, those muscular arms wrapped around me. I sighed in relief as I nestled my head under his chin and breathed in his delicious citrus woodsy scent.
“It was the night my stepfather kicked me out.” His arms tightened around me. “The same night I told them that my stepbrother was sexually assaulting me and had been for years.”
“Fucking hell.” He pressed me so close to his chest I couldn’t have slipped a piece of paper between us. “Fucking hell,” he repeated, his lips and breath moving against the crown of my head. “I’ll kill him.”
There was no way I could hold back the tears, so I let them fall, wetting Rhode’s t-shirt. “He didn’t believe me.”
“I believe you,” he said instantly and something in me broke wide open.
How could this man, who’d known me such a short time, trust me when my own family couldn’t?
I sobbed against his chest. “I haven’t seen my family in person since. Derrick could be hurting my little sister Maisie. She’s now the age I was when he started to hurt me.”
“That’s why you are so determined to get back to Colorado. For your siblings.”
I eased back and looked him straight in the eyes.
“I can’t let him hurt her.”
Rhodes cupped my cheeks and wiped the tears away with his thumbs. “We won’t let him. We’re going to find out what’s going on in Colorado and make sure all of them are safe. I swear it, Maia. I will do whatever it takes.”
And he would. Because Rhodes Davenport was a man of honor, strength, and compassion. Kindness, the love of family, and strong moral values were at the core of who he was and how he presented himself to the world.
I used the same words he’d said to me. “I believe you.”
He nodded and then pressed his head to my forehead. “Tomorrow I’m going to make some calls. Get someone to investigate what’s going on, but Maia, honey, we still have to be vigilant. Your place was trashed. Threatening messages were painted on the walls. Alana was also threatened. That situation needs to be dealt with and all of you kept safe before we head to Colorado. Does that make sense?”
It did. I hated every second of it, because it meant more time for Damon and Derrick to hurt my family. Except we didn’t know what was going on there. The last time I spoke to my mother, she said everything was fine. Which she said every time I’d spoken to her throughout the years. “We’re fine, and don’t risk coming back.” It was always the same message even though the words might have changed.
I knew it was a lie, because Damon put his hands on her too often to suddenly stop just because I’d been kicked out. But after me being hurt by Derrick, I also knew she’d be more aware of what was happening in their home in relation to my much younger siblings. I had to believe she’d protect them with her life, especially since she couldn’t protect me or herself.
“Okay.” I inhaled a jittery breath, fatigue taking over to the point that I slumped against Rhodes’ chest and closed my eyes.
He picked me up and set me back in bed. I undid my pants and shoved them off, wincing when my wrist throbbed. Rhodes moved around the room, flicking off the overhead lamp before turning on the bathroom light. He left the door to the en suite open a crack. The bathroom light pierced the blackness, making it possible to see almost everything in the room. Then he crawled back into bed, hauled me over and plastered me to his chest.
“Is this why you left my bed the other night?” he asked out of the blue. The damn man was too perceptive.
I nodded.
“We’re going to work on that. You sleep with me,” he said, and it was more of a demand than a request.
“It will happen again,” I warned, whispering against his chest.
He wrapped his arms around me more fully. “Then we’ll brave those monsters in the night together.”
“Sometimes, like this evening, I forget where I am, and I’m back there.”
“I gathered that from your response tonight. Like I said, we’ll battle those demons when they happen. Until then, you’re with me, where I can protect you.” He kissed the top of my head.
I admitted the ugly truth. “I could end up hurting you.”
“You’ll hurt me more by making me sleep alone.”
“Rhodes…” I sighed, rubbing my face against his comfortable chest, loving what he wanted to do and worrying for him at the same time.
“I want everything with you, Maia. The smiles, the laughter, and yes, even the tears. You can’t combat something like what happened tonight alone. I’ll not allow it. We brave that shit together. My future wife sleeps by my side, protected by my arms. It will be my voice you hear, bringing you back to a place where you are safe and cared for.”
“I don’t deserve you,” I croaked.
“You deserve so much more than me. But don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll give you everything you could ever want and more.” It was not only a promise but a vow.
“All I’ve ever wanted was for my family to be safe and to maybe find a little corner of the world where I could live in peace. Then, who knows, maybe one day I’d be gifted a love I could call my own.”
“You’ll have the first very soon, and the rest will come with time. We both have some emotional walls to scale, and some demons to fight, but we’ve got each other.”
I smiled and closed my eyes. “You’re right. We’ve got each other, and that’s more than I’ve ever had.”
Rhodes arm tightened around me for a second as he let out a breath. “Me too, Maia. That’s more than I’ve ever had too.”