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No.
I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for the lights to flicker back on and forcing deep breaths past my lips that may as well be wheezes at this point.
One, two, three.
I open my eyes, my throat seizing when I realize the lights are most definitelynotback on.
Okay, Hannah. You’ve been here before. You’ve spent plenty of time in the dark. It’s not a big deal.
Then the voices start to trickle in.
“Hannahhhhh . . .”
Tap, tap, tap . . .
I spin around as if I might catch someone standing behind me, but there’s no one there. At least no one I can see in the pitch black of my room.
“M—”
I start to call out for Mason, but Iknowas soon as I do, I’ll feel like an idiot. Like a scared child, calling for her father to scare away the monster that lives under her bed.
“Whore.”
“I’m doing this for your own good.”
“Just a sip and the demons will go away.”
Fear wraps around my lungs, squeezing tightly until I feel like I’m either going to suffocate or explode from my racing heart.
Shame envelopes me, but even so, the storm rages on outside, a bolt of lightning shooting across the sky and then the rumbling crack of thunder shaking the house.
Terror crawls up my spine at the sinister voice playing in my ear, repeating over and over like a broken record until I swear I’m losing my mind.
Whore.
I tear from the bed, imagining cold fingers wrapping around my throat and sucking the life from me while I fight helplessly. I almost face-plant on the floor before I make it to the door and rip it open, and rush to the one across from mine. I bang on his door, my other hand clutching at my chest as the sickening feeling of dread washes over me.
I don’t want him to see me like this. Panicked because the lights went out. Afraid of the dark like a child.
I also feel like my heart’s going to explode if I spend even anothersecondin this hell by myself.
His door opens, just as I raise my hand to knock again and he stands, shrouded in the shadows. Over his shoulder, a candle is perched on the top of his dresser, casting a soft warm glow behind him.
I know it’s him from the scent of his skin. Something woodsy, deep, and . . . safe.
“I’m here.” His voice is soft when he wraps his arms around me. He lifts me against his chest and I straddle his waist, burying my face in the side of his neck as a quiet sob tears from my throat. “Breathe.” I hadn’t even realized I was shaking, but with his body pressed against mine, tremors move through me. “Slow.”
I force a deep breath past my lips, my lungs aching and my throat dry. Mason carries me to the bed and instead of depositing me on top of it, he sits down, cradling me against him.
“Keep breathing.” I don’t think about it at first, but the way he says it almost feels like it has a deeper meaning. Like a warning that if I stop altogether, the outcome will be disastrous.
So . . . I repeat the motion, sucking air into my lungs and slowly letting it back out until my throat begins to loosen and the ache in my chest dies down.
Now that the panic attack has subsided, I’m exhausted and the comfort of his shoulder, mixed with the way he runs his hand from the top of my head down to the small of my back over and over makes me want to fall back asleep, right here, where the demons of my childhood can’t get to me and the dark is just a simple time of night.
Thunder rolls in the distance, the lightning slowly moving further and further away until the only sound is rain.
We don’t get storms often in Southern California, but when we do, they can be treacherous. Harsh and unpredictable. Suddenly, I’m wondering what would have happened if I had been home tonight, in my own house, completely alone.
