Page 16

“Guess we are.”

Lies. So many fucking lies.

“I’ll head back to the couch and let you be,” I said with a gesture of my shoulder. “Try to get some sleep, yeah? You don’t need to be sporting bags the size of footballs under your eyes come tomorrow morning. Your brother will think you cried yourself to sleep and take it up with me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Trevan Niles. I won’t be crying over you.” Her mouth tweaked into a playful but wistful smile. “And like I could look bad in the morning.”

There was her sass.

I couldn’t acknowledge my agreement though, so I tossed out, “God knows I’m not worth the tears.”

My voice verged on jesting, too.

“You just go on letting yourself believe that.” It was soft. Drifting toward affection.

I huffed a sound. “I’ll let you get to sleep and won’t bother you anymore. I did promise to stay out of your way.”

She barely nodded, her teeth scraping her lip again, that sweetness radiating from her as I stepped back, forced myself to close the door, and dragged myself back to the couch.

I promised myself that I’d stay out of her room. Let her be because that’s what she needed.

That lasted all of two fucking hours.

Until I heard the little whimpers seeping through her door.

Elongated and pained.

Sorrow and mourning sewn into her sleep.

I squeezed my eyes closed like I could block myself from it.

But it was all over when the haggard cry erupted from her.

I was on my feet and moving.

Such a fucking fool, but what the hell was I supposed to do?

Ignore it?

Not a goddamn chance when I could feel her terror.

And I wondered where the terror originated from.

From what had happened to her six months ago when she’d been kidnapped by Kent Ellison? Trapped in his compound for five days as bait to draw Silas and the club? The fucker trying to get Silas under his thumb so he could use and control the movements of the MC.

They were five horrifying days that she still hadn’t fully opened up to me about.

Or was it from then?

When she was eighteen.

When I’d found her screaming and sobbing at the edge of that cliff.

I shuffled to her door, listened to the emotion radiating out, the deep inhalation of sharp, jagged breaths.

Turmoil radiated from where she was still lost to sleep, that sob not enough to pull her out of whatever nightmare she’d been taken to.

She’d suffered enough of them to last any person fifteen lifetimes. I guess we all had.