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But I want to get her out of this place.
“What else do you want?”
“I need clothes.” She pushes from the counter when I give her space. “I can’t keep wearing Candace’s.”
I watch as she tucks a strand of caramel hair behind her ear as she pads across the small space to the mouth of a hall. There, she pauses as though she’s been hit with something. I frown, moving in close behind her.
“You okay?”
“I—” she stutters, sounding suddenly so broken. I get a flash back to the hospital room the second before she whispers, “I don’t think I can go in there.”
Her room. Where it happened.
I’m a fucking idiot.
I should never have brought her here at all. She’d requested, and I’m a slave to her will, so I’d done it without thought.
I won’t make the mistake again.
Sliding my arm around her body, I palm her belly as I pull her away from the hall. “I’ll do it. Tell me what you need.”
She releases a shuddering breath as she clings to bravery, even though her little body is trembling now. I want to pull her into me, comfort her, show her I’ll destroy anything that dares to even attempt to harm her. But I don’t. I know more than that, she needs to escape this place. So, I need to get my shit ingear, get the shit she needs from this place, and ditch.
“Just my clothes. And—my kindle.” She shudders. “There’s a suitcase on the floor of my closet. The rest can burn.”
I say nothing more as I move down the hall, past an empty spare room, to her room. It’s a nightmare. And it smells awful. Like vomit. I see the source instantly. A dry puddle of sick on her bed next to drops of blood in rumpled sheets. A quick scan of the room shows a few more drops of blood on the cheap light oak colored flooring.
My mind can see it, the attack. It’s like a video has been uploaded in my mind. How he moved her around the space, beating the shit out of her as he did.
My hands fist. My heart pounds between my ears for only a second before everything is quiet and calm. Dad always praised me for my ability to keep my calm in stressful situations. It’d served me well while I’d trained under his diabolical tutelage, and it had been the thing to allow me to keep my exterior cool when we’d dug Wrenlee from her grave.
But even though I never reacted externally to those moments with my father or with Wrenlee, I know that like those times, this scene will scar me.
I move forward, gathering the vomit ruined bedding and bundling it into a ball on the floor. Then I move to the closet, grab the suitcase,and pile it with her clothes. I move methodically around the room, gathering the pieces of her clothes before I swipe her kindle from the nightstand.
Then I’m walking down the hall. I find her in the living room, staring out her living room balcony window. She’s hugging herself as though she’s trying to keep the pieces of herself from falling into shards on the floor. She’s a tiny woman, but she looks somehow fragile now. Frail. Breakable.
I want to show her she’s strong.
I know she’s strong.
Still, I say nothing as I move to her kitchen to where I saw the garbage bags. I grab one and move back to her room to gather the pile of ruined bedding.
When I turn back to leave, she’s standing in the doorway, pale as a ghost.
“Nevaeh.”
“I’m so sorry,” she croaks. “I—I forgot about—” Her chin drops into her chest, but it’s not quick enough to miss the tears that streak her pretty face. “I’m so ashamed.”
I leave the bag tied in a knot on the floor. I’ll pay the movers triple to deal with it, but I’ve got to get her out of here.
I have that one thing on my mind as I hit her with my front, sweeping her off her feet and into my arms. She says nothing as she curls around me, her legs locking around my waist, face buried into my neck.Her body trembles and shudders as she tries and fails to contain her sobs. I just hold her tighter with one arm locked around her waist, the other nabbing her suitcase on my way out.
Fuck it all to hell, the movers can grab the rest.
I have to get my girl out of this place where nightmares linger.
She doesn’t try to sever from my embrace as we ride the elevator to the lobby, or even as I cross the parking lot to my truck. It’s only when I’m standing in the open door that she finally sucks in a shuddering breath, disentangling her limbs from around my body, keeping her face dipped away from my sight.
