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“TRIPP!” I roared as he folded to the ground, his lifeless eyes looking up at me as blood pooled all around him.
I sat up in bed, covered with sweat and breathless. I looked around me, trying to ground myself, then collapsed back again when I realized I was home and it was just a memory.
I lay staring at the ceiling, gasping to calm my breathing down. It had been a while since I last had a nightmare that intense. I suspected seeing what Evie had gone through earlier with her nightmare had triggered it.
She had been so terrified from the moment she had started screaming in her sleep and it had killed us all to stand and witness it, but especially Harris. Then when he finally woke her and she lashed out, knocking him on his ass, it had broken him.
Evie had no idea about Harris’s issues, but we all did. The explosion that had gotten us both captured by Boko Harem over two years ago had left him with bad scarring on his body, up his neck, and onto his face. The worst of it could be hidden with clothing, but Harris hated the small scars that littered his neck and came up onto the right side of his face. Those scars, when mixed with his sheer size, height. and the fact he was a growly motherfucker since we all got back to the states, had resulted in several people showing open fear of him when he had been out and about. Kids stared, and some adults too, and he fucking hated it.
Having Evie scream and fight him as she had, seemingly terrified of him, had shaken him badly. We had tried to tell him afterwards, once she was tucked up in bed in the guest room, that it hadn’t been him she was seeing; that she had been trapped in a nightmare, and he agreed, but I knew he didn’t actually believe it.
I had stepped in to try and stop her before she hurt herself when I saw Harris laid out on the smashed up coffee table, shocked and frozen, and that’s when the little live wire had kicked my ass to escape me. I was just grateful she was so fucking small because it had hurt enough as it was.
We had laughed about it all afterwards, as we all sat eating the pizza we had ordered and drinking beers and scotch, but that was just for Evie’s sake, so she wouldn’t feel so badly about the whole thing.
Really the four of us were worried sick about this tiny woman who three of us barely even knew. The terror she had displayed when she tried to escape us, had left us all cold, wondering what exactly that fucking murderer had done to her for her to be that traumatized and afraid.
I guess in a way we did know her though. Harris had talked about her all of the time when we were in captivity. It was his biggest regret that he let her go and he swore if he got out he was going to find her. Then we got out and he saw his reflection and all of his plans died on the vine. He refused to have anything to do with her, looking the way he did, no matter how many times we told him he was being absurd.
Now here she was, but it was far from a happily ever after for the two of them. They both had a long way to go to get their shit together, but I hoped they could, because I liked Evie and I felt like she could be good for Harris. Hell, having her around could be good for all of us. We definitely needed something else to focus on other than the bullshit in our past and the work we had all become obsessed with.
Sighing deeply I threw off the comforter and grabbed the t-shirt I had left beside my bed. I always slept without one, but I had wanted to be ready to go if Evie woke up screaming again that night.
There was way too much running around my head for me to sleep anymore, so I grabbed my cell from the charger on the nightstand and silently headed downstairs. It was just after four A.M so the house was pitch dark.
I had glanced back to Evie’s room as I walked down the hall, but I didn’t dare peek in to check on her like I wanted to. I was just relieved I hadn’t heard her wake up screaming. The four glasses of scotch she drank must have allowed her to sleep more deeply.
When I got to the kitchen I set to work making coffee. I’d need plenty of it if that was all the sleep I was getting for that night.
As I poured a cup and sat at the dining table to try and get some work done, I couldn’t stop my mind from straying to Evie. There was just something about her that called to me. Maybe it was her eyes. They were beautiful, wide, and framed with thick lashes, her irises the color of the sky on a perfect summers day. They were filled with pain and vulnerability, all of which I wished I could take from her.
I liked her, I realized, and that shocked me. It had been a very long time since I thought of a woman past a simple hook up after meeting at a bar. I was always upfront about what I wanted, and they were usually good with that. If they weren’t I walked away. After everything that had happened overseas I just hadn’t felt the emotional capacity to consider feelings or a relationship, but now Evie had stirred something within me. Something I could never fucking pursue because she was Harris’s girl. Fucking great.
EVIE
I was awoken by yet another nightmare. I sat up, gasping for breath and covered in a sheen of sweat, looking around me frantically as I panicked – not knowing where I was for a moment. Then it came back to me. I was safe. I was at Harris’s place.
That calmed me enough to stop freaking out at least, and I pulled my knees up to my chest, resting my head on them as I worked to calm my breathing.
I had left the lamp, which sat on the nightstand, lit when I laid down to sleep. I had been pretty tipsy at the time, having drank way more scotch than I ever had in my life. It had helped me to sleep at first, I guessed, since it had been hours since I went to bed, and the nightmare I woke from was the first of the night. It had been a long time since I had that many hours of consecutive rest.
Once I had gained back some equilibrium I got out of the bed and went across to the window, peeking through the slatted blinds to see if it was daylight outside yet. I didn’t have a cell phone or wrist watch, so I had no idea what time it was. When I saw the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon out in the guys yard, I sighed in relief. I really had slept for hours. That had to be a good thing. Maybe I actually did feel safe there with Harris, or at least way safer than I had in months.
I was still wary of the others, but they had all been perfectly pleasant for the hours we spent together the previous night. They were friendly and welcoming and I had appreciated the way they all kept a respectable distance from me, giving me space and time to get to know them. It had been nice to be surrounded by them all, once I relaxed a little, actually. I spent my entire life surrounded by five brothers and I had missed the way they horsed around and the joking way they were with each other. Being with Harris and his buds had been like a small taste of home.
Deciding not to push my luck with my nightmares, I opted to get ready for the day rather than try to go back to sleep. Finding my backpack on a chair in the corner of the room I opened it up and pulled out my last set of clean clothes and the limited toiletries I had thrown in when I packed it, making a note to ask Harris if I could wash the other items of clothing that I had with me, when I saw him.
The guest room the guys had given me was the most comfortable place I had laid my head since I was taken. It was dominated by a huge king bed, draped in luxurious soft cotton sheets and a comforter that I had happily snuggled under. Off to one side was an entire wall of dark oak closets which matched the tall dresser in the corner and the nightstands which sat either side of the bed. The floor was polished wood, just the same as it was throughout the whole house and the walls were painted a simple shade of cream. It was simple and a little bare, but incredibly clean and welcoming. After the dump of an apartment I had spent the last few months in, it was heaven.
I slipped through the door which sat off to the left and found an ensuite, tiled floor to ceiling in pale grey marble. There was a double vanity, a huge shower stall, and a claw foot tub. The toilet was separated in its own little room, off to the side, and the towel rail was filled with fluffy looking white towels. Tears actually filled my eyes as I stood there just staring at it all. It was pure luxury and I was so damned grateful to have it; to be there – safe with a man I knew I could trust. After months of living in unimaginable terror, it was simply everything to me.
I set the shower running, then got to work brushing my teeth. When the room around me quickly started to fill with steam, I felt tearful once again. How long had it been since I actually got a hot shower? The apartment I had been living in had been a piece of shit. Most of the time the shower would be cold when I got in to it. Occasionally I would get a minute or two of barely warm water and be grateful for it as it dribbled from the ancient shower head above me.
By the time I stepped into the shower stall the water was steaming hot, and raining down heavily from the overhead waterfall attachment. It felt completely wonderful and I basked under it, taking the time to wash my entire body and hair twice before I forced myself to step out again.
My skin was glowing red as I perched on the edge of the tub to dry off, from the heat of the water, but I didn’t care a jot. It had felt sublime, and I felt clean for the first time in months.
I dried off and pulled on my underwear. I was careful to tidy up after myself as I went along, not wanting to create a mess in this beautiful, and amazingly clean house. I wondered, not for the first time, if the guys all cleaned the place themselves. It seemed way too clean and tidy to be the work of four men, but who was I to judge? Maybe the military had made them all anal about that kind of thing. I knew Kyle could be a little like that after his time in the military.
