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Clara moves to the bags on the bed and frowns when she finds them untouched. “Snow did what she could on short notice, but if there’s anything you don’t like or if you want something else, we can have it here in a few hours.”
I shake my head. “They’ve already done too much,” I whisper. “I don’t want to owe anyone anything more than I already do.”
She closes her eyes for a long second, gathering her composure before turning back to me with pity shining in her eyes. I hate that look. I hate when people feel bad for me because of my circumstances, but it’s worse coming from her because she saved me. Doesn’t she realize that she’s already given me everything? That she gave me freedom? Something I stopped allowing myself to hope for years ago. “Mia, I can’t even begin to understand the things you’ve been through and how that must have affected your ability to trust when people are doing things out of kindness rather than their own benefit, but I promise you that the Saint James family is not expecting any kind of payment, and they would be devastated if they knew you were thinking that way. Please use the things they’ve bought you, and please reach out to one of us if there’s anything else you need.”
An unfamiliar tightness in my throat forces me to nod rather than speak. I don’t cry anymore. I haven’t in a long time. Because to cry is to show weakness, and weakness only shows people where to hit you for the hardest impact. But this lump in my throat is exactly what I remember it feeling like to be on the brink of tears, and no matter how hard I try to swallow past it, it only seems to grow.
Hesitantly, she and Tommy turn to leave the room, clearly sensing that I’m not at a point where I can be touched, and I’m grateful for that. Truthfully, I’m not sure I’ll ever not shy away from human touch again.
I lean back against the wall behind me and let out a choked sob, but no tears fall against my cheeks. I may be safe on paper, but I’m not sure my old habits will ever die.
CHAPTER SIX
ACE
Despite the way my eyes droop and my body relaxes as I let myself sink into the overly soft mattress, sleep doesn’t come.
Hours pass, the moonlight moving across the room as it rises and falls in the sky, making way for the dim sunrise I should sleep through, but instead I’m hyperaware of every sound in the hotel room. The mini fridge clicks and whirs, doors down the hallway open and close, nothing that’s a legitimate threat to the woman sleeping in the room beside mine, and yet it’s all I can focus on.
I lost her once, and I refuse to do it again. Even if it means watching over her, guarding her with every beat of my fucking heart, I’ll do it to keep her safe.
Perhaps sleep never comes because a part of me is afraid this is all a dream. I spent so many years searching for her, looking under every rock I could think of, hacking into criminal organizations, trying to find any trace of the girl I promised I would save, but there was nothing for me to find. What if I close my eyes and wake up to the helplessness I’ve felt for the last eight years?
The thought is cut off by a soft whimper from the room beside mine, and I’m moving before I’m conscious of the decision to climb out of bed. I tug my shirt over my bare chest and slip into her dark room. The blinds are pulled, the sliver of light from the living area behind me illuminating the small body curled up on the edge of the king-size bed.
The covers are pulled up around her neck, her fists tight at the edge as if she thinks the blankets can protect her from the threat in her dream. But it’s the terror etched into her perfect features that forces my heart into my throat.
Tommy was right. I have no concept of what she’s been through. I have no idea the horrors she’s been through in the last eight years, and even though I know I would do anything to keep her safe, it’s unfair for me to expect her to know that.
I approach the bed hesitantly, aware that if she wakes up to me towering over her, it will terrify her. How the hell do I wake her without scaring her?
“Please,” she cries out. “Not again. Please.”
The lump in my throat grows impossibly, and I squeeze my eyes shut to calm the thundering of my heart. I want to tear the hearts from every person who has ever hurt her. I want to do every one of the fucked-up things they did to her, to them. To make them feel the pain they caused the precious girl I couldn’t save. It’s not rational. But there isn’t a fiber of my being that doesn’t itch to destroy them.
“Mia,” I whisper into the quiet room, her name rolling from my lips, but she must be too caught up in her nightmare to hear me. I try again, a little louder, and this time her head moves to the other side as she brings the blankets up higher around her neck.
I sigh, looking behind me at the suite. Maybe I should have asked Tommy and Clara to stay. Or one of the Saint James siblings. Storm mentioned that his sister-in-law is a counselor, maybe she would be better suited to be here with Mia.
A soft yelp forces my attention back to Mia’s sleeping form, and I take a step toward her instinctively, like I can protect her from the demons that haunt her at night.
I kneel a few feet from the bed, hoping that when she does open her eyes, I won’t seem so imposing if I’m not standing over her.
“Mia, can you wake up for me?” I say a little louder, and she finally opens her eyes with a start, the brilliant blue shining with terror in the dim light. As soon as her eyes focus on me, a loud scream tears through the room, and I flinch at the sound.
She’s not afraid of you. You have no idea what she’s been through, I remind myself, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow the idea of the girl I’ve loved since before I knew what the word meant being afraid of me.
“It’s just me, sugar.” The nickname falls from my lips like it has so many times in the past. It comes naturally, even after all this time.
The panic remains etched into her features for a few torturous seconds before she finally relaxes ever so slightly. Her grip on the edge of the blanket remains so tight her knuckles have long turned white, but it’s a start.
“You were having a nightmare,” I explain, as if she wouldn’t be aware of it. Idiot. I have no idea how to care for someone with trauma. Hell, I haven’t even dealt with my own. What makes me think I can help someone else through theirs?
“Oh,” she croaks, her voice laced with sleep.
“Do you need anything? Water maybe?”
She shakes her head, her eyes darting over the dark space surrounding us looking for danger. I wish I could tell her that she won’t find any. That I’ll protect her from anything that dares look at her the wrong way. But she wouldn’t believe me. Not when I already let her down in the worst way.
