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"You like to read."
"Yeah..." I said, my hands stroking over the covers of the books. He bought me books. He bought me books because I had yelled at him about not having any reading material while I threw magazines at him. That was... considerate. Kind even. A little voice whispered that if he was buying me books that he likely meant to keep me a while. But I ignored that voice and let my mouth form the words that were making my insides feel a little wobbly. "Thank you."
He nodded tightly at me and moved over toward his recliner, popping up the legs, turning on some game, and ignoring me. But, for once, it didn't annoy me. Because I had a new pile of books to look over and dive into. It felt like Christmas morning used to.
I read until my eyes got blurry, making the words on the pages start to swim, then rolled onto my side and drifted off to sleep.
I woke up not aware I was awake, still screaming, this time not silently. Because this time, the nightmare pulled me in and drowned me in the memories, in the pain, in the horror, into the sickening reality of what had happened.
"Shh," a deep voice said as a strong hand closed around the side of my neck in a way that was meant to be reassuring. But I wasn't fully awake, still trapped in the remnants of a dream, and I flew at the body that was in the bed with me. "Shh," the voice said again and I found my flailing hands trapped between my body and a man's chest as his arms closed around me tight and held me. "Janie, shh," he murmured into my hair and I felt myself jerk fully awake, realization washing over me like a bucket of cold water.
I wasn't back there. I was okay. I was in a cabin in the woods. I was safe.
Then another realization came over me, but it wasn't shocking and cold. It was warm and comforting. I was in Wolf's arms. I was in Wolf's arms and he was draped around me, murmuring quiet reassurances against my hair. My hands curled slightly into the material of his shirt and I rested my head against his chest. "Wolf..." I started, not knowing what I was even going to say, but knowing I needed to say something.
"You're okay," he told me, his arms squeezing tighter. "Safe."
Safe.
God.
It was an alien feeling to me. Even trapped behind barbed wire, behind fences with dogs roaming the grounds and snipers on the roofs at Hailstorm, I almost always felt on edge. Noises sent a swirling off inside. People coming unexpectedly around corners set my teeth on edge. Safe was a physical thing I had externally, but an illusion that always felt false on the inside.
But in that moment, in a cabin in the woods with a man who kidnapped me and trapped me and wrapped up my burns and bought me books, in the arms of my too-often silent captor, I felt it right down to my soul.
Safe.
My hands uncurled from his shirt and slid around him, holding him as tightly as he was holding me, wanting more of the sensation, wanting to drown in it. His arms loosened slightly, but only because his hands started stroking- one up and down my spine, the other sifting through my hair. I allowed myself the moment, closing my eyes, sinking into the feelings I wasn't accustomed to, choosing not to analyze them, just experience them. I breathed in his autumn scent that was somehow even more narcotic than being wrapped up in sheets that held it. Beneath my ear, his heart was slow and steady.
When was the last time I had been close enough to someone to hear their heartbeat? Childhood? The last clear memory I had was when I was eleven and crying in my mother's arms when the boy I had a crush on referred to me as 'one of the guys' and it broke my little tomboy heart.
Christ... that was thirteen years ago.
In a lot of ways, it felt even longer than that. It was hard to even accept that hugs and heartbeats had ever been a part of my life. But they had been. Before all the ugly, before all the pain and blood and bitterness. Before I had reasons to erect walls high enough to never let anyone get close to me again.
Wolf's hand tracked up the back of my neck, splayed into my hair and curled, tugging gently to make me move backward. I did on a quiet grumble that his chest shook in reaction to. My eyes opened slowly, feeling weighted to find his often haunted-looking honey colored eyes were soft as he looked at me again. "Bad one," he observed, referring to the nightmare.
"Yes," I agreed because it had been.
"I'll stay close," he said, his hand loosening its hold on my hair and slowly releasing me, moving away. He settled down on the bed just to the side of dead center, one hand tucked behind his head, the other stretched up under the pillows where I was about to lie down.
I took a steadying breath and lowered myself back into my spot, leaving a few inches between our bodies. But I didn't stay there because as soon as my head hit the pillow, the arm underneath it curled around my shoulders and hauled me toward his body until I was on my side, plastered against him. It took me, oh say... two-point five seconds to think about and decide to lift up and rest my head down in the center of his chest. His arm stayed around my shoulders, the other moved from behind his neck and draped across my hips.
He was quiet for so long, his breath slow and steady, that I thought he had fallen asleep. "Every night?"
"Yes," I said just as quietly as he had asked. Funny... being around him for a couple days helped me interpret his half-sentences as full ones much the way that all his Henchmen brothers seemed to be able to do.
