"It's for your own good," I say flatly, avoiding her ineffectual slaps and punches.
“You’re not the first dickhead to think he can control me,” she spits out. “I survived them, and I’ll sure as hell survive you, too. The bigger the man, the harder they fall.”
I’m about to argue that she doesn’t have to “survive” me, but that’s not exactly true. I’m… a lot. Scarred. Broken. Paranoid. Intense. Doubts cloud my mind, but her voice slices through the noise.
“I’ll find your weakness,” she says firmly, her green eyes narrowed as she stares right through me.
“You already have.”
She blinks at my response, her brows furrowing in confusion. I’m rather amused by the look on her face, but soon, it twists into suspicion. “I don’t know what game you’re playing here, mister… mister whatever your name is. Sure, I got spooked back there, but I shouldn’t have let you take me to a secondary location.”
“Easton.” Stella tilts her head to the side. “My name is Eastion. And your safety isn’t a game,” I tell her firmly, unfazedby her wrath. "You can be as angry as you want, sweetheart, as long as you're safe."
I step back into the hallway, pull the heavy oak door shut, and click the lock into place.
Instantly, the pounding starts, which I expected.
"Easton! Open this door! Let me out!" she yells, her fists rattling the wood. “Open up! I can’t… Let me out!”
Within seconds, the anger in her voice shifts. The volume drops, turning into a raw, breathless panic. The frantic scratching and hollow gasps coming from the other side of the wood aren't defiance anymore, they’re born of true, unadulterated fear.
“I don’t… I can’t… please, Easton, please open… I can’t breathe in here, I can’t breathe!”
The sound squeezes my heart in a brutal, agonizing way I've never experienced before. Panicked, I throw the lock back and yank the door open.
Stella is standing there, her face a stark, pale white. Her eyes are wide and filled with terror, her chest heaving as she draws shallow, ragged breaths. She looks entirely broken, and the sight of it tears something open inside me. A fierce, silent vow cements itself in my chest: I will never be the cause of her fear again.
"I'll stay," she whispers, trembling violently as she grips the doorframe. "I promise I'll stay... just please keep the door open. I don't... I don't like closed spaces."
A million questions flood my mind.Who put that fear in her? What happened to her?Wanting to know a person's history is new for me, but I force my curiosity down. This isn't the time.
I'm looking at the very first crack in her tough outer shell. Unable to help myself, I reach out, my fingers moving softly to brush a stray lock of chestnut hair behind her ear.
The moment my knuckles brush her skin, she flinches.
I freeze. My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache, a murderous rage simmering in my blood as I force myself not to think about the kind of monsters who taught her to react that way. I slowly drop my hand back to my side, making my movements as unthreatening as possible.
"I will never hurt you, Stella," I tell her, my voice low, steady, and dead serious. "And I will never let anyone else lay a hand on you ever again. Do you hear me?"
Her green eyes lock onto mine, wide and searching. For a long, breathless moment, the air hangs heavy between us, charged with an intensity that becomes too much to bear. Stella breaks the connection, looking away quickly, but not before I catch the glint of tears welling in her eyes.
Every protective instinct I possess screams at me to pull her into my arms and hold her against my chest until the world stops spinning. Instead, I give her the out she needs. I respect her pride too much to force her to show me her vulnerability. I want to earn her trust, her story, and hopefully, her future.
"Goodnight, Stella," I say quietly.
Turning around and walking down the hallway is, without a doubt, the hardest thing I have ever had to do.
3
STELLA
Iwake up with a gasp, my chest heaving as remnants of the nightmare claw at my throat. My heart hammers against my ribs like a trapped bird while my muscles shake with tension.
For a terrifying, disorienting second, I’m back in the cold, dark closets of my childhood, suffocating in the dark. I thought I’d finally put those horrors to rest, or at the very least, shoved them so far down I hoped they’d stay put for good.
Clearly, after the triggering panic attack Easton witnessed last night, my past has decided to stage a violent comeback. Trembling, I force my eyes to open wide and look toward the doorway.
Relief washes over me so acutely it makes my eyes sting. The heavy wooden door is standing wide open, letting a sliver of the hallway’s soft nightlight spill across the floor. Just like Easton promised. I still don’t know if I trust him or not, but this is a good step. Then again, he did basically kidnap me. Or did I want to go with him? My head is all over the place, and waking up from a nightmare isn’t going to make things any clearer.
