Page 99 of Breathe Like Hell

What the fuck did he do to you?

“Would you want me to shower with you?”

She nodded, cheek pressed against my chest.

I carried her into the bathroom, then set her on the counter next to the sink while I turned the shower on. She remained sitting in the same spot when I left to get her some of my clothes to wear as pajamas, not saying anything. Steam had begun fogging up the glass shower, drifting towards the ceiling.

“Do you need help undressing?”

Another nod.

I put her on her feet then motioned for her to lift her arms. She did. I took off her shirt, then knelt to remove her pants and underwear and socks. Once she was bare before me, I undressed myself, then guided her into the shower. She shivered when the hot water hit her skin, visibly relaxing into the warmth.

After a minute of her standing unmoving under the spray, it became clear to me that she wasn’t going to wash her own hair. Too tired, too numb, too empty. I hated it, but I’d promised her I could give her this night. Now, I wondered why I’d ever made that promise. Fighting with her would feel better than this. But she needed it.

I uncapped the shampoo and tugged her backwards a half step so the water was no longer pounding the top of her head, then started to wash her hair. This was far from the first time I’d done it, but usually she reacted to my touch. Sighing with pleasure when I massaged her scalp, reaching back and trying to grab my dick, spinning around and demanding to wash my hair next. None of that was happening now, though.

I turned her to face me and tilted her head backwards to rinse the suds.

“You hurt me, too,” she said as bubbles streamed down her back. “Different than he does, but it cuts me the same.” Her voice was monotone.

I didn’t respond to her, because there was nothing I could say.

She looked up at me, blinking water from her eyes, droplets shivering on the tips of her eyelashes, her cheeks red from the heat. I had the sense that she would’ve been crying if I’d left her with any sadness, but I just continued siphoning all the pain from her head, ensuring nothing slipped through the cracks. She wasn’t going to cry again tonight.

“I’m going to die, Micah.”

“Masters,” I said softly, shaking my head, trying to hide the way those words took my breath away.

“And I know it will be soon,” she continued, still not reacting when I firmly held her shoulders, pulling her in my direction so I could condition her hair next. The air felt too hot, too humid, steam filling my lungs. “When Aamon was still alive, I thought I was getting this awful feeling from him, but now he’s dead and I still feel like this. You don’t get it because you’re not going to die, but it’s like I can see it in the corners of my mind. Like it’s some real thing and it’s watching me, waiting for me.”

“As long as I’m breathing, I will keep you alive.” I attempted to make her look at me, but her eyes were unfocused. I needed her to know I meant it.

“How, exactly, do you plan on doing that? You can’t kill everything. There are other ways for a human’s life to end. Maybe I’ll kill myself.”

“I’d know if you were going to do that.”

“I never told you this, but my first memory is of a doe,” Dakota said, shifting the direction of our conversation. Water was trickling over her lips, glistening when she spoke. “That’s why I dream about deer sometimes. In the memory, I was looking out the back window of the trailer I grew up in and she was just standing there, then she got scared by something and ran into the forest, and I can’t stop thinking about her all the time now. It feels like me. Like I’m her.”

“I can still protect you,” I murmured.

“No you can’t.” She lifted her eyes to meet mine, and the green of her irises was perhaps the most transparent it’d ever been. I could see every single ounce of hurt I’d caused her over the past months, the hurt Mason had caused her, the hurt she’d been suffering her entire life. She was so fucking broken, slipping farther away from me every day, drifting between my cowardly fingers as I hated myself for letting this happen to us.

“Dakota,” I said quietly, sliding my palms up to her shoulders.

“I am prey, and prey dies.”

“You aren’t prey.” The words felt like a lie as I said them, and I wasn’t sure when I’d allowed myself to start thinking of her this way. From the first time I saw her probably. I was a much worse person than she gave me credit for.

She closed her eyes and let water stream over her face. The liquid formed a clear mask, clear enough for me to see her, but rough enough to distort things.

I thought of Mason then.

Thought of his face at the end.

His ragged voice, choked off sobs, teary eyes.

He’d asked me why?