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I fight with everything in me. I try to push him away, but he’s too heavy, crushing me with his weight. He straddles me, pinning me with his large body. His hands come down on my throat before I have a chance to protest or try to convince him to let me go, strangling me. Choking the breath out of me.
“I always wanted to hear you beg,” he grunts, pressing harder. He strains to hold me down, sweat dripping down his forehead and a vein bulging at his temple. “I wanted to see fear in your eyes. I wanted you to fucking suffer.”
Stop.
My mouth moves, but no sound comes out. My head is spinning, the lack of oxygen making me dizzy.
He’s going to kill me.
If I could still speak, I would beg. I would plead with him, I would scream at him. I would fight him.
Stop.
Please, stop.
Stop.
“Stop!” I choke out hoarsely, heart pounding as my eyes fly open.
I try to swallow away the lingering terror of the dream, but I can’t. My throat is closed up tight, burning in agony as I register the weight on top of me and the hands on my throat, choking me.
The real hands.
The real weight.
Ciro.
His eyes are open but unfocused. I can see the terror locked away somewhere in them as he dreams, but it’s overwhelmed by a look of sickening determination. He’s lost somewhere in his head, in a night terror, not remembering me or anything we shared just hours ago.
“Ciro—”
It’s meant to be a scream, but it’s hardly a word at all. I can’t get any air. I can’t move.
“Ciro, please, you don’t—”
You don’t know what you’re doing, I try to say, but the words are lost in the grip he has over my throat. And as if sensing the fight for life in me, he squeezes harder, pressing me deeper into the bed with his body, crushing my lungs and my stomach with his knees to my chest.
Wake up wake up wake up.
I sob silently, my throat burning. I don’t know if the words make it from my thoughts to my mouth, but either way, they do no good. The pain that stems from my lungs and throat begins to rush through the rest of my body.
Darkness clouds the edges of my vision, prickled with light, but the room starts to swirl around me, fading into nothingness.
Slam!
Hale bursts in, the door rattling in its frame as it closes behind him. He runs across the darkened room toward the bed, yanking Ciro off me. My hands fly to my burning throat as I gasp for air. Pain tears through my lungs and throat with every inhale, but I keep sucking in oxygen anyway.
I want to scream, but nothing comes out as Ciro fights against Hale like a wild animal. Hale is quicker though. It probably helps that he’s actually conscious. Within seconds, he has his burly friend pinned to the ground. He strains to keep Ciro down with his weight, pressing into him with his arms, legs, torso, and hands.
“Ciro!” Hale shouts, voice straining. “It’s not real. It’s not fucking real. Ciro, wake up!”
Another wave of aggression rips through the black-haired man as he thrashes and flails against Hale’s grip. Hardly caring about my own safety, I scramble toward the edge of the bed, holding my throat with one hand.
Ciro. Fuck, I need to help—
“Stay away from him, Grace!” Hale warns, grabbing Ciro’s wrists and pinning them to the floor.
Seconds that feel like hours pass as I watch in horror. My stomach twists as I realize that this has happened before—more than just once or twice. Otherwise, Hale wouldn’t know what to do. He waits it out patiently, straining with everything in him, holding his friend down, murmuring something in a low voice. I can’t hear what it is; the quiet sounds are drowned out by the rush of blood in my ears.
