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Slowly, like ice melting, Ciro comes to.
After witnessing what I just saw, I didn’t think anything could be worse, but I was wrong.
This is worse.
Ciro’s entire body shudders. He’s shaking and panting like a wild animal. All the color leaves his face as if someone’s draining his blood. His eyes slowly clear, the pupils expanding until the Ciro I know re-emerges, trapped under his friend’s body. Sensing the change, Hale hesitantly pulls away, dragging himself off Ciro but staying close enough to lunge at him if the night terror starts again.
Ciro wipes the back of his hand over his mouth, still gasping for breath.
But it isn’t until those steely gray eyes meet mine that everything in him seems to shatter a second time—and this time, I break with him. Like an arrow piercing my heart, I feel his gaze scan the column of my throat where his hands have made imprints, and pure self-hatred floods his expression.
He knows exactly what he just did to me.
He can see the evidence of it on my pale skin.
I slip off the bed without thinking, stumbling over to him, desperate to help him. But as I reach out for him to tell him that I’m fine, he scrambles away, dragging himself along the floor.
“Stay away from me!” he shouts hoarsely, pulling into himself until his back presses up against the wall.
I pursue him, but Hale stops me with a firm but gentle hand around my wrist.
“Don’t, Grace,” he says in a low voice. He sounds almost as wrecked as Ciro.
Tears blur my vision, and as the droplets spill over my eyelids, I realize my cheeks are already wet. I was crying when I woke up, and now I can’t seem to stop.
I know Hale is just trying to help, but I can’t stand that it’s this way, can’t stand that neither of them trust me to be near Ciro.
“You didn’t hurt me,” I plead, turning back to Ciro as choked sobs clog my aching throat. Hale releases his grip on my wrist, but his hand slides down to grasp mine. He pulls me back, telling me with a silent shake of his head that it’s useless. But I refuse to give up. “Please, let me help—”
“Stay away from me.” I don’t know the person who stares at me from the other side of the room, pressed up against the wall. “Stay away.”
I don’t recognize the man whose whole body shakes as he holds his wrists against his body, as if trying to keep himself from doing it again. His eyes churn and his jaw clenches, all of the peace we felt together replaced by acidic tension.
Running his hands through his black hair, Ciro tugs at the roots. He’s not looking at me anymore, just staring off into space. His knee bounces, his chest heaves, and I can practically see the thoughts flashing through his head.
It’s like he’s afraid of himself again. Like he thinks this is what he gets for trying to heal, to have something good, to let himself go for a little while.
It’s like he thinks if he touches me… he’ll break me.
8
Grace
I stare down at Ciro with tears burning my eyes.
How did shit get so messed up, so quickly? I don’t know what time it is, but it can’t have been more than a few hours ago that I was on my knees in front of this man, worshipping him with my mouth while he looked at me like I was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen.
He didn’t hold back with me. He let himself feel good, let himself enjoy it. And in the aftermath, he held me like he’d never let me go.
Now he’s pressed up against the wall like he’d disappear through it if he could. Like he’s a prisoner in a cage—and in a way, he is. Whatever demons lurk in his mind, whispering lies about the kind of person he is and the kind of pain he deserves, they hold him prisoner just as surely as the walls of whatever room he was held captive in once did.
And every time he tries to break free, they drag him back down again.
I hate it.
My jaw clenches, anger at what Ciro’s had to go through overwhelming me in a hot rush. I see his body stiffen along with mine, and I force myself to take a breath. He’s responding to my energy, and the fury I’m feeling right now isn’t helping anyone—especial
ly not Ciro, who struggles enough with violence as it is.
