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“It’s okay, Kitty Cat. I know it hurts now, but it won’t hurt forever.” Declan brushes a hand down the side of my face. “I need you to take care of those three buttheads for me.”
I laugh, brushing tears away from my eyes. “Buttheads? What are we thirteen?”
Dec echoes my laugh, shaking his head back and forth. “Tell me they aren’t buttheads.”
“No, they are. The whole lot of them,” I joke, picturing Rhys, Hudson, and Adam standing behind Declan. “It should be four buttheads, though.”
“Life doesn’t always work out how it should, Kitty Cat. You know that as well as I do,” Declan says with a shrug.
“I know,” I whisper, tears falling harder than before. “I wanted to save you, Declan.”
“You can’t save me, you were never meant to. You can still save them,” Declan whispers back, tears falling from his eyes in the exact same way as my own. “Save them, Kitty Cat. Don’t let him have them.”
“I don’t know how.” I cry harder, the room darkening around me. Declan’s tears turn into blood, pouring down his face as he screams silently, reaching out for me.. “DECLAN!”
Declan’s face morphs into Rhys, then Adam before turning into Hudson. They all scream for me, clawing at the black carpet with blood falling from their eyes.
“NO! Please, no,” I beg and scream, throwing myself towards them to no avail. “NO! YOU CAN’T HAVE THEM!”
No matter how hard I run, I can’t reach them. I can’t save them from the darkness or the echoing wicked laugh that ricochets in my mind. Kevin stares at me through the darkness as he drags my men away from me, laughing and taunting me as he goes.
“Lay, baby. It’s okay,” I hear Adam’s voice soothing me from afar, pulling me out of the nightmare. “You’re here with me and Riggs. No one is taking us away. You are safe, Lay. Come back to us.”
My body is shaking with the force of my sobs, my throat scratchy from the screaming. Opening my eyes, I cry out in relief when I see Adam in front of me, with Hudson holding onto me in his lap. They both stroke my hair, face, skin, whatever they can touch to help ground me in reality.
It takes a few minutes for me to finally stop crying and be able to fully breathe again. The nightmare lingers even after my tears have disappeared, sending shudders of fear down my spine. Inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale. In for one, two, three, four. Out for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
“Was that a nightmare or a flashback?” Adam takes my hands and rubs his thumbs over the backs of them.
“A nightmare,” I whisper back, sniffling and resting my head back on Hudson’s shoulder. “It was the night of the bar opening and I was scared. Rhys was behind me, but then it wasn’t Rhys, it was Declan. He told me I could do anything I set my mind too.”
“What happened after that?” Hudson prods gently, his deep, quiet voice settling my nerves a bit more.
“Declan told me I had to take care of you three and that I couldn’t let Kevin have you. I had to make sure to save all three of you,” I explain, my heart hurting, but the words come easier the longer I tell them about the nightmare. “I said it should have been four and he said it was never meant to be, but to save you. After that he cried blood and started getting dragged away in the dark. His face turned into all of you, one by one, screaming and reaching for me. I couldn’t reach any of you. Kevin laughed wickedly and kept dragging you away, covered in blood.”
“Oh, Lay.” Hudson breathes out, a heavy sadness in his voice. “He won’t get us. He won’t take us from you.”
Brushing away a stray tear, I suck in a deep breath and lay out my worries for them. “It’s been what? Two and a half months since Kevin somehow escaped the psych ward? I trust Detective Mercer a lot more than I ever trusted Jarrod James, but how has he still not been caught? I get that life isn’t like the shows and movies where everything is over in two days. It’s just, I’m tired of living like this. How are we supposed to keep these babies safe when they’re born if he’s still out there?”
“We will keep pushing through and persevering,” Adam mumbles, his face reflecting my own fear and worries back at me. “I think it’s safe to say we’re all as scared as you are. None of us like living in this constant state of worry, where we don’t know what’s around every corner. It will come to an end though, and when it does, our family will still be standing at the end of it.”
“How do you know?”
“History.” Adam squeezes my hands tightly in his. “Our history tells me that. We’re all survivors, and this time won’t be any different.”
Sighing, I lean back onto Hudson and chew on my bottom lip. The babies decide to throw a small party, twisting and turning in my belly with a few high kicks into my diaphragm for the fun of it. Rubbing small circles on my belly, I stare off at the wall and the pile of boxes stacked up beside it.
“I can’t afford to be losing sleep with these nightmares,” I complain, a yawn overtaking my entire face. “Between the late night dance parties the two in my belly have been having every night, the awful heartburn, and having to constantly pee, I’m not getting enough sleep as is.”
Hudson kisses the top of my head sweetly, drawing my attention back to him. “It’s no wonder you’re having nightmares with everything going on. We have one week left in this house that holds a lot of memories, a lot of them painful, especially for you with Declan. Hopefully once we’re all moved into the new place, the nightmares will settle down a bit for you.”
“I hope you’re right,” I murmur, my eyes feeling heavy again, but so does my bladder. “Speaking of needing to pee, one of the twins is river dancing on my bladder.”
The guys chuckle, watching me trudge my way out to the hallway to find the bathroom. The house is a maze of boxes right now making walking through the house a difficult task during the day. At night? It’s nearly impossible to navigate.
Thankfully the bathroom is only two doors down from Hudson’s bedroom, so it’s only a small maze I need to bypass. Deciding against the light, I slide into the bathroom and close the door part of the way so I don’t make the room any darker than it already is. The window in this bathroom is so small, the moonlight barely lights the space at all at night time.
“Lay? Is that you?” Rhy’s voice comes from the dark hallway, causing me to jump at the sudden sound. Thank god I had finished peeing, or that would have been a major mess I do not have the energy to clean up.
