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I blew out a harsh breath before I looked up at the ceiling.
Please shine again, my moon.
24
MOVING
Caiden
I looked up as Christian stepped into the bedroom. Ally was passed out beside me, her head on my chest with her leg thrown over mine. I had one arm wrapped around her, my other hand holding my phone as I played a game.
“Do you ever do anything besides play a game?” Christian teased me.
I shrugged. “I’ll have more shit to do when we get around to moving,” I told him. “And I start work in a week.”
Christian closed the bedroom door behind him and unbuttoned his shirt, tossing it into the hamper in the corner of the room. He strode towards the bathroom at the same time that Ally screamed in her sleep, the sound chilling the blood in my veins.
I jerked into a sitting position, quickly pulling her up with me. She was awake, but she was sobbing, her entire body trembling. Christian was already on the bed, both of us holding her between us. Christian was whispering soothing words in her ear, and I just stayed silent, being her steadying force.
It was times like this that I wanted to beat Randall until he was forever eating out of a fucking tube. Prison was too easy of a punishment for him, especially since our judicial system was fucked up, and rapists tended to not serve the sentence that they deserved.
It took a while, but she eventually stopped sobbing. Now, just silent tears slid down her pretty face. Her trembling had eased, but her grip on my hands hadn’t loosened. She just leaned against Christian’s bare chest with her eyes closed.
“I want to fucking kill him,” I gritted.
Ally slowly opened her eyes, locking them on mine. Without a word, she pulled her hand from mine and reached up to cup my cheek. I sighed, closing my eyes, her touch calming me in a way that no amount of medication had ever been able to do.
“Just stay with me,” she softly begged me.
I circled my free hand around her wrist and turned my head to press a kiss to her palm. “For as long as you’ll have me, baby,” I promised her.
She pulled both of her hands from mine and reached up to swipe at her cheeks. “I want a shower,” she said quietly.
Without a word, Christian stood up from the bed with her cradled in his arms against his chest. She looked over his shoulder at me when I continued sitting on the bed. “You coming?” she asked me.
I smiled at her, watching as that light in her eyes flickered the tiniest bit. “Yeah, baby,” I assured her, standing up from the bed.
Christian set her on the bathroom counter, and I moved to the shower, turning the water on to let it heat up. After, I turned and leaned my shoulder against the bathroom wall, watching as he took care of her. Her eyes were full of pain and misery, and it broke my heart to see her like this.
But Christian? He was good with her—soothing. He softly spoke sweet things to her, reminding her that she was still beautiful and perfect in his eyes and that nothing would change that, all while he slowly undressed her, taking his time to slide his fingers over her skin.
By the time she was standing in front of him completely naked, all of that pain was gone from her eyes.
It was the reason Christian was probably the best for her.
“Come on,” he told her as he grabbed her hand in his. “We’ll shower, and then Caiden and I will come to bed with you, and you can sleep between us. You’ll be safe. He can’t hurt you anymore, my moon.”
I stepped into the shower and reached out to grab her hands in mine as she stepped in. Christian stepped in right behind her and closed the shower door. “He can hurt me,” she said quietly.
I gripped her waist and pulled her a little closer to me. “Close your eyes,” I told her.
She swallowed nervously, but she did as I told her to. I brushed my thumbs over the bottom of her rib cage. “Now, I want you to picture that evening in your head.” She whined. “Easy, baby,” I soothed, rubbing soothing circles into her skin. “Just picture it for me.”
Her face scrunched up as she pictured the evening in her mind. I was trying a technique my therapist had tried with me from all of the trauma I faced because of my and Christian’s parents, and I was hoping it would work for her, too.
“Now, I want you to picture that Christian and I are there with you,” I told her. Her bottom lip trembled. I tightened my hold on her. “Picture it, baby. Randall isn’t there anymore. He’s not hurting you. We’re there, and we’re loving you and taking care of you. It’s us touching this perfect body.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Can you see it?”
