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“P-please, don’t lie about th-that.Please.I-I need you so much, Jack.”She wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her face into my throat while her tears pooled in my shirt.The broken, choked sounds that left her throat were like being stabbed with a hot poker, but I held her closer, trying to will my strength into her, absorb her pain so she didn’t have to feel the devastation of loss.
“Never, baby.I promise.”Kissing the side of her head, I kept rocking her.“You’re mine, little fairy.I won’t ever let you go.”
I love you.
It took everything I had not to utter those words then and there, but I wasn’t going to give them to her when she was in so much pain.I didn’t want her to ever think about this moment again.
Nishia’s body began to shake.It didn’t surprise me that she was having a breakdown.She’d kept so much locked up.Her ordeal with the motherfuckers who took her.Her assault.The weeks of healing.
Therapy only helped so much, and I’d known this was coming.I’d seen it too many times not to understand what would happen if she didn’t get it out of her system, but she’d bottled it up.
And I’d fucking let her.Not wanting to see her in distress.Fuck, I should have pushed a little more, gotten it out of her, given her an outlet so she didn’t have to go through this hell now.Maybe if I’d told her about her mom sooner, she wouldn’t have let all her emotions build to the point of explosion.
My brave, beautiful little fairy had reached her breaking point.
“Sh-sh-sh-she was all bloated up and…a-and this greenish-blue c-c-color.It was her…b-but it wasn’t.I-I knew she would OD one day.She was so l-lost to her addiction, and I-I wasn’t enough to…to make her stop.Every year… N-no, every month, she got worse.I h-hated her.Idohate her.I will always hate her.But…I loved her too.And… And… Oh God!I still love her, Jack.Everything…she…did.There was…no remorse.None.I am her…daughter… Was.Fuck, was her daughter.But she didn’t love me back.I…always…knew…she loved the drugs…more.”
Jerking back, she looked up at me, and my heart lifted into my throat at the sight of the tears pouring down her beautiful, pain-ravaged face.“W-wh-why, Jack?Wh-why wasn’t I-I enough?I-is there…something…wrong…w-with me?”
“No, baby, no.You’re more than enough.”I cupped both sides of her face, my eyes pleading with her to believe me.“You are everything, little fairy.Sweet, loving, so damn beautiful it takes my breath away.I can’t picture my life without you in it, Nishia.I would kill to keep you at my side.”
“But…why didn’t…she…love me?”she sobbed.
“She was sick, baby.”I tried to explain, to soothe her, to ease the agony in her heart.“Addiction is an illness that eats away at a person’s soul.It stole her away from you.She couldn’t even love herself, let alone you or anyone else.It was her problem, not yours.”
“I tried…s-so hard.T-t-to f-fix her.”She scrubbed her trembling hands down her face.“T-to help h-her.I-I worked s-s-so h-h-hard to…to…to keep us together.But sh-she… She… She…” Her breathing grew labored with each word, and her eyes began to widen more and more as panic flooded into her.“Jack,” she squeaked.
Helpless.
Broken.
I pressed my forehead to hers.“Breathe with me, baby.Breathe.”Inhaling deeply, I blew it out, long and slow.
It didn’t help, and she made a rasping noise that turned my blood to ice.It reminded me of the sounds she’d made the night I’d found her.It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it.That deathlike rattle had been a melody that had lured me to sleep at night, something I’d forced countless monsters to experience before they met the angel of death.But it terrified me hearing it from Nishia.
She began to struggle against me, fighting her body’s instinct to help her get oxygen.I molded her top half against mine, forcing my body to relax enough so she could feel me breathing.“Please breathe,” I begged when she didn’t suck in a breath.“Please, Nishia.Come on, little fairy.Deep breaths.For me.Baby, please.Fuck!Fuck, please, please, please.Just breathe.I need you to breathe.”
With a sharp gasp, she inhaled in a rush, gasping lungful after lungful, and tears of relief stung my eyes.
“I want my mom,” she choked out.
There was nothing I could do, no words I could give her that would ease the pain in her heart.I felt helpless as I listened to her broken, gut-wrenching sobs that shook her barely healed body.Clenching my eyes closed to fight my tears, I stroked my hands up and down her back, letting her know without words that I was there.
I just hoped she knew I was never going to leave her.
Or ever allow her to leave me.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN
nishia
Groaning,I slowly lifted my lashes.Sunlight filtered in through the blinds, so bright it hurt my eyes.Clenching them closed again, I turned my head.The smell of the wind, some unnamed earthy fragrance, and a little spice filled my nose, and I buried my face deeper, wanting that scent inside me.It was warm and comforting, my favorite smells in the world that I didn’t even know I liked until I was given the gift of breathing them in every day.
Jack’s arm tightened around my back reflexively before he started rubbing his huge hand up and down my spine.I nearly purred with contentment until the throbbing behind my eyes brought me back to reality.
The night before came flooding back into my head, and I tangled my fingers in the material of Jack’s shirt, holding on in an attempt to protect myself from the fresh wave of agony.Grief.Anger.
I didn’t even know who I was truly mad at.
