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“No,” the woman said. “One of the balloons popped and Dawn thought it was gunshots and freaked out. She bolted.”
“Fuck,” Aled hissed, then launched into motion, running back to the banquet hall. Jamie ran with him.
EIGHTEEN
It hurt morethan Aled ever could have anticipated to be torn between two people that he cared about with equal fervor. On the one hand, there was Dawn, his sister, his flesh and blood, who would always be in his heart and under his care. On the other was Jamie, a man he was really starting to see he could spend the rest of his life with.
Both of them needed him in that moment, but he had to leave what could have been one of the most beautiful moments of his life to rescue Dawn from the monster of anxiety that haunted her.
“Where is she?” he asked Ebony, Dawn’s friend who had come to fetch him.
That rush of command within Aled that sometimes manifested itself in a scene as a dom who wanted to make someone hurt shifted into a sense of power that told him he would find his sister and resolve the situation.
“She headed off that way,” Ebony said, pointing to the back corner of the still buzzing banquet hall.
Aled nodded. He knew from earlier that there was a stairwell in that corner, as well as a lift that went down to the storage room below the hall. It made sense. If it was the popped balloon that had frightened Dawn, she must have thought she was falling into a whole new world of trauma. She would have run and hid without thinking of anything else.
As he proceeded across the hall, leaving Ebony behind, dodging between tables, and narrowly avoiding a few of the servers who were still serving the main course, people glanced up from their suppers to see what was going on. Most of them looked merely curious, but a few looked alarmed, as if maybe they should be running, too.
On top of that, Aled caught sight of the head table, where Ronny and some of the more important people attending the fundraiser had been seated. It wasn’t so much the smug look Ronny wore that seemed to mock Aled for making a scene that bothered Aled, it was the way that smile dropped when he glanced at something else behind him.
It wasn’t until Aled cleared the tables and reached the doorway to the stairwell that Jamie caught up to him and Aled realized Jamie had followed them in the first place.
“You didn’t have to come,” he said, a little surprised, as they pushed through the door and into the echoey hallway. “Not when you have your own shit to deal with.”
“Of course I did,” Jamie said, reassurance shining in his eyes. “Dawn is more important than any shit I have.”
Aled smiled. He didn’t know why he hadn’t expected Jamie would come with him, to stand by his side and help him with Dawn. He’d done it before. When you’d been shouldering such an important load all on your own for so long, expecting help wasn’t a given. But just knowing Jamie was there for him, that maybe he didn’t have to choose after all, was more important than saying I love you.
The potential moment was broken by a faint, stuttering cry from somewhere down the stairs. Aled turned away from Jamie, more certain than ever that he needed to take charge of the situation and make things better for Dawn.
“Dawn, love?” he called out, wincing at how his voice echoed too loudly in the concrete stairwell. “I’m here.”
He found Dawn at the bottom of the stairs, in a slight cubby in the corner, half hidden behind a few empty dollies that had been used to bring the chairs up for the event. She was shaking like it was midwinter, and her tears had smeared her make-up.
“I’m here,” Aled repeated, sinking to a crouch and moving close enough to reach for her.
Dawn let out a loud wail and threw herself into Aled’s arms. Her weeping began anew, and was laced with grief that was still fresh after all these years.
“I was so afraid,” she sobbed, burying her face against Aled’s shoulder. “There was so much blood. I could see it everywhere, on the walls, even, like some horror film.”
“I know, love, I know,” Aled said. His entire body tensed with the memories of what he’d seen on that horrible afternoon six years ago. He squeezed his eyes shut so he could block out the visions that still haunted his mind and probably always would.
“Why would he do that?” Dawn continued to weep and shiver as she clung to him. “Why would anyone do that?”
Aled rocked back and sat heavily with his back against the concrete wall, cradling Dawn. Jamie crouched to Dawn’s level as well, reaching out tentatively to rub her back.
For only a moment, Aled was unsure of that touch. He didn’t know how deeply Dawn accepted Jamie, even though he knew she liked him. This wasn’t the same as her panic attack weeks ago. This moment of fear and grief and emotion came from someplace much deeper. It was something that only the two of them who had seen what was left behind in their old house shared. Not even Jeremy had seen what their father had done.
“Anniversaries can bring everything back to the surface,” Jamie said in his gentle voice. “Believe me, I know.”
Dawn didn’t flinch or pull away from him. In fact, even though she was still crying and sniffing wetly, she turned her face to Jamie. “You do?”
Jamie nodded. “My parents decided they were done with me and threw me out of the house and their lives on my twentieth birthday, all because I’d brought my boyfriend at the time home with me and demanded they accept him. They’d thrown a big party for me and they made a scene. A bad scene.” He lowered his head a little. “I’ve hated my birthday ever since then. And I know it’s not the same thing, it doesn’t even come close, but….” He let out a breath and sank to sit on the concrete as well. “Anniversaries are hard.”
Dawn nodded and started to cry anew. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore,” she said. “It’s supposed to get better, isn’t it? It’s like Dad is still holding me prisoner, like he must have done with Mum, like he did before he—”
“Shh, shh,” Aled hugged and rocked and tried to calm her when Dawn burst into sobs again. “Dad was sick. It wasn’t him that did those things. It was his sickness.” He wasn’t sure it would do any good to say that, but he needed to remind himself sometimes.
