AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He lifted himself with one arm and dragged his body closer to hers. He dragged himself toward her.
Chelsea shook her head. “Stay away from me,” she said, but she didn’t turn and walk away. She stood and watched him.
The sound that came out of his throat broke something inside of her. It was feral and dreadful. The sound resembled a wounded animal—one who would never recover. He rested his forehead on the hardwood floor beneath him, and his shoulders shook with a vengeance that she hadn’t expected. Chelsea wrung her hands. She tried—she tried so hard—to force herself away from him and his situation. He had his hands around her throat moments ago, and though she knew he hadn’t meant to do it, she couldn’t ignore the bruising ache around her throat.
She brushed her fingertips across the sensitive skin and winced.
But she couldn’t look away from Redmond, curled on the floor. She never would have imagined seeing him in such a position. So weak. So broken. She held her throat, but she couldn’t help but feel his pain and misery. How could she leave him?
She took a hesitant step forward, breaking the boundary between them before taking another step. And another. She stared down at him for a long second before bending at the knees and placing a hand on his curled back.
He tensed, and his sobbing halted. Something inside her jerked as he stiffened, but she kept her hand on his back. “Why?” she whispered, her voice raspy beneath her words.
He shook his head and folded further into himself. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
Chelsea couldn’t tell him that it was okay, as it was far from that, but she nodded her head, accepting the apology for what it was. “Was it a dream?”
He nodded, his back trembling. The part of Chelsea that wanted to flee faded with each shudder that wracked through Redmond’s strong body. It shocked Chelsea that such strength could be brought to its knees by something as insignificant as a dream.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
His head finally lifted, and his eyes met hers. She staggered backward at the look he gave her. Even in the dim room, the pain and remorse—the absolute misery—she found in his gaze stole her breath from her. Her fingers worked their way to her throat again, feeling the sore skin, and his agony intensified, a tear running from the corner of his eye as he allowed his head to fall back to the floor, his eyes still fixed on hers.
“I have dreams sometimes.”
“No shit,” Chelsea whispered, her heart finally starting to slow as she fell back onto her butt beside him.
“I can’t get out of them. Sometimes they feel like they go on for hours, and they’ve been getting worse,” he rasped, almost as if his voice was as broken as hers. Had it been from internal screaming? “I’m so sorry, Chelsea.”
“What did you think was happening? Why did you…”
He shook his head. “I thought I was with Claire again. That she was alive. That she should have been sleeping beside me.”
“And I was a stranger in her place,” Chelsea finished.
He nodded, and Chelsea understood more than he realized. Had she never had a night terror, she may have walked out and never looked back. But if he’d tried to wake her from one of hers and she’d mistaken him for one of her captors, Chelsea couldn’t imagine what she’d do. She wanted to hate him for what he did to her—for the fear he’d inflicted. She wanted to walk away and call it the end, but Chelsea felt the tether between them, still too strong and unbreakable to tug away from him.
A month ago, she’d have turned away.
She should have turned away.
But what she felt for Redmond was more than just a throw-away relationship.
He nodded, no longer able to respond as he lay on the ground before her, silent tears streaming his face as he trembled with his agony.
“We’re going to fix this,” Chelsea whispered, her decision made before she finished her words.
“We?”
“We. We’re going to do whatever needs done to make you better, Redmond. I’m not going to leave you.”
Chelsea lay on the floor beside him and curled her knees to her chest, her forehead resting on the floor so close to his that the heat from him caressed her. What could she do other than be there for the man who had saved her life that night nearly four months ago—the same man who had saved her life in half a dozen different ways since then?
12
Redmond couldn’t heal overnight. No, he’d take years before he could fully cope with everything the world had thrown his way, but he could take all the precautions possible. When Chelsea left for work, wearing a scarf to hide the bruises encircling her throat, Redmond knew that he wouldn’t hurt her again. He had two options: find a way to heal himself or leave Chelsea to ensure he never touched her again.
Leaving her was the last resort, but he’d do it if he found himself remaining unstable.
