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Mornings tend to be the hardest for me. Not only do the nightmares still get to me when it’s dark, but when I wake up and see them, it’s like another one begins. I feel nauseous going to bed only to wake up and have to start all over again.
Afternoons are good though. With the gym nearly complete, I’ve been able to get into a better routine that helps me feel more like myself. Laney comes over, and we hang out and train together a lot, especially when it gets hard.
Over the past two weeks, Dr. K has come by every day. She and I work alone for the first hour. Then, she takes turns with the guys before wrapping up with us all together.
It’s really helped us all with communication, and I finally feel like we’re working towards building a life together. I go to bed that night with hope in my heart, only for things to take a very different turn when I wake up.
I’m standing in the same tub they killed Lev in. My ankle is tied just like his and a cruel man sits outside the glass, watching. I try not to give him any of my emotions. Not my fear or anger. Nothing.
The best way to deal with Rostya is with a blank face, but when the water reaches my waist, I’m flooded with images of my ghost. They play out all around me as if my brain were trying to hold onto the few good memories I have left.
I see his green eyes that remind me so much of fresh air. I can smell his sweet pine scent. I can hear his laughter and feel his warmth. But then the water rises above my neck and the horror sets in.
This is a game we have played countless times now. He will let the water fill and pull me under, just to let me go the second my body forces me to take a breath on the verge of drowning. Only when I’m choking and nearly about to pass out does he let me go.
I try to hold on longer this time as pictures of Lev flash in my mind as clear as if he were in front of me. If I close my eyes to them, he shocks me with a baton as soon as the water drains. So, I keep them open.
I think his end goal is to make me feel pain in some way when I see them. So that even the memories of them are ruined with torture. With Lev, he tries to drown me like this. WithAlexi, he tries to starve me, and with Damien, he likes to shock me. But with Boris it’s all three.
I take a deep breath as the water rises above my head and the rope begins to pull me under, sealing my fate. I can’t see Rostya anymore, everything is too much of a blur behind the glass. But I glare out at where he should be and do my best to hold in the terror.
It’s too late. And the more I glare, the more he escalates until I’m drowning on the floor with a rod in my back. White dances over my vision as agony so surreal floods all of my senses.
I don’t know if I’ll survive it this time.
Chapter 18
I wake up, dread pooling in my stomach. An ear-piercing scream startles me awake, and all I know is that I need to get to her. In the past three and a half weeks she’s been with us, I haven’t heard her scream like this. Logically, I know it's just a night terror. But after everything we’ve been through, you just never know. I grab my gun as I haul ass to Evie.
The second I’m in her room, I flip on the lights. I know she might react to seeing me, but I need to know that no one is hurting her. The second her eyes connect with my face, all the color drains from her body, and she goes limp seeming to have passed out.
I rush to her side, brushing the hair out of her face and feeling for a pulse. I know she’s been struggling at night but this is so much worse. I could never hear her screams before, not like that. We were finally making progress, things were looking up.
Why the fuck does shit like this keep happening to us?
I grab a cold bottle of water from the fridge in her room and place it on her neck to help pull her out of the panic. Slowly her eyes open, but I don’t think she’s really with me yet.
There’s no tears, no fight. She doesn’t even move. Pain is written deep into her features, as if it were a gaping wound on her side, bleeding out every ounce of strength that she has left.
She gets up from the bed, moving away from me in nothing but a t-shirt. Her body shivers as she sits on the windowsill, watching the rain fall from the night sky.
I flick off the lights so she can see it more clearly. Evie feels more comfortable in the dark anyway.
We learned last week that when it was dark and quiet, that was the only time the pain didn’t come. So, I hope somehow it can help bring her back to herself now.
Alexi made sure a whole wall in Evie’s room was windows so that she never felt trapped. Plus, the view of the city from up here is beautiful. It helps remind you that you’re one of many in this world. That while your problems might feel as large as Mount Everest, they are really just a small bump in the road from up here.
She continues to shiver as she leans against the glass to watch the storm with a vacant stare. My hands itch to touch her. I don’t have a clue what to do for her right now. But the moment I see goosebumps travel up her arms, I say fuck it and decide to try.
Grabbing the blanket from the bed, I wrap it around her and pull her to sit with me in the chair next to the window. Her body melts into mine as if there is nothing left in her, and my heartbreaks for this woman. She has endured so much. She shouldn’t have to be fighting this.
I turn her head to face me, staring into lifeless eyes that tell me she’s giving up. But my hand cradles her face, refusing any world where Evie isn’t the light of my life. For us, that would be a fate worse than death.
I watch in her eyes as she starts to drown as clearly as if it were playing on a screen in front of me. It’s as if the haze of the water in her mind covers her eyes, her mouth opens on a scream gasping for air.
My girl is suffocating in her pain, in despair so deep it wraps her heart in the waves and pulls stronger than the tide. I can see her fighting it, trying desperately to pull herself closer to the surface. Only for the water to wrench her back, refusing to free her from its grip.
