My eyes slowly open to the sound of the water hitting the bare tile. Every movement, every noise, makes my body tense.
I try to steady my breathing, ragged from the memories. The one of the night I was taken, and the other of that night two years ago when I saw a man murdered. I didn’t leave home for a long time after that, and I never moved out. My father wanted it that way anyway.
I thought I knew what fear was before I walked into that bar. I was wrong.
Staring at the lifeless corpse of a man whose existence has tormented you for years is true fear. It wasn’t until his head rolled away from his body on the carpet, that I could even consider the possibility that he would never hurt me again.
My gaze drifts to the pool of water at my feet. The water contains dark red splotches until it swirls and morphs to pink as it flows to the drain.
First, I watched my mother’s death.
Then the death of a man who betrayed my father.
And now I’ve killed the man who betrayed both of my parents.
I wait for a sense of relief, or victory—righteousness, maybe. But nothing comes. There’s only a hollow emptiness in my chest and a flood of unwanted memories.
The sound of the glass door to the shower sliding open nearly tears a scream from my throat.
Mika, my father, Stephan… of all the men responsible for me leading a life riddled with fear, none of them compare to the man standing in front of me. The steam billows around him as it exits the shower stall, allowing the chill of the cooler air to leave goosebumps along my skin.
Carter’s gaze narrows as he assesses me, glued to the wall and still shaking, still struggling to do anything. I’ve never felt so weak in my life as I do right now.
Killing Stephan may have felt freeing during the moments the knife sliced into him, but I’ve never been so chained to memories as I am in this instant.
“What are you doing?” His deep voice comes out a question, but I don’t think he expects me to answer.
“I can’t stop shaking,” I tell him in a staccato cadence that reflects my inability to do anything clearly. Each word is forced out as I grip my wrist with my other hand and will it to stop, finally letting go of the gem.
Carter doesn’t answer me. Instead, he steps into the stall, still clothed. He hisses through his teeth as the hot water batters his arm and splashes along his bloodstained shirt, now sticking to his skin. He turns the faucet, cooling the water until it’s only warm and no longer scalding hot.
The cool air feels refreshing as it caresses my skin more and more the longer he stands in front of me with the door open. My head feels light and the panic that was all-consuming only a moment ago, wanes.
In one breath, Carter strips from his shirt. In another, he closes the door behind him and pulls me into his arms. The warm water gently splashes along my back in time with Carter’s soothing strokes. It takes a moment for me to return the embrace, to wrap my arms around him and press my cheek to his bare chest.
His heartbeat is steady as he holds me and it’s calming. So calming. The trembling subsides quicker than I could imagine.
My eyes close and I welcome the darkness of exhaustion until Carter clears his throat, startling me from the comfortable silence.
“I’m sorry for telling you that I wouldn’t be with you,” he says and his voice rumbles up his chest. I stay tense against him, caught off guard. I barely remember his words from earlier. Everything happened so quickly; of everything that happened tonight, the last thing on my mind is the threat he gave me before I knew his intentions and every piece of the puzzle fell into place.
An apology is something I would never expect from him.
Carter is never sorry. Carter is unapologetic in everything he does.
Without an answer from me, he continues, “I shouldn’t have said that. And I’m sorry for it.” Another moment passes, and the cloudy haze slowly dissipates until I can peel myself away from him. My nakedness and the reality of what I am to him are slowly coming back to me.
Today has been a whirlwind of emotions. The most prevalent being pain.
I swallow thickly before stepping away from him and out of the flowing streams of water to tell him it’s okay.
I don’t know what else to say.
Pushing the wet hair from my face, I look him in the eyes and the intensity in his gaze sets my body on fire.
“It’s not okay. And it won’t happen again,” Carter replies as his eyes darken and he moves in the suddenly small shower, stalking toward me to place both of his palms against the tile wall on either side of my head.