Of course I wouldn’t be here that long, but the overwhelming happiness for Kloe that engulfed me was astounding. “She’s still pregnant?”
“She’s still pregnant,” Mike verified with a larger smile. “Congratulations.”
My legs shook and I dropped heavily onto the edge of Kloe’s bed.
Mike quickly packed up his stuff. “I’ll be back in a couple of days. Caroline will remain here for the near future, just until Kloe is back to her usual self.”
Lifting my eyes to him, I sighed. “And you think that’s a possibility? That she’ll get over this?”
He looked anxious for a second. “There’s always a possibility of anything, Anderson. Kloe is strong health wise, but her psychological strength I can’t determine quite yet. Time is on our side here, and all we can do is wait.”
Giving him a short nod, he returned one of his own and left, quietly shutting the bedroom door shut behind him.
Sliding my hand into Kloe’s, I couldn’t hold back the grin, even if my gut didn’t dare to hope. “Did you hear that, my little wolf? You kept our baby safe. You’re already such a good mother.”
She didn’t respond. She continued to sleep in the realms of peace where she belonged, for a short while longer, anyway.
And I would be right here, beside her, chasing away the demons in her nightmares until her mind would accept that everything was going to be okay. For her, anyway.
I WAS COLD. SO VERY cold. A shiver raced over me and I gritted my teeth at the ice that seemed to weld my jaw together.
Everything was dark.
I felt his hand in mine but the soft way he was breathing told me he was asleep. I didn’t want to wake him, but I needed to.
“Anderson.” My voice was choked, raspy and quiet, and I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me. “Anderson.” It took effort to squeeze his hand, but putting all my strength into it, I felt him jerk.
He gasped. “Kloe?”
“I can’t see, Anderson.” Sensing his hesitation instead of seeing it, my chest heaved with panic. “Anderson! I can’t see!”
“Hey, hey,” he soothed. His voice was soft, the softest I’d heard it since we had been trapped in his room at Seven Oaks, his request to kiss me taking his courage and making his voice low and cautious. “It will be okay. It’s just your mind needing a reprieve.”
I knew he didn’t believe that as much as I didn’t and I screwed up my face in frustration. When his hand settled on my cheek, I pressed against his touch. “What if it isn’t?”
“There’s no point worrying about something we’re not certain of yet. Give it time. How are you feeling otherwise?”
It was one of the most stupid questions I’d ever been asked, and I huffed. “Hunky-dory!”
Clicking his tongue, I felt him tense beside me. But then, as if catching himself, he relaxed again. “Our baby is still alive.”
Every part of me froze in shock. I daren’t hope. I daren’t. Anderson could be cruel, and although I felt every bit of his kindness radiating around me, I also knew his words could have been a sadistic joke.
“Kloe?” he pressed when I didn’t answer him.
I wanted to see the truth in his eyes, determine the lie in the vivid green of his eyes. But I couldn’t. Frustration grew and I shifted angrily. “Please don’t lie to me, Anderson. Not about this. Please.”
“What?”
“You’ve lied to me over so many things. I can’t see you. I can’t see the facts in your eyes. I can’t establish what’s real and what isn’t with you if I can’t fucking see you!”
His hand tightened in mine and I tensed when I felt him close in on me. His breath tickled my cheek and then drifted over my ear. “It’s the truth. Our baby is still alive. You were carrying twins, and unfortunately, one was lost. But the other, he’s fit and strong, Kloe. His heart beats as hard as yours and mine.”
Something broke inside me and a wail reflected the turmoil that had been disturbing me. “I thought… I thought because I wanted to… to kill my own child that… that…”
Anderson’s arms came around me and he smothered me to his chest. His fingers cupped my head and his thumb twirled a short length of my hair. “That’s just silly. Nothing you did makes this your fault. It’s all on me. It’s all because I was too fucking stuck on revenge to accept the truth.”
“The truth?” I asked as my tears soaked his t-shirt.
“That none of this is your fault. It never was. I was wrong, Kloe. I admit I was wrong. All my life I’ve never understood how my parents could do such a thing. There had to be a reason. And I looked for a reason nearly all my life. And then there you were, and it was so easy to put that blame on you. Blaming you helped me to make sense of it all. It helped me to free the guilt. But it also made me believe a lie. A lie I wasn’t willing to trust but couldn’t seem to find another explanation to make that stupid one go away. I had to have something, anything, to blame. And I blamed you. I was wrong.”
I couldn’t begin to translate his statement. I was tired and his declaration deserved more than a quick thought and a half-hearted argument on my side. “Okay. I’m tired, Anderson, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to talk about this more.”
“I know. I just needed to say it before…”
He clammed up and I tilted my head, listening to the change in his breathing. “Before what?”
“Before I can’t.”
Well that didn’t make any sense, but before I could react to his puzzling words, he slipped his thumb against my lip, telling me he needed my silence. “Terry is waiting for you.”
Fear, just with his name, settled into my bones, and I sucked in a breath as my head shook from side to side. “Waiting for me?”
Quickly, Anderson realising his mistake, said. “No, not like that. I have him. He’s in the basement. Waiting for your vengeance.”
Visions of the last week flooded me and I winced. “I didn’t let him in, Anderson.”
After a short silence, he asked, “What do you mean?”
“He wanted my sanity. But I wouldn’t let him have it. I tried so hard to keep him out, and I think if you hadn’t turned up when you did, then he would have forced his way in.”
“You have no idea how strong you are,” he whispered.
“You. That’s all I could think of. Throughout it all, everything he did to me, I kept telling myself that I couldn’t let him win. I couldn’t fail you. I know he did what he did to me to hurt you, so I wouldn’t let him. Physical pain I can handle, but I refused him the mental torture he tried to put on me. I pushed him out, I closed off to him.” I turned my head, looking at him without seeing him. “You think I forced this blindness on myself?”
His sigh was heavy. “Maybe. Maybe it helped you. If you couldn’t see, then you wouldn’t visualise the horror for the rest of your life. Like you say, physical pain heals, but mental pain burns itself to us for a very long time.”
His hand slipped to my belly and I lowered my own, the cannula that was stuck in the back of my hand catching and making me hiss. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as shame made my stomach twist. “I shouldn’t have said those things I said to you. I was angry. You will be a fantastic father. You have so much love to give, so much gentleness inside you.”
Sorrow seemed to seep from him. I didn’t understand; I thought he would have been happy. “Anderson?”
Shaking himself, he rubbed my tummy. “I know. I hurt you. You had every right to say those things.”
Before I could say anything else, I felt the bed move as Anderson stood. “You need to eat. You need building up, for you and our child.”
I opened my mouth to say I wasn’t hungry but the sound of the door clicking closed made me blink. Something was bothering him. Still, even now, he lied to me. He hid things from me. My heart had soared when he had told me he no longer blamed me, that he had been wrong. Now there was room for hope, for our future, and for both of us. But I sensed Anderson didn’t think that way, that someth
ing was holding him back.
The silence made my blindness all the more real. My head flipped from side to side as my ears picked up various noises. Panic made my chest grow tight and my fingers dug into the sheet covering me. Being trapped inside a vacuum of blackness was brutal. We take sight for granted, well I did, and all of a sudden it was gone, leaving nothing but a gaping hole of things I couldn’t see, things I was vaguely aware of but unsure of. Every sound mocked me and my head spun from side to side, my eyes even narrowing as if I would be able to see through tiny slits instead of wide eyes.
“Miss Grant?” A female voice cut through the loud silence in my head and broke the suffocating dread drowning me.
Confusion set in at the unfamiliar voice and I frowned, moving my head around to try and determine where she was.
“My name’s Caroline.” A small hand covered mine. “And I’m helping to take care of you.”
I shuffled back at her touch, my body recoiling at the contact. Quickly, she removed her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I, uhh, I can’t see you.”
She paused, but lowered her voice as if it would bolster my confidence. “Ahh. That’s okay. Then I can be your eyes until you can use your own.”
Once again she rested her hand on mine. It scalded me, my skin screaming at her contact. My breathing stuttered and I choked on a cry.
“It’s okay,” Caroline urged hurriedly. “You’ve been through a lot. We have to get to know each other, but please, I am not going to hurt you. I’m here to help you, Miss Grant.”
“Kloe,” I choked out, forcing myself to concentrate on her words instead of the excruciating fear overwhelming me. My heart was beating so fast that I felt light-headed, and my skin felt clammy and too tight around my bones.
“I’m just going to do some checks, Kloe,” Caroline informed me as she moved around the room, my head following the sound of her trousers sweeping against her thighs. “I’ll try not to touch you as much as possible, but if I have to then I’ll tell you. Is that okay?”
I nodded, gulping. I couldn’t focus on anything but Caroline. Nausea lay heavy in my stomach and I dug my nails into my palms to stop myself from lashing out at the dark nothing in front of me.
Sounds I couldn’t register taunted my judgement, playing with each of my senses until I couldn’t distinguish between real and what my mind was making up, and I started to tremble.
“I’m by the window, Kloe,” Caroline said quietly. “And now I’m moving to the dresser to retrieve some things.”
“What things?” I snapped. Panic was threatening to overwhelm me and I was wrestling with the need to sink further into the headboard.
“I need to take your temperature. You were running a fever and I’d like to check that the medication did its job.”
I scrambled back when her voice became closer.
“Is that okay?” she asked softly, but I still jumped at the sound of her so close.
My lungs were becoming too stimulated as they tried to cope with the deep pull of oxygen. I sucked at air like it was a liquid substance, drawing breath before I had chance to release the last influx of air.
“Kloe,” Caroline urged gently. “You need to calm down. I’m not going to touch you, I promise. We can do this later.” Her voice moved away but I still couldn’t find a grip on anything tangible.
I reached out with my hands, trying to find something solid to outweigh the feeling of illusion, my mind overcompensating for what it couldn’t figure out.
Nothing broke contact. Nothing invaded my space. Yet I still couldn’t calm the anxiety engulfing me.
Reality blurred and dizziness began to take my consciousness. I gulped at nothing, fighting with the thickness in the air to fill my lungs with substance.
And then his hand rested on my cheek. His breath swept over my sticky forehead. His presence lulled the terror claiming me and instantly my body turned into him. Air charged into my lungs and I gasped at the sudden rush to my head. “Calm down, Kloe,” Anderson urged. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
I snatched at him, greedy for the feeling of safety his presence brought. “Anderson.” I buried my face in his chest, inhaling his scent and revelling in the feel of him.
He held me tight as I wept, his arms holding me so securely that my already damaged body screamed in agony. But I needed that pain. It grounded me. It gave my mind something other than the nothing to concentrate on.
“Caroline, please leave us,” Anderson ordered.
Caroline didn’t answer but I heard the door close. Anderson shifted on the bed, laying us both down, and his hand cupped the back of my head, drawing me in to him.
“You need to trust that I won’t let anyone in this house that would hurt you, Kloe. You’re safe here.”
My sobs died but I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t tell him I didn’t believe him. He had hurt me so many times that I still couldn’t trust what he told me. So many lies had built so many walls of doubt inside me and it would take more than a few small words to knock them down.
Yet there was a part of me that trusted only him. He was the only person that was capable of soothing the terror inside me, of quietening the raging noise in my head. He was the only one who could take my hand and lead me blindly to where he wanted me to go. And I would go. No matter how much it scared me. Because he carried my soul with him. He always had. Fate had brought us together, and fate would take us through to the end, whatever it had in store for us.
IT HAD BEEN SEVERAL DAYS since Kloe had woken, scared and broken. Although her wounds were starting to heal, the scars on the inside were festering and decaying, the vile things Terry had done to her corroding her soul and eating her from the inside out. She wouldn’t speak of them, wouldn’t open up to me and tell me what he had done or said. She had hidden them in the depths of her, the untouchable part of her I was unable to reach no matter how much I tried.
Her sight was still hindered, not even vague outlines appearing to give us any hope. Mike hadn’t given me much of anything to go on, and although he had checked her eyes as much as Kloe would let him, and he hadn’t found any physical damage, he had mentioned bringing in an ophthalmologist.
Kloe blamed everything on her lack of sight but I could see that was just a portion of what was troubling her. She became bitter, her mood swinging one way and another. She spat hatred and bullied Caroline, forcing her away with words and physical abuse.
Her frustration was becoming intolerable, and I quickly found that although I wanted to ease her pain, take all the rotten things tormenting her and obliterate them, my patience was wearing thin.
I struggled with right and wrong, the fine line between discipline and compassion. I wanted to shake her, hurt her for trying so hard to hurt everyone that was trying to help her. Even Robbie hadn’t been able to get through to her.
The bedroom became her tomb, accommodating all the dead parts of her. Red and I were the only ones she allowed near her. But I was finding it harder and harder to control my own rage with her. I told myself that she was hurting, that Terry had in fact buried himself into her mind like she had refused to believe.
I willed myself to remain calm but I’d never been the most controlled man.
The following Sunday, Kloe’s disturbed mind lashed out at Red. My own pent up infuriation snapped, and everything changed.
It had been a quiet morning. I’d spent a few minutes watching Terry hang from the chains in the basement. As usual he had just smirked at me, yet I wasn’t much up for talking anyway.
Autumn had set in and the leaves were starting to drop. It was Red’s favourite time of year, and mine. She loved to pounce into each high dune of dead leaves in the far corners of the park, her tail whipping from left to right as she tried to bury all of her body beneath each colourful mound. Each squirrel she chased up the high trunks of each tree tormented her from their safe heights, until she discovered their stash of dropped acorns.
I wince
d, chastising her when her teeth crunched on the cast iron buds. “I aint taking you to the vets when you break your teeth, girl.”
Her eyes smiled at me, and in true Red fashion, she turned and headed full pelt into the lake. The water leapt out as she leapt in. My laughter filled the quiet park and I shook my head at her when her head surfaced the top of the water.
It was these days that replenished my lost soul. Being outside, in the middle of such beauty, filled me with a sense of not just existing, but living. So many years all I’d had were walls and stale air. And as if still catching up, I drew a lungful of the fresh air inside me and sighed with pleasure.
The very things that most people took for granted were what allowed me to smile. The simplicity, and sometimes extravagance, of nature was overlooked by many. But not me.
The harsh slap of reality served me a stab to the gut when the fight date shot a bullet through my happiness. There were just over two weeks left. Kloe was far from ready to cope on her own, and apprehension hounded me. Her rehabilitation was going a lot slower than I had anticipated and I needed her to step out of the darkness she cowered inside.
Red nudged my hand, sensing my worry. Her cold wet fur snapped me out of my sour mood and I grumbled at her light-heartedly.
Her tail didn’t stop wagging all the way home; she’d enjoyed her hour of freedom. My heart hurt when I realised, no matter how hard I tried, that I couldn’t give Kloe that freedom from her own mind that she craved.
As soon as I stepped foot inside the house, the loud feral scream and smash from upstairs made my shoulders sag with weariness.
Robbie, who sat at the island in the kitchen, swung his eyes my way and blew out a frustrated breath. He didn’t say anything but he didn’t have to. Everyone was walking on eggshells, tired of the fractured atmosphere that was coating us all in Kloe’s depression.
Red ran off into the house as I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and leaned against the counter to drink it. I needed those few moments to get my head together, to place myself in the zone where I could deal with the woman so full of hate and rage.
Chained (Caged Book 2) Page 9
