Chapter 30

THIRTY

DOMHNALL

I woke up from a nap with Brooke still cradling me against her stomach in her lap. I pulled away and sat up, feeling strange. Stranger than I can ever remember feeling.

I felt drugged with comfort and… happiness. Like it was the first time in maybe my whole life that I’d felt what people mean when they say they feel at home .

Which freaked me the fuck out, so I immediately launched out of bed and asked Brooke if she was hungry. I’m supposed to be the one taking care of her .

Professor Roberts visited in the late afternoon and had a session with Brooke. I was worried about how it would go.

Alright. I was fucking terrified Brooke would see the light and leave with her. But Brooke just came out looking thoughtful and said she’d rather not talk about it. I was careful not to ask or pry. I’m trying a new thing called not-being-an-asshole. I don’t like it.

Things stayed in lighter territory over dinner. Then Brooke took a shower, and we started Titanic—one of her favorite movies back in the day—curled up in bed. That bizarre, homey feeling hit me hard again.

I’m about to turn off the movie at the halfway point before the ship starts sinking, just like she always used to make me do. But when I look over at her, she’s already out. I only pause it instead of turning it off. I like looking at her in the glow of the TV light.

I can’t imagine sleeping now that I’ve got her in my arms. I curl us in the bed on our sides, her back to my chest, and wrap an arm around her waist.

Fuck she feels so good in my arms. I can’t believe we’re here. I can’t believe I’m this lucky of a bastard.

So when’s the other shoe gonna drop?

Cause good shit like this just doesn’t happen to a lad like me. Yeah I got money, but I was still a miserable bastard, so it felt balanced.

Now though…

Happiness? Like the real, true deep kind?

I frown furiously at the warm feelings in my belly that have nothing to do with lust. Fucking feelings . How do I manage the goddamned unruly things and still stay in control? I’d say I was better off without them, but if they’re the price I have to pay for Brooke being here, I’ll man up and deal with it. I grit my teeth. One way or another.

I have to stay in control now more than ever. The stakes have never been higher.

Brooke makes an uneasy noise and shifts in my arms.

“Shhh,” I soothe and set my chin on the top of her head, enveloping her completely. She settles and I relax around her. “We’re going to be okay,” I whisper. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

I try to stay awake. I need to stay vigilant in case she needs me. Eventually my eyelids get heavy, though. I’ll just rest them for a few seconds at a time…

…

…

A scream startles me awake.

“No!” Madison cries at an ear-splitting volume. “NO! I’ll be good, I promise . Please! NO! ”

“Mads! Brooke!” I try to hold her and shake her awake but she fights me so I let her go. Finally she screams herself awake, almost falling off the bed. I catch her at the last second, lassoing my arms around her waist. I let her go again as soon as she’s safe, knowing she might not want the touch right now.

“Brooke, are you okay?”

The TV’s turned itself off at some point so I reach over and flip on the lamp beside the bed .

Brooke’s eyes are wide and terrified, darting left and right until she finally seems to register me there on the bed beside her.

“Donny.” Her voice is reedy and thin, and she’s fisting the blanket. She still looks like she’s in some terrified trance.

I get closer to her on the bed, reaching for her again. She yanks back so I pull my arms away, holding them wide so she knows she’s safe. She’s like a spooked animal right now.

“You’re safe,” I say carefully. “It’s just me here. You’re safe.”

“More light.” She yanks the covers up to her chest.

I nod and launch out of the bed to turn on the overhead light and several other lamps around the room until it’s as bright as it can be without daylight. I glance at the clock. Four-thirty in the morning. Sunrise isn’t for another couple hours.

She’s breathing so hard. Whatever was in that nightmare, it scared the shit out of her. She’s still so fucking terrified.

And I feel as inept as I have all day.

I don’t know how to help her.

Useless stupid little fucking dog .

I shake my head.

“Can we do a scene?” she says suddenly, “Please. I need you to hurt me.” As she says it, she reaches out unexpectedly and grasps my forearms.

Wrenching out of her grasp is a knee-jerk reaction. “Don’t touch me. ”

She turns away from me and starts to cry. Loud, wracking sobs as she pulls herself into a little ball on the bed.

And I fucking hate myself. I want to punch myself in the face. Fifty lashes on the back wouldn’t be enough. Pain. I need pain.

“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. We don’t have to do that shit anymore. I’m sorry for fucking everything, Mad—I mean, Brooke. Fuck!”

I reach out tentatively and put a hand on her back. When she allows that, I pull her into my arms again and thank god, she lets me, dropping her head against my chest. Thank fuck I can allow some touches.

She only rests her head for a moment, though, before lifting her face to stare up at me with tear-filled eyes. “I don’t want you to see me as broken. I’m not something to be put behind glass because I’m too delicate and too fucked up.”

“What?” I bark, at the same time hating all the ways I understand why she thinks that. “I don’t?—”

I breathe out harshly and meet her piercing gaze. “Me either. I want to be the man you needed back then. I’m trying to be.”

My guts twist. She’s in my arms now but it feels fucking selfish even though I know she was hurt when I pulled away a moment ago.

But how fucking dare I even fucking lay a finger on her after failing her so badly? I know we were both in some fairyland for a little while with the sun and the pool today, trying to pretend the whole world didn’t exist.

But then she saw the truth of me. She saw that I’m a weak, unworthy fuck. And I always have been. I spent all these years so angry at her when I’m the one who failed her so badly back then.

“Mads,” I manage to growl out between gritted teeth. “I fucking left you with him. All I saw was my own shit instead of realizing that you—” I glare down. “—That you needed me to save you.”

She throws her arms around my neck and crawls into my lap. I scoop her up and crush her to me. Her hands cup the back of my head like I’m something precious in the world to her, when everyone else me whole life only looked on me like I was shite to be scraped off their boot?—

“You were just a kid, too,” she whispers, eyes searching mine while more tears run down her cheeks.

I wasn’t though. At least not compared to her. And now she has nightmares from whatever he did to her.

What the fuck did he do to her to make her scream like that?

What has she pushed down in her lake? She can’t remember right now. But that doesn’t mean she never will.

Cause don’t I remember? Everything always came up out of the lake eventually. There was a drought this one year, and the water dried up. It got to be so there was more shit than there was lake. All the rusted cars and busted up bikes and freezers and mountains of trash people’d tried to bury there got exposed to the bright light of day again. Another year, a body floated up to shore.

Everything always comes up out of the lake, one way or another.

The pain’s got to come out somehow. Right now it’s just screaming nightmares. But whatever else is down there… one day there’ll be a drought. One day she’ll remember and god help us both.

The pain in her eyes still wet with tears feels like a whip. No, it slams harder than a whip ever could. Like a knife, it slices deep. Because it’s her pain.

Oh god, the weight of it is really just hitting me now. He had her for her whole life .

I force myself to keep looking into her eyes. He took my body and yeah, me mind too, it felt like most days, but it was still only four months. I know I’m a broken man, but if it had gone on much longer, I woulda fractured in ways I couldn’t have come back from. If I ever even have.

I don’t look away from her eyes, glimpsing all she doesn’t even know she knows yet. The way he was, with his specific proclivities— I don’t think he would’ve touched his own daughter. It would’ve been her mind he’d enjoy twisting the most… but God only knows with that sick smear of a shite.

She needs me to get my shit together. She needs me to stay in control. I failed her before but I won’t now .

I hold her face in my hands. “Stay here, love. I’ll be right back.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t leave me alone. I need you, Domhn. I feel like I’m shattering into pieces without you. I can’t keep myself together unless you’re here.”

“It’s alrigh’, love. I know. I’ll be back in half a minute. Just stay right here. Don’t twitch a muscle. Can ya do t’at for me?”

She looks terrified but nods.

I let go of her and hurry off the bed, sprinting to my office. I grab what I’m looking for and come back before she can even miss me.

I find her staring desolately at the wall, and her face only comes back to life when she sees me again. She immediately reaches for me, and I sit down beside her again, holding the object behind my back.

“On your knees,” I say sternly.

Her eyes widen in surprise and interest, and I also note the way they snap back to focus. She’s fully here with me, the haze of terror gone. She climbs off the bed and drops to her knees on the soft carpet at my feet, face down.

I breathe out in relief. I was right. This is what we both need.

“You might not be ready to wear my ring, but I’ve been waiting to give you this for a long, long time. This is no command. Only accept it if you want to.”

Reverently, I get on one knee and hold the supple leather collar with the large, dangling diamond in front of where her face is bowed.

“Be mine.”