18

18

STACEY

No one speaks to me as I hurry to my room, covered in blood, and I stop at Kade’s door opposite mine, opening it slightly to pop my head in. He’s asleep on his back, arm slung over his eyes, his other hand resting on his chest. A glistening layer of sweat coats his skin, and his brows are drawn together.

Tobias locked the windows, just in case he tried to jump out.

I’ve witnessed withdrawal before, but Kade’s situation is different. He’s mainly traumatised from everything he’s endured over the past three years. He doesn’t believe he’s safe and with his family.

I think that’s the scariest part. Watching the light vanish in his eyes as he dissociates and goes elsewhere in his mind. He throws up a wall and closes himself off from the real world.

A cracked shell.

The drugs are just the tip of the iceberg.

Tobias and Aria found thirty-six scars on his body; four injuries that have gone untreated. He has tattoos covering most of them, but some are still visible.

I close his door and go to my room, turning on the shower and freezing when I stare at my hands. Blood is dried under my nails.

When I get under the spray, I scrub until my skin is raw, washing my hair three times until I feel clean enough. I brush my teeth and spend nearly an hour drying my hair.

By the time I walk back over to Kade’s room, he’s awake. His eyes are fixed on the ceiling. Dazed. He doesn’t look at me as I gently close the door behind me with a soft click.

The mattress dips beneath me as I sit down, still keeping my distance. A glow from the lamp is the only light in the room; it casts a shadow down the side of his face, making the muscles on his body more defined.

Yes, he has lost weight and is paler than usual, but he’s still lean, attractive, and I want so badly to lie my head on his chest and stay there forever.

Hell, I’ve lost a lot of my muscle mass. I haven’t danced, trained or worked out in so long. I’ve been going for a short jog around the lodge, Tobias usually joining me and telling me to slow down, but that’s all.

Our lives have just kind of… stalled.

Unsure where the boundaries are for him at the moment, I lie down on my side to face him. “Is this okay?”

His chin dips in acknowledgment, but he barely blinks, still staring at the ceiling. Another person may think he’s tapping his chest, but I know it’s a spasm. Sometimes they’re not so bad, and other times, it seems he can barely move without trembling.

It’s only been two days. And all I keep thinking is that Bernadette will come for him. She’s going to torture him all over again. Archie too.

I don’t want to lose him again. I’m so fed up of losing him.

Ten minutes pass, then Kade, who’s been still as a statue, fists his hand against his chest, stopping the sudden tremor that’s affected his fingers.

Suddenly realising I’m here, he pulls the face covering up, as if trying to do it without me noticing. The black material sits at his top lip, below his nose, and stops at his chest.

I wish he didn’t feel like he needed to hide from me.

“We’re going to go back to the manor as soon as Luciella is here and it’s safe,” I tell him. “I was going to come too, since I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

That last part stings worse than expected. I can’t go back with Kyle, so I really do have nowhere to go. Nowhere to call home.

“We could walk the dogs together.”

Fidgeting with the corner of the pillow, I settle my head on it again. I know he won’t speak to me, and that’s fine. He knows I’m here, and I always will be.

“I can stream The Greatest Showman on Barry’s laptop. Do you want to watch it? I can’t promise not to sing.”

My heart restarts as his head turns to the side, his eyes on me. His chin dips again, but before I can sit up to go get the laptop, he croakily says, “Stay.”

“Okay,” I reply in a soft voice, taking his hand from his chest and bringing it to my lips. I press a kiss to his knuckles, waiting to see his reaction. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His body strains a few times, and he blinks rapidly before asking, “Why?”

I frown. “Why what?”

He wets his lips, running his hand through his hair, messing it. His words are slurred, his eyes unfocused. “I don’t know why you’re here. Is it… Is it because you f-feel bad? Am I imagining you here? Does Stacey know you’re here? Did you pay me? Have I lost you?”

“Kade. I am Stacey.” I tighten my grip on his hand as the questions keep mindlessly falling from his lips. “I’m your forever, remember?”

Shaking his head, he tries to pull out of my grasp, repeatedly muttering a no. His sweaty hand slips from mine, and he quickly gets to his feet.

He backs up until he hits the wall then slides down it and stares right through me. Tobias said when this happens to just remain calm, to remind him that he isn’t alone. But when I try to talk, my voice cracks in my throat. “Kade, I… I’m here.”

He’s silent, and as I crawl off the bed and get closer to him, I see tears track down his cheeks, his face contorted in pain. “Make it stop,” he says, begs, pleads with me. “Please make it stop. Please, please, please. Do you have my gun? Can I have it? I need to kill them.”

He’s hallucinating, flinching like someone threw something at him.

I wish I could make it stop. If I could take it all away from him, all the demons and the bad memories, I would. I’d take them all to my grave and keep them buried with me, so he’d never suffer again.

We barely make it to the toilet before he vomits. I rub his back in small circles, and he warns me not to look at his face as I try to wipe his mouth. With the material a bundle on the floor, he covers his chin and neck with his arm.

“I have scars too. Look,” I say as I pull the nightdress down at the front, showing him the one Chris made with the key. “You don’t need to hide from me, because I’m the same.”

I show him my thigh, behind my ear and my scalp.

When we were together, I never had any scars. Chris was careful to keep his abuse to bruises only. I think I have about nine altogether now.

Kade shakily raises his finger and pulls down the front of my nightdress again. Any other person would see it as sexual, but I know it’s not. He isn’t looking at my naked breasts; he isn’t even paying attention to them as he runs his finger down the purple line.

“Did your brother do that?”

“All of them are from him,” I reply.

“I’ll kill him,” he says, as if he can’t remember he ripped him apart already. “Did Barry locate him?”

My heart breaks for Kade. “I think you should rest. He can’t get me anymore.”

His glazed eyes lift to my face, his other hand still hiding his chin. “Because you’re with me? I can keep you safe?”

“Yeah. He’ll never be able to hurt me again. I promise.”

Kade’s eyes darken, and he drops both hands to his parted knees. His grey sweats are the only clothing he’s wearing. “I’m going to kill him when I see him.”

I gulp and nod, helping him to his feet and out of the bathroom. The room is in darkness aside from the light glow of the moon outside.

Frantic fingers wrap around my wrist when I try to sneak out once he’s in bed. I want to go and ask Aria if the delusional stage is usually as extreme and sudden, or if it’s a trauma response to shut out memories.

How can he have forgotten what he did to Chris?

“Stacey isn’t going to forgive me,” he says as he tightens his grip on my wrist. “She’s going to think I’m disgusting.”

“I don’t.”

“I had to do a lot,” he says. His pupils are dilated as he stares through me again. “If she knew what Archie did to me, she’d never go near me again.”

“No, that’s not true.” My bottom lip quivers, and I catch it between my teeth, a painful rushing sound in my ears. “I… Stacey loves you.”

“Do you think so?”

I’m catapulted back to that night in America, where I had to take Kade to the hotel room. He was drugged and thought I was a client. He had no idea I was Stacey and spoke about me. Maybe it wasn’t the drugs; maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him.

Déjà vu is kicking my ass right now.

Do I think Stacey loves Kade? Infinity times yes.

I asked myself on his private jet, minutes after he whisked me away to protect me from Bernadette, if I was in love with him. I said I wasn’t sure.

But I’ve never not been in love with Kade.

This rough patch he’s in, we’ll get through it together. Even if it takes years until I get a glimpse of my Kade back. I know he’d do the same for me.

A tear slides down my cheek as I lie on the pillow beside Kade, facing him. “Yeah, she loves you so, so much. She thinks you’re strong and brave, and all she—” My voice breaks. “All she wants to do is cuddle you.”

He hums then goes silent as his face contorts, another spasm vibrating through his body. He grabs his stomach and winces, then settles as he tries to control each breath.

Still as stone, his exposed chest rises and falls as he stares at nothing. The only clue that he’s even breathing. I want to reach over and trace the new scars on his side, a large indent against his ribs that isn’t fresh.

There’s a tattoo over it, and something in my chest twists as I make out what it is.

A bunch of dead roses have been inked across his ribs to hide an injury. I have ones that look the exact same on my back.

“What happened to your side?” I ask, hoping he doesn’t recoil from my question.

His middle finger trails over the indent. “I crashed my car before I went to Russia. I… I was trying to get to her. But I was too late.”

After a few minutes of silence, he looks over at me, and his glazed eyes brighten a touch. Confused, he asks, “Is that you, Freckles?”

I fist the duvet and pull it over me, tucking it under my chin. “Yeah,” I breathe into the dark. “It’s me.”

He sighs, and as he takes in my face, his bloodshot eyes studying me, I feel content. Enough so that I fall asleep with his hand on my cheek, faintly feeling his thumb stroking under my eye.

The last thing I hear are whispered words in Russian.

“Moya vechnost.”