“Go get some sleep; I will wait with her till Orion comes back,” he says, rubbing Thaddeus’ thigh.
Thaddeus shakes his head. “I can’t, the bed feels empty,” he murmurs, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. He growls and turns to me, a glare on his face. “You need to sleep; why do you keep fighting it?”
I ignore him, for days they have asked the same question. At least when Orion is here, he doesn’t ask, he just leaves me be.
“I want to go home. I was fine until I came here,” I tell him, and he growls louder, making my heart rate pick up and thump erratically in my chest.
“Come, I will lay with you till you fall asleep,” Ryland says to him.
Thaddeus sighs and gets up, and I feel bad knowing I am the reason they remain awake. Yet, if they dreamed the things I did, they wouldn’t want to sleep either. But I can’t tell them that, can’t let them find out what I have done. I will only relive what he did, what I did. I’m not proud of it. I did what I had to, but at what cost? Am I any better than the monsters I now live with?
Ryland and Thaddeus head upstairs, and I find myself staring off blankly for a while before I try to rest my eyes. They feel dry and sore so I close them for a few seconds. I let myself drift.
My mind slips into unconsciousness. The dream starts the way it always does. The creak of stairs. The top step was always loudest and creaked under any weight. I tug the blanket around myself, praying he walks past my door, letting out a breath when I hear his steps move past to his bedroom. Relief floods me.
He always touched me, from the first night I moved in with them. Fear paralyzes me each time, and I blame myself for being weak and not fighting back. After that first night, he would always sneak in but never do more than grope me, touch me. But that night, I heard him walk past the door, and relief flooded into me, thinking I would finally get rest.
Only, I heard him stop. Not hearing his door click shut made me hold my breath. His footsteps returned, getting louder. The twist of my doorknob as it turned is forever engraved in my head.
The smell of bourbon filled the room, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I know he is standing next to my bed, and I feel dread creep into me, feel his eyes roam over every inch of my covered body. Only this time, he doesn’t touch me. This time, he does something way worse, something so painful that I feel my heart break into a thousand pieces. My soul is shattered; fear paralyzes me for a second until I feel him remove everything.
I struggle, but he is so heavy, and I am small and trapped beneath him. My fear consumes me when I hear his voice next to my ear. “Struggle and Lana is next. You don’t want me to hurt little Lana, now do you?”
My mind goes to her in the room a few doors down, she got here a week after me. She was ten; I was nearly sixteen. As far as I knew, he never touched her. Lana assured me he never did when we escaped, but that night, what he said paralyzed me instantly. I remember her innocent face, her blonde ringlets that hung to the middle of her back, and her blue, doe eyes. We had become close, having both grown up in foster care. We shared the same struggles and knew how lonely a place it was.
The thought of her made me freeze, and I watched, praying I would pass out from the pain, praying his wife would come home and stop him. Neither happened, and I was forced to endure and watch the terrible things he did, silent tears running down my face. Minutes felt like hours but when he was done, he walked out, leaving me there. My sheets turned red with the blood of my innocence; my soul bled out of me. I was used goods, nothing but filth, and I felt so dirty, pathetic. The shame that came with what he did kept me silent. Shame was what stopped me from speaking out. Shame made me endure for an entire year after that, shame and fear of what he would do if I tried to stop him.
And right now, my dreams are forcing me to relive it. I struggle to force myself to wake. I subconsciously know I am dreaming and not there, but the dream is sucking me in. My heart pounds in my chest when I suddenly break out of it, sitting upright. I gasp for air, drenched in sweat; my skin feels cold, and my lungs are restricted. The TV has gone into sleep mode and switched off; the place is completely dark and silent except for the erratic sound of my breathing.
Looking around, I notice Orion still isn’t back. I do not know how long I was asleep, but it was probably minutes, as my eyes still feel like sandpaper. Getting up, I hunt for my pills until I remember I have none left. My entire body is trembling, and the dark makes me feel claustrophobic. I flick on the lights, illuminating the house. Sitting on the couch, I try to calm myself and ground myself.
I can hear movement upstairs before hearing footsteps on the stairs. Ryland must have felt my panic as he suddenly appears at the bottom of the stairs, looking alarmed and looking for danger. His eyes fall on me, and he sits on the couch furthest from me.
“You, okay?” he asks. I can see something flicker in his eyes, something I can’t decipher. I nod. “You know he can take it away?” he says, making my eyes snap to his.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“Whatever happened that haunts you, Thaddeus can make it stop, make you forget,” he says.
I want to forget…What I would do to forget, to erase that year from my memory. “How?” I ask.
“By telling him what happened, he can erase it all,” Ryland says.
I shake my head; I can’t do that. I can’t let anyone know. The thought alone disgusts me and makes bile rise in my throat.
Ryland stands up, his entire body radiates anger, and his eyes darken. His canines protrude, and I feel fear creep in. “You’re not the only one affected by it; you realize that, don’t you? You need to either deal with it or let him remove it. Evelyn, I can’t keep feeling what you feel with no fucking answers. Every emotion you feel, I feel. Your fear, sadness, shame, and guilt, your fucking exhaustion. I feel it all, and it is infuriating that I can feel everything and not know what is causing it. They can feel it too, through me. You are turning our fucking bond into a curse!” he yells at me.
I stay silent and eventually, he storms upstairs. “You think feeling it is bad? Try fucking reliving it!” I scream back at him as anger bubbles through me.
Ryland freezes. A menacing growl escapes him before he suddenly stands in front of me.
“I didn’t ask for this. You all brought me here; you brought it back. I was fine until you fucking walked into my life!” I scream at him.