Her head flung backwards and bounced off the wall. Fear drained the blood from her face as she tried to shrink away from me. “You think you’re the only one who is hurting! But you’re not! This doesn’t just affect you, it affects us all, including Red. She has done nothing but encourage you. Love you.”
I was so angry that my fingers dug deep into her shoulders as I shook her. Her head bobbed back and forth as I gave into the unrestrained need to punish her. “It’s over! It’s done! Terry may have started this but there’s only you that can finish it! Stop letting him fucking win!”
She blinked at me, her mouth opening and closing. She was trying to find words but struggled with the ability to form any. She stared up at me, her wild blue eyes sweeping over my face as she fixated on my rage.
“I can’t do this with you if you won’t allow me to help you!” I yelled, closing in on her face.
Her eyes widened as they dropped to my mouth and then back up to my eyes. Once again she tried to talk, however, nothing but a puff of air managed to find its way out.
“You’re alienating everyone who can help you. Me included!”
“Anderson.” My name from her was full of shock, a quiet whisper that seemed all too loud in my ears. Her hand lifted and came to rest on my cheek. “You’re so beautiful,” she breathed, her gaze moving over me like she was eating me up with her eyes.
It finally clicked and all the fury overpowering me left my body in a rush of breath. “Kloe?”
A single laugh left her. The tears that had gathered in her eyes spilled over. Her fear transformed into sheer, undiluted happiness. Her eyes moved back to my mouth as her thumb swept across my bottom lip. “I can see you,” she whispered, as though saying it out loud would take everything away from her again.
I framed her face with my hands, staring into the crystal clear irises than owned my heart. Life shone back at me, hope and surprise making her pupils large and greedy. My smile outdid hers. She laughed louder as I pulled her to my body, my arms sliding around her and holding her to me in case she shot for freedom now her sight had returned.
I didn’t need to worry. She lifted her face and reached up on her tiptoes to kiss me. The soft feel of her lips on mine, the taste of her happy tears on my tongue, and the press of her frail body against mine, consumed me.
She moaned in desire and sobbed in joy, both piercing my gut and making me squeeze her tighter.
“I’m sorry,” she said against my mouth. “I’m so sorry, Anderson.”
“Shut up and kiss me again,” I groaned. “I missed you.”
Her hands slid up my back and into my hair. Pressing the back of my head, she guided my mouth back to hers, and she kissed me like she had missed me just as much.
Her little body climbed mine and her legs came around me.
Shaking my head, I lifted her back down. “Not yet.” I could see the need in her eyes, the greed for me exposed so openly on her beautiful face. “Slowly, Kloe. We do this slowly.”
She frowned, her bottom lip disappearing behind her teeth. “But I need you.”
I smiled softly, stroking my knuckles over her cheek. “You think you need me. You’ve been through too much. Terry hurt you so much.”
She knew I was referring to him raping her. She gulped, her large eyes shimmering with both horror and adoration. “But you’re not Terry. The pain you inflict lights me up. It comes with love and devotion, not hatred and cruelty.”
She sighed against me when I scooped her into my arms and carried her into the bathroom attached to my bedroom. Seating her onto the toilet, I started to run a bath. She watched me silently, her eyes moving over everything as she hungrily devoured reality.
Filling the tub with a mass of bubbles, I stripped her naked, biting my lip at each scar that covered her pale skin, and lowered her into the warm water.
We didn’t speak, we just allowed the calm to heal us as I washed her hair and bathed her broken body.
The tears that rolled down her cheeks seized my heart and fractured it little by little. But I didn’t disturb her grieving as I continued to care for her; she needed to let it take her. It was the only way.
“You need to know something.” She spoke quietly but turned to look at me.
I frowned and nodded, urging her to go on.
She appeared to struggle for a while but forced the words out. “Terry said something that didn’t make sense at first.”
My skin prickled with a sense of foreboding. “What?”
“He kept referring to ‘him’. How he would be so happy, so pleased with Terry. That soon, when he arrived, things would change. For all of us.”
The beat of my heart stilled and my eyes widened on her. “That doesn’t make sense.”
She swallowed, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them as her body heaved with a sudden chill. “There’s another player, Anderson. Someone else is involved in all this.”