“Why are you doing this?” she whispers.
I have no answers I’m willing, or able, to give, so I silence her with a glower before getting towels for her, and swathing her head in one and her body in another. I decide to get her dried and braid her hair, before I do anything else. She’s more than capable of doing it, but I’m trying to amend my mistakes.
I dig out a band T-shirt with long sleeves and help her into it, before covering her feet with a pair of my socks. Once I’m settled in bed, I turn my back to her. She has to feel the consequences of her lack of discipline.
A sound escapes her throat. She’s crying. I ignore her. When our time together ends, she has to know that she’s strong enough to get through anything in life without resorting to drugs.
Chapter Twenty One
Georgie
I’m falling into a dark, bottomless abyss. Every time I attempt to catch my breath and prevent my descent, the pull becomes greater. Mid-air, I twist and turn. At times, I’m moving at terminal velocity. Just as quickly, I’m floating, barely. I know I’m falling, though. Sickness is washing through me and my lungs are about to explode.
“Sloane!”
Hands grab me, but, they aren’t his. They belong to my mother, so I look toward those hands and scream. Mom is gray, swinging from a rope, her feet dangling. Her neck is broken and she’s dead. Isn’t she? She must be dead. Her body starts to spin and the hemp twists, irrevocably knotted.
Writhing around, I scream.
Mom isn’t dead, because her morbid hands reach for me again.
“What have you done, Georgiana?”
Her accusing tone is horrid. I’m no longer her Georgie. No longer her flesh-and-blood.
My freefall has suspended and I’m there with Mom. Both of us are dead, I think. Or not dead, and living in a frightening middle realm. Mom is broken. Visibly, so. Her neck lulls to the side in an ungodly position, and her legs are twitching, but she’s staring at me, her gaze boring into the deepest recesses of my soul, exposing my brokenness.
She screams and reaches for me, the talons that she once called hands digging into my jugular, and washing the blackness of my dream into a sea of red.
Another scream startles me to wakefulness. I bolt up, yanking the clothes off my body. I’m drenched in sweat and bathed in darkness. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. I hadn’t been dreaming. It was real. My mother is hanging from…from the air…and she’s killed me. My hands fly to my cheeks and swipe at the wetness. I can’t see but I know it must be blood. They roam to my neck and I scream again.
I’m dead. I’m dying. I’ve gone to hell.
Please, help me. Someone. Anyone.
I reach out, searching. Before she pulls me away, I want to see Sloane.
“Sloane!” I yell his name at the top of my lungs, but the darkness doesn’t abate. “Sloane, please.”
I jerk myself from…I don’t know who…Mom is gone. Where’d she go? She’s lying in wait for me, ready to pounce.
Another scream falls from my mouth. Suddenly, light bathes the room. The visions and apparitions slowly drift away, and awareness of my surroundings free me from my terror.
Kiln stands at the foot of the bed, hands clenched, staring at me. He’s wearing boxers, but it isn’t hiding his erection. My breasts are visible to him. I’ve torn off my T-Shirt and pushed the covers down to my waist because I’m overheated. Even now, sweat clings to me.
I draw my knees up and avert my eyes, silently giving him the control I know men want. Sloane said to hide from no one, but how can I not, when I want to collapse inside of myself?
He steps closer.
“Look at me.”
I don’t. I lay my cheek against my knees and tighten my arms around them. “Where’s Sloane?”
He doesn’t answer, so I lift my head and glare at him. That smirk is back.
“You don’t like me.”
Shrugging, he sits on the side of the bed, close to me. Too close to me. He always seems to wrestle with something when I’m around him.
“I don’t like Sloane,” he confesses.
This isn’t exactly news. It breaks my heart when I think of the way they all act around each other. Phoenix Rising isn’t the band I know and love. Whatever happened seems irreparable.
Kiln slides closer. I scoot back, until the headboard halts me. I really haven’t gone far. Worse, I have to lean close to him to reclaim the top sheet and comforter. I must’ve kicked them that far down during my nightmare.
His gaze drops to my breasts. I cover them with my hands.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt. “I-I shouldn’t have made out with you like I did. That was wrong of me.”
Desire darkens his eyes and his nostrils flare. I’m so scared he’s going to rape me. Trembles rock my being.
“Do you know what Sloane did to me?” he asks softly. “How he wrecked me?”
“No,” I push out.
He continues to consider me. His relationship with Sloane is much more complex than just money, much darker than just greed.
“Where’s Sloane?”