“I’m fine.”
She took stock of her surroundings, waited for the impulse to flee, but it didn’t come. It didn’t come. This was exactly where she wanted to be. Her gaze flew to Connor’s. Such intensity poured from him, she didn’t know whether to soar or collapse under the heaviness of it. Soar. She wanted to soar. He’d made her soar. Without another thought, she launched herself at him. His arms stayed at his sides even though she could sense it took a shit-ton of restraint. She couldn’t get close enough to him. Her body climbed his, reveling in the smell of his skin, the life of him.
“Thank God,” he chanted, letting her kiss his shoulders, his face. “Thank God. Thank God.”
“I’m really fine. I mean…I-I don’t know when or if I’ll be okay with hands. Your hands. But I never thought.” She buried her face in his damp neck and sucked in his scent. “I never thought.”
He walked backward and sat down in a chair, taking her with him. For the first time, weakness in her limbs didn’t feel like a disadvantage. Or letting her guard down. No, she felt safe. Always safe with him. She wanted him to feel the same way with her, but she couldn’t form the words so she squeezed him tight in an attempt to express it. This didn’t feel like her triumph alone, but something they’d accomplished together. Something she’d never thought possible.
The blinding wave of emotion carried words that wouldn’t be held inside any longer. “It wasn’t always this bad. The noise…the panic was there, but I could still move. I didn’t freeze up and turn useless when someone touched me. It was like a bee sting I could ignore. Or try to.” Connor had gone still beneath her, but he didn’t say anything to encourage her. Just stayed silent like she needed. “My mother didn’t plan on dying. If she had, I hope…I don’t think…she would have left me with my stepfather. I don’t remember everything, but I remember the fighting. Them acting like strangers.”
Connor sucked in a breath, like he was bracing himself.
“The first time I acted out at school, he put me in the closet for two days. I don’t even remember what I did…pulled a fire alarm to get out of a test or something.” She threw up a mental block against the feeling of being trapped that first time. The confusion. “I stopped making trouble after that, but it didn’t matter. Out of sight was out of mind for him. It took nothing…nothing, and I’d be in the closet. Longer each time.”
She’d started missing so much school, it hadn’t been worth going back at a certain point. Too many missed classes, failed tests. Catching up would have been impossible. Once, a guidance counselor had visited the house. She’d screamed herself hoarse throughout the morning so she couldn’t even call out to the woman. Like one of those nightmares where your vocal cords have been cut. Through the closet door, she’d heard her stepfather explain that she’d gone to live with her mother. A mother she could barely remember anymore through the terror she faced every day. A mother who had been dead and gone for months.
“When I finally broke out…” The familiar surge of ease washed over her as it always did when she remembered her ability to escape. “I stayed away awhile. Went to prison the first time. When I went back, I burned his house down while he slept in the back room. There was this noise in my head…it drove me. I couldn’t see anything but the flames and it felt so good to have that control burning in my hands, you know? I thought he died. He didn’t.”
“I’m glad he didn’t die,” Connor’s hard voice broke in. Beneath her, his massive chest heaved. “I’d hate to lose the opportunity to kill him myself.”
It was tempting to let herself curl up and bask in his anger on her behalf. It felt foreign yet wonderful to have someone on her side. But she needed to get the rest out. Purge it. Make him understand what he was signing on for. “After I escaped the first time from Dade and they sent me back…I had a target on my back with the guards. They left me in the hole for a long time. It could have been a day or a month. I don’t know.” She blew out a breath. “I don’t even remember what I was like before I went in. It broke me.”
“No, it didn’t. You’re whole. You survived.” He cut himself off and Erin got the feeling he was composing himself. “I can’t think of you down there in the dark. I can’t.”
She traced his collarbone with her lips while considering his words. “Maybe my stepfather can’t be killed. Even if he can, the fear he’s put in me, the fear the guards put in me, won’t go away. Never completely.”
“You don’t know that.”
Bolstering her courage, she told him the worst of it. “They have no proof I set the fire, but he knows. He wants to put me away, Connor. Institutionalize me.” He didn’t respond. What did the silence mean? “Sometimes I think that’s where I belong.”