Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 75783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“I thought you might like this,” Dawson says as he sets the art tools down on the bed beside me. “Look, I understand that you don’t want to talk to me right now. If I were in your shoes, I’d be upset too. But you have to trust that I did everything in my power to protect you. I failed, and that’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life. But now that you’re here, I just want you to get better.”
He looks at me like he’s waiting for me to respond, and I don’t. After a moment he lets out a slow exhale and nods, accepting that I don’t want to speak to him. He just leaves the art supplies on my bed and walks out of the room.
I pick up the sketchbook and consider trying to lose myself in my art, but I’m too depressed to even try. The thought of holding a pencil in my hand and trying to think of something that would bring me joy is nearly impossible. It’s taking everything in my power not to break down and sob uncontrollably as is.
Instead, I put the drawing supplies on the nightstand and lie down to close my eyes. I’m used to Dawson insisting that I sleep alongside him now, but we are somewhere else, and we’re supposedly safe, so he doesn’t.
Sleep finds me, and for the first few blissful hours, I am away from the torment that has been haunting me since Friday. But then it infiltrates my dreams, and all I can think about is being dragged into Malik’s brothel and tossed into a room while people peeked their heads in to see who was waiting there. I think about the person who saw me battered and bloody and thought I was exactly who they wanted to fuck for the night.
I still feel the man’s breath on my neck as I think about him holding me against the mattress and calling me names. I scream out and beg for him to stop as he fights to hold me still on the mattress.
The light turns on in the room, and I’m awoken from my sleep, covered in sweat with the blankets twisted around me. My breath is ragged, and the dream clings to me like reality, which it very unfortunately was.
“What’s wrong?” Dawson asks with worry thick in his voice.
“It was just a dream,” I say, still panting from the panic I felt. I lean forward and hold my head in my hands as I try to fight the memories resurfacing all over again.
I think about my stepdad when I was fourteen, Malik, Richard, the man from the brothel, and everyone else who’s ever hurt me. I can’t fight the memories like I used to.
Dawson approaches and sits on the edge of the bed as he rubs his hand in a circle on my back. Neither of us says anything while I squeeze my eyes shut and force myself to think about something that makes me happy. It’s hard to find, but it’s enough to help me calm down.
“It was only a dream. You’re safe now,” Dawson whispers as he continues massaging my shoulders. “I’m right here, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
I don’t say anything. Rather, I focus on deep breathing to calm my nerves. It takes a few minutes, but I am able to force the dream away and focus on the present, where I’m in a room that nobody knows about, and I’m actually safe.
I lie back down to go to sleep again, and instead of leaving the room, Dawson grabs an extra pillow from the bed and sets it on the floor beside it. I look at him curiously as he settles down to sleep on the floor beside the bed.
A part of me is touched that he would go through something as uncomfortable as sleeping on the floor just to make sure I’m comfortable. A small part of my mind is telling me that Dawson has protected me, and he did save me.
But then again, none of this would be happening if it wasn’t for him.
Chapter 27
Dawson
Even though Harper has made it clear she wants her space, I can’t help but feel like she’s warming up to me again. At the very least, she’s eating. That’s progress.
I give her as much space as I can, knowing she needs it right now. I’m not going to be aggressive or force her to act a certain way. I don’t have that authority right now, anyway. Before, she thought she was under this contract to get her art school tuition paid for, and now she knows that’s bullshit.
I’m sitting in the living room watching the news on mute so I can listen carefully to anything happening in the house. The odds of Malik finding the safe house are slim, but it doesn’t hurt to be paranoid right now. My phone rings, and I pull it out of my pocket, hoping it’s Xander or Quinton with some kind of information about where Malik might be.