Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
“Sophia!”
“Don’t, please!”
Spinning around, she scrambles up the stairs, and he grabs the banister, vaulting up after her.
Lifting my arm to my nose, I sniff. I didn’t wear any cologne tonight, but there’s a perfume.
There were women on me and…him. I was close to him.
I smell again, catching the scent.
The Wolfe Room was perfumed. I could smell it as soon as I walked in, like the Garden of Eden, coupled with the décor and music meant to transport us into another realm.
Realization dawns. She knows what the Wolfe Room smells like.
I open the door and walk in, hearing glass and other things crashing and smashing on the second floor.
“Sophia!” he bellows. “It’s okay!”
“Why?” she wails. “Why, why, why…”
Taking a quick glance to make sure no one else is around, I ascend the stairs softly but quickly. Hugging my back to the wall, I slide down to a bedroom.
“Sophia!” he growls.
Peering through the crack, I watch him grab her, but she flails, screaming.
He can’t keep hold of her, and she goes wild, shoving everything off her little makeup table.
“Does that help?!” he hollers, jamming his foot into her dresser drawers again and again and again.
She scurries back, sobbing as she grabs a lamp and shatters it on the floor.
“Dammit!” he growls, balling his fists. “Knock it off!”
She clutches her head, screaming as tears stream down her face.
“I didn’t do anything bad,” he shouts. “I never do anything!”
I can hear the sobs caught in his throat, and I don’t even breathe, afraid he’ll see me.
What the fuck is going on?
“I can’t enjoy anything because of you!” he fires back. “And him!”
He pulls her to him, shaking her, and I fire up every muscle, ready to get her away from him.
But then he shouts. “I warned you!” he blusters in her face. “I fucking warned you, didn’t I?”
Warned her about what?
She squirms in his hold.
“Stop it,” he bites out.
She slaps her fists into the sides of her head, still shaking it back and forth, back and forth.
“Stop it, or I’m calling Silver Lane!” he shouts.
One of the institutions she was in while he was in college.
All of a sudden, she sucks in a breath, a jolt straightening her spine, and she folds, Callum falling to the floor, catching her as she collapses.
She inhales and exhales rapidly, almost hyperventilating, and all I see are her sneakers kicking as she struggles to breathe.
Callum cradles her, his back to me, but he doesn’t call for help. He doesn’t try to get her to breathe.
Instead, he starts rocking her.
The soft sound of humming drifts into the space, and I crane my neck, trying to see her face.
I can’t, though.
Then I hear him.
“Someone holds me safe and warm,” he sings. “Horses prance through a silver storm.”
I go still, watching them. Her legs calm, the kicking subsiding.
He sings quiet and serene, and for a moment, I don’t breathe.
What is he doing? She needs help. Is it a seizure? A panic attack?
Slowly, though, her legs calm. The kicking subsides, and her voice joins in the next verse, singing with him.
I have no idea where the tune is from, but it’s familiar. A children’s tune. Paisleigh might’ve listened to it or heard it in a movie.
Callum holds her, and I listen, both of them singing as her voice grows stronger, and I watch as her arm circles his neck and he pulls her in closer.
Her breathing quiets again, and in a moment, both of them are the only sound filling the house.
I blink, realizing my eyes have started to burn.
He cares about her.
She’s the only person on the planet who loves him.
It’s Callum Ames and Anna-Katherine against the world.
And all the monsters.
I leave him to calm her down, and I make my way to his bedroom.
16
Callum
Reaching over, I shift a lock of Sophia’s hair from where it falls over her nose and tuck it back behind her ear. Her soft pink lips part every time she exhales, her slumber calm and peaceful.
These PTSD episodes rarely happen anymore, but they take everything out of her. She’ll sleep for twelve hours.
We sang her song a couple of times, and I helped tuck her into bed, staying with her to make sure she was out.
These attacks are the one thing that made me apprehensive about her helping Dallas in the classroom. If she freaks out at school, what’s private won’t stay private. She hated being away from her mom and me, so we try to help her manage with the outpatient therapy. Going after her is the one way anyone can wield power over me, and I don’t want him to have it.
I need to be more careful. Anything that sparks her memories of the trauma sets her off. It’s what happened four years ago when she needed more professional help than we could give her.