draw blood. I throat punched him another time, which made him snarl at me that I couldn’t depend on pain to stop an infected.
The comment brought me to a complete halt.
“You’re right. But I can depend on you and all the other fey to stop them. So all of this is pointless. I’m going upstairs for pot roast while I can still walk.”
I turned my back on him. It was a calculated risk after the spanking he’d delivered on the way down to the basement. But he let me walk away without any retribution. Well, it was more of a gimp than a walk.
Only the lingering smell of beef bolstered my energy enough to make it up the stairs. Emily was reading a book on the couch; but when she heard me, she popped up and took the foil-wrapped plates from the oven.
“You okay?” she asked sympathetically.
“He let me escape before he managed to draw blood, and I’m awake enough to eat. I’m great.”
No one spoke after that. She went back to her book, and I worked through my dinner. The meat was perfectly tender and flawlessly seasoned. I wanted to drink the gravy from my plate when I was done, but there wasn’t enough left. So I licked it clean instead.
I knew Merdon was watching me and didn’t care. When I finished, I used my sleeve to wipe any stray gravy from my face, thanked Emily for making a dinner that would give my mom’s a run for its money, and went upstairs.
Merdon didn’t need to tell me to shower. I could smell myself and knew one was needed. He left me alone as I stripped and didn’t stand guard as I started washing. I appreciated the small freedom immensely. Only the return of my razor would have topped it. I was starting to look a little sasquatchish.
With my hair piled on top of my head, it didn’t take me long to finish washing. I wrapped the towel around my torso and went out to the main room to dig something clean out of the closet. The room was already dark, and Merdon sat in his usual spot in the chair beside the bed. Like he’d done another time, he had clothes laid out for me.
What was with his helpfulness at times and not at others?
“Thank you,” I said, grabbing the underwear.
He grunted and looked away as I slid the garment on under the towel. I tugged the shirt over my head, covering all of my important bits, before removing the towel and putting on the shorts.
“Do you regret it?” I asked as I crawled under the covers.
“Regret what?”
“Your part in what happened with Oelm.”
Merdon was silent for so long that I thought he wouldn’t answer. When he did, I wasn’t prepared for the pain in his voice.
“Every day.”
Katie’s pleading gaze moments before I released her haunted my sleep. The terror I felt running away from her consumed each breath. The smell of her rot when she found her way home days later clogged my nose. The wrongness of her once beautiful hair and the jerky way she moved wrapped around me in an inescapable blanket.
The dreams battered me as they shifted from one to the next in such vivid detail. I didn’t see them for what they were; memories of a past I desperately wanted to forget. Instead, I sank into each moment, and the terror built, bleeding out into the real world.
I woke with a scream as I pulled the knife from my sister’s decaying flesh. The twisted sheets clung to my sweat-dampened skin while I fought my way free of them. The need to run, to hide, rode me hard.
“You’re safe,” a voice said softly. “There’s nothing here to harm you.”
Half falling out of bed, I scrambled toward the sound and crawled into Merdon’s lap. His arms wrapped around me, and his hand smoothed over my curls. I trembled and struggled to breathe quietly. Despite his assurance, I was still afraid of being heard.
Gradually, the dream released me enough for me to understand I’d been reliving my hell again.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I whispered.
“You can.”
“You don’t know. You don’t understand. I can’t.”
I pressed closer to him, desperately wishing I could hide from the pain.
“Then make me understand.”
The words were a challenge. I thought of Oelm’s death and Merdon’s painful admission of regret. Brenna’s advice to share the pain circled in my head. Was that really what I needed?