Brick Brick (Knights Corruption MC - Next Generation, #4) - S. Nelson Page 0,103
She took a breath, then another. “There was another one, but I didn’t see his face. It was dark. He didn’t smell…” Her lips pressed together, trapping her words in her throat, her nostrils flaring slightly with the release of air. “He didn’t smell like the other two.”
I stared at her for the longest minute, willing myself not to react, counting to ten over and over to calm myself to the point I could speak without shouting. Every muscle in my body spasmed with the need to hurt someone, my hands twitching as I forced my lungs to expand and deflate.
Zoe lowered her head. “Please don’t look at me.” Her tears spilled over and it took everything not to draw her into my arms and hold her close. “He said you wouldn’t want… want me now. He made sure of it.” Hiccups followed her mini outburst, her sadness streaming down her cheeks in rivers.
“What are you talkin’ about?” My heart pumped furiously, the air in my lungs punched from my body.
Zoe closed her eyes, flinching when I touched her arm. On top of everything she endured, now she was worried about me not wanting her?
Her lids popped open, and while she’d been hunkered down in bed, timid and unsure, exhausted, and scared, she tossed the covers off her and moved toward the other end of the mattress, hissing and grimacing. She moved so fast I was unable to stop her. When she planted her feet on the ground, she held on to the poster of the bedframe, wobbling a little on her feet. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if she realized she was naked, but when she looked down at herself, then back up at me, her lower lip trembling in realization or remembrance, all I could do was wait.
For her to move.
For her to say something else.
For her to fall to the ground in defeat.
There was no more waiting on my end when a sob tore from her lips, her body folding into itself. She hung on to the wooden column for dear life, but soon her fingers slipped away, and she stumbled backward. I never moved so fast in my entire life, catching her as she was about to crash into the wall.
I cradled her body, pressing her into me as best I could without hurting her. “Let me help you.” She mumbled something against my shirt, but I couldn’t understand her. “What?” I pulled back a fraction so I could see her face. Pushing back the strands of hair shielding her from me, I repeated my one-word question.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” Desperation and confusion battled behind her pale green eyes. “Why… why didn’t you tell me what they’d do if they got me?”
“I couldn’t tell you the specifics, but I tried to—”
“You should’ve told me,” she shouted as best she could, her voice raspy. She pulled back before I could stop her, her hands flying, catching my cheek before they balled into fists and crashed against my chest. Over and over, she pounded on me and I stood there and took it. She needed to expel everything, and I absorbed each blow of her unbridled anguish.
Zoe crumbled to the floor in exhaustion, crying harder than before. She pulled her knees into her chest and locked them to her body, her face buried, hidden from me.
My knees hit the carpet next to her, my arm suspended in the air because I wasn’t sure what to do next.
“I hate you,” she whispered. Those three words pierced my ear, loud and fucking clear.
It’d been decades since I cried, the tear drifting down my face foreign yet poignant. I lowered my arm, another tear escaping to join the first. Sadness filled my heart, while rage filled my soul.
“Zoe.” I struggled to find the words, or the air to produce them.
“Just leave.” I wanted so badly to see her eyes, but she never picked her head up from between her knees. “Leave.”
The sound that escaped her mouth tore me apart. Pure and unadulterated agony. She was in so much pain, physically as well as emotionally, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to help her, other than try and be there for her in any way she needed.
But she hated me, she said so herself. She blamed me for what happened to her, but she wasn’t alone. I blamed myself for allowing them the opportunity to get their hands on her.