“It wasn’t your fault.”
I pulled his blankets around me as he stood up, stretching again, while I watched the muscles in his back ripple and move. He really was the most delicious looking man, like if poetry had form, it’d be his body.
“Coffee?”
I nodded, and he stepped into a pair of lounge pants and headed out of the room, dragging his fingers through his hair as he walked.
He’d been so sweet last night. I remembered how he’d coaxed me out of my panic, but I also vividly remembered my nightmare, and even just the memory of it chilled me to thebone. Sean had been standing over us, watching us as we slept curled around each other.
He’d yelled out loud, waking me up, while Henley seemed to sleep like the dead, and that’s when I realised he was. I was covered in blood, and it was all his. He was cold to the touch, and in Sean’s hand, a bloody knife told the tale. He’d murdered Henley to punish him. To punish both of us. He was… He… it was so real that it made me fear that he was still alive somewhere. I saw him captured, but… what if he escaped somehow? Would Lenore have told me, or did she lie to make me feel safe, without considering that he would find me?
“Oh god,” I whispered to myself. The things Sean had screamed at me, as I lay there, bathed in Henley’s blood, and losing the will to survive another second, were true. I was a whore who jumped straight into bed with the first man who was nice to me. I disrespected my husband, broke my vows, and even though I knew there was a good reason why I wasn’t with him, that he’d been wrong, that the dream was just a damn dream, and not reality, his words kept eating at me.
It was wrong, wasn’t it? Sleeping with Henley so soon after leaving Sean, I mean, it happened too fast. I rushed into it. He always said I was too stupid to do the right thing, and I’d proved him right.
“Made it just the way you like it,” Henley said as he walked into the room, two coffee mugs in his hands, while I jumped out of my skin.
He sat beside me, passing my mug to me.
“Okay, we’re going to talk about the nightmare, because I need to know what he’s doing to you in these fucking dreams, so we can work through it, and you can stop seeing him there. I want you dreaming of puppies, and being out with me, and… hell, I don’t know… going to all the places you dreamed of, picking up your career again, and all the-”
“He… he killed you. That’s what the dream was.”
That wasn’t all of it, but that was the worst part, and I only told him so he could see why I’d lost it like that. If Sean had just attacked me, it would have been bearable, I mean, I’d lived it for real, after all. But he’d killed Henley. He’d murdered the best man I’d ever met. He murdered the one man I wanted to be with, had always wanted to be with.
“Jesus. I guess I’m glad he killed me and not you, but there has to be a way to keep him out of your dreams. I’ll make myself scarce so you can talk to Lissa if you want?”
I shrugged, putting my focus on my mug, and not on those gentle caring eyes. I knew he’d have taken Sean’s wrath if it meant I’d be safe, but I’d never want him killed because of me.
“I can call her later. I’m just… I don’t think she can fix this. I’m going to have bad dreams, and I know this isn’t going to go away just because he’s gone… if he even is.”
Henley wrapped a hand around both of mine.
“IF? You saw where he was. He’s gone, Glory. He’s deader than corduroy.”
I bit my lip against the sudden giggle that threatened to escape. A Red Dwarf quote. He knew it’d make me smile. It was a favourite show of ours. One we’d watched so many times. He always knew exactly how to get me to crack a smile, despite whatever might be going on.
“I can see that little smile, sweetheart. You can’t hide it from me.”
“We’re having a serious conversation, and you’re being adorable.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I’m trying to lighten what seems to be a disturbing conversation. Do you really think those psycho twin guys make a habit of letting people go after taking them to their kill house? I’m just surprisedwegot out.”
I shuddered at the memory of that place, but the suspicion that he’d somehow survived just wouldn’t go away.
“What about that scary chick who works for them. Can you speak to her and get her to confirm it again? I mean, she already did, but what is it you need exactly? To see a body?”
I gasped, my hands jerking involuntarily, as coffee sloshed dangerously against the top of the mug I held.
“Careful,” Henley said, steadying me, “I’m serious though. Is that what it’ll take?”
Was it?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ididn’t know whatwas more frustrating. Knowing that she was still so sure that fucker was alive, or having to speak to those bastards myself. How the fuck did it end up being about me reaching out to them?
I stared at my phone, at the number I’d been given by Micro, whose words were, and I quote, ‘you wanna talk to those fuckers, do it, but keep me out of it’. I wanted to keep ME out of it too, but unfortunately that wasn’t going to be possible.