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Naomi stumbled for the couch.“Closer…” Her breath heaved.“Can’t believe this is…happeningnow.”
“What’s happening?”
The dog was at her side.Completely alert.Naomi sank onto the cushions of the couch.She put a trembling hand to her head.Definitely trembling.
Alarm flashed through Eb’s body, and in an instant, he was on his knees beside the couch.“What is happening?”he repeated, throat tightening.
The firefighter had said Henry was a service dog.
“Just…need a little while,” she rasped.
Her skin seemed paler.
“Why don’t you…take the…ah, bedroom?I’ll stay here.”She spread out on the couch.One hand flew toward Henry.“Good boy,” she whispered.“I’m okay.”
She didn’t look okay.A savage surge of worry rolled through Eb because he could have sworn a hard tremble just shook her whole body.“Naomi?”
“Don’t hurt me,” she breathed.
“I won’t.”Not fucking ever.He bit back those words.Barely.
Another tremor shook her.Harder.
“Naomi?”
Her body jolted against the couch.
Henry barked.Loud.Sharp.Again.Again.
Her eyes rolled.
Shit.Eb grabbed her shoulders.“Naomi!”
Another jolt.A shudder.
“What do you need?”Eb demanded.“What do you need?”
Not now.Not now.Notnownotnownotnownotnownotnow.A frantic, terrible refrain in her brain.But her brain and her body weren’t listening.They’d never listened.She’d fought so hard for control.She’d tried so hard over the years.
But sometimes, there was no control.Sometimes, she lost herself.
Her arm jerked.Her leg flew out to the left.
“Naomi!”
He was over her.Big, strong.With shadows chasing over his face and…a golden halo just peeking behind his head.She’d thought she was absolutely crazy the first time she’d seen one of those halos.
But everyone had said she was crazy back then.That she’d had fits, even as a child.
They aren’t fits.Someone, help me.Help.Me!
Her teeth snapped together.
The dog was barking.Her Henry.
The man was over her.Dark and dangerous, and his words were the same.She was in the same house.The guesthouse.The same terrible place.
And he was saying the same words to her…