Page 12 of Bitter Queen (Advantage Play 4)

“Does it hurt?” Diece breathes beside me.

A breath of laughter slips out of me, but there isn’t any humor in it. “It always hurts. I remember thinking I’d get numb to it all, but….” My voice trails off as I blink back tears.

“Tell me.”

“I felt everything every single time. I still feel everything,” I correct myself, though my tone is indifferent.

His hands tighten into fists at his sides as he watches me carefully. I can tell he wants to comfort me but doesn’t know how. He’s not the only one who’s helpless, though.

I wish I knew how to make the pain go away too.

“He’s gone now,” Diece reminds me, rocking back on his heels. “Burlone can’t hurt you anymore.”

What?

“Burlone didn’t hurt me,” I tell him.

Confused, he asks, “Then who hurt you, Q?”

My mouth floods with bile, but I swallow it back.

“Tell me,” he pleads.

“Sei did.”

5

Diece

A high-pitched scream breaks the silence in the dark house, rousing me from a deep sleep. It scatters the haze of exhaustion that usually clings to me at three in the morning, pushing me to jump into action. I reach for my gun that rests on the nightstand, then rush across the hall to obliterate the source of Q’s pain.

Her room is painted in black as she tosses and turns in her bed. But she’s alone.

I drop my gun-wielding arm to my side and turn back to my room when another bloodcurdling scream ricochets off the walls. Facing her again, I rub my eyes and push aside my panic.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

Her back arches off the mattress as her legs tangle in the sheets that act like angry hands, clawing at her limbs to keep her in place. But I’m helpless to save her from the demons haunting her dreams. They aren’t real. And she probably wouldn’t want my help anyway. Squeezing the back of my neck, I watch her from the shadows as she pulls her knees to her chest and curls into a tiny ball on her side before she whimpers, “Please, stop. No, no, please—”

My legs eat up the distance between myself and the bed before I sit on the edge and shake her gently. “Q. Q, wake up. Wake up. It’s alright.”

She squirms against me, wiggling out of my grasp when another sob escapes her. “No! Please—”

“Q.” I shake her harder, desperate to make the monsters disappear. “Q, wake up.”

“Stop! Stop!” she shrieks.

“Q!” Yanking her up, I bring her to my bare chest and wrap my arms around her, then rock her back and forth. “Q, wake up.”

Her trimmed nails dig into my bare back as she finally wakes up and cries, “He’s here! He’s here!”

“Shh,” I murmur, rubbing my hand along the cotton T-shirt plastered to her sweaty frame. “He’s not here, Q. He’s gone. I promise.”

“He was here—”

“It was a dream. Just a dream.”

Registering my words, a silence envelops the room as she attempts to steady her staggered breathing. But she doesn’t pull away. She burrows closer to my chest and releases a shaky exhale before replacing it with an even shakier inhale.