Chapter Twenty-Nine

ASHER

I saw her space out before anyone else did. I saw her become lost in herself. Her hand stopped stroking me, thankfully her mouth wasn’t on my cock as she slammed it shut. I held up my hand and yelled “red” at everyone.

Everyone stopped in their tracks.

Whatever was happening in her mind, she was experiencing it full body. Tears started falling from her eyes. I immediately pulled up out of her position and wrapped my arms around her. She was shivering.

“Get her clothes and then get some throw blankets or something we can put over her,” I bark out. Her eyes stare across the room, glazed over. She’s muttering something, but I can’t make out what it is.

Tristan looks at me, and I hold up my hand toward him. “This isn’t on you. Something triggered this in her. But it wasn’t you.”

He shakes his head and runs a hand down his face. He doesn’t say anything, but I’m not sure what he could say.

“Do we need to take her to the hospital?” Drew comes over and drapes a blanket over her.

“We need to get her home,” Kayce says as he collects her clothes.

I nod. “I agree. We need to get her somewhere comfortable. She may freak out when she comes out of it. Everyone get dressed, and then Tristan, I need you to switch places with me so I can dress.”

“No.” He shakes his head as he starts to put his pants back on. Shit. He’s shutting down.

“Evans, you didn’t cause this,” I assure him.

“Yes, I did.” He throws on his shirt and shoes and storms out of the room.

I let out a sigh. “Kayce?”

“Yup. Go, let me have her.” He sits next to me on the bed, and I gently pick her up. He wraps his arms around her and pulls her into him. “I’ve got you, angel. I need you to come out of it. Please.”

As I finish throwing on my shoes, she lets out a scream and comes out of whatever catatonic state she was in. She looks at Kayce and instantly pushes away from him, scrambling off the bed and then falling off it.

Her eyes are wide, and tears have soaked her face. “Wh-where am I?”

“Raelyn, you are with us. We are at the club,” Drew says softly. Her head whips to him, and I can see her chest moving fast. If I don’t get her to calm down, she is going to hyperventilate.

“No, I was there.” She looks down at herself. She’s in a shirt we were able to get on her.

“Rae, baby, where were you?” I cautiously ask.

Her eyes snap to me, and I watch her blink a few times. I start to see her coming back to us as her breathing slows. Her head swivels between all of us, and then around the room. She brings a palm to her head, and she cries as she sits there.

“Sweetheart, why don’t we get you home?” Drew slowly approaches her.

“Yeah, angel. Let’s get you home where we can get you showered and you can sleep. I think tonight has been a bit much.” Kayce, who is now dressed, walks up beside her.

She looks up at him and lifts her hands toward him. Kayce helps her up, and she pulls the shirt down that she’s wearing.

“I’m crazy. Certifiable. The voices,” she mumbles as her eyes stare down at the floor.

“You are not crazy, Rae,” Drew reassures her.

She starts to bounce back and forth on her feet, whispering to herself. Lost in her own mind. I walk over to her and tuck a finger under her chin, lifting her head so her eyes meet mine.

“Whatever you just relived doesn’t make you crazy, it makes you a survivor,” I tell her. She softly nods, but I can still see the fear in her eyes. I can see her trying to process what she saw and her reality now.

“Um, I… I don’t know where my clothes are,” she says softly.

“Here.” Drew walks up with a pair of black sweatpants. “Club keeps these extras in each room in case clothing gets ruined.”

“You don’t have to talk about it now, but when you’re ready, we’re here to listen,” I offer to her.

She shakes her head, and I know it’s not a conversation that she wants to have at the moment. But I wanted to make sure she remembers that she can talk to us.

“Tristan, where is he?” she asks quietly, her eyes searching around us when she notices he’s not in the room.

“He went to get the car,” Kayce lies, but she nods as she accepts that answer.

She bites her lip, and I see her start to slip back into her head. “Hey, Rae.” I place a hand tenderly on her shoulder. “Come back to us. Let us get you home.”

She steps into me and curls herself up against my body. I instinctively wrap my arms around her.

Whatever that was scared the shit out of her. I can only hope that she tells us what she saw. The last thing we ever want to do is cause her pain or induce visions of her trauma. She was finally starting to feel comfortable, happier, and more at ease. And this absolutely may have set her back.

I look down at her and frown. She looks like another piece of her soul died.

And I’m not sure how many pieces of her soul she has left to survive through all this.

“She’s sleeping in my bed.” Drew walks into the kitchen, finding most of us there.

Tristan stands at the patio doors looking out over the city. He is in his own head right now. I get up from the island and, with my hands in my pockets, I walk over to him.

“Hey,” I say as I stand next to him. I am not even sure he hears me until he offers me a grunt.

“Look, Evans, you didn’t hurt her.” He doesn’t respond to me.

“She had a flashback. Something we did triggered it. And there is no way to know what happened to trigger it. She will have to tell us when she is ready, so we know what not to do.”

“She was fine, until I went to go fuck her.” He wipes a hand down his face.

“She also had my cock in her mouth and Kayce was helping her head go down on it. Drew had just finished eating her pussy. We could have just all overstimulated her,” I try to assure him.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then he takes a sip of his beer. “I’m supposed to protect her,” he mumbles.

“And you did. Man, you stopped the minute I held up my hand before I even called anything out to stop. You, I am sure, felt her tense.” He nods at my words. “So you were protecting her. You didn’t continue.”

“She was so frightened. She was scared that one night, but this? This was different. This came from the depths of her mind. And whatever it was scared the fucking shit out of her. What the hell is haunting her?” He throws back the rest of his beer. “She has ghosts we can’t see.”

I let out a sigh. “That’s the thing about ghosts: they are invisible except to the person who sees them. Her ghosts are in her head, and until she lets us in, until the trust is there, we have to be patient.”

He lets out a hum and continues to look out over the Vegas Valley. I am sure he’s trying to think of ways to fix this. Fix her.

That’s the thing, though. Until she lets us into her head, until she lets us see those ghosts, we are fighting blind. All we can do is wait for her to fall so we can catch her before she hits bottom.

I mean, there are four of us. Well, five if Cameron gets his shit together. All of us should be able to be that support she needs to get through this and let us in on whatever happened to cause her this trauma.

And I thought we were making headway, but tonight was too much for her. We shouldn’t have gone into that sex club. That was too much. We should have insisted that we go back to the room we had booked at the club.

Another thought hits me. She mentioned she saw her friend.

Ronnie, I think her name was. Maybe if we find her friend, we can help get her to open up or at least make her feel like she’s not surrounded by testosterone all day long.

Maybe we should bring Phoenix in and get her to spend more girl time with her.

I run a hand through my hair. I need to be honest with myself. None of this is probably even going to come close to helping. I turn and look at the guys talking in the kitchen. Tristan, I am sure, has made his way up to Drew’s bed to watch over her.

At the end of the day, she needs to come clean and talk to us. Let us help her get the help she needs. And I don’t know if she will ever feel safe enough for that. And why should she?

So far, there has been no one in her life whom she’s been able to truly trust.

And that’s why she keeps her ghosts locked up tight. Because she doesn’t know what will happen if she lets them loose. She doesn’t know whom she can trust with them. She would rather just disappear and never have to face it all again.

Become a ghost herself.