Page 22

Chapter twenty-two

Damien

It’s not long before she falls asleep in my arms, and I can’t help but look at her. She’s been through so much, and I have a feeling I don’t even know half of it. Some of her files from the DCFS database are alarming. She may not have had a lot of people in her corner back then, but damn, I’m glad she had Richard and Marla Anderson.

They may be Serena’s parents, but they fought for her like she was theirs. They made countless calls, at first being anonymous, but then when nothing was done, they quickly gave over their names and relations. There’s even an attached police report of Richard being detained after storming down to the DCFS office and screaming at them about their incompetence. I’m starting to admire this man, and I see where Serena gets her persistence from.

I quickly realized while looking over the files that the more detailed, and the younger she was, the more it was blacked out. The last blacked out entry being when she was twelve. It’s insane how that was the first of three occasions she was put into the Anderson’s care. Was the system that incompetent that the blacked-out files weren’t enough to place her with them?

No, it’s that she was considered too young to speak on her own behalf. All her parents had to do was pretend to be good long enough to get them off their backs, and she didn’t stand a chance. The files I could see and read fully after she was twelve were alarming enough. With the level of neglect and abuse, I’m astonished she’s still alive and survived them at all.

In her file, it showed that her parents died of overdoses, but that was at least a year after she was emancipated at sixteen. Sixteen years . That’s how long the system made her suffer. I know she feels that she’s moved on, but does anyone really ever move on? Especially from horrific acts such as those?

The worst I read was of the beatings, disarray of her childhood home, malnourishment, and one time when she was fourteen, she had gotten so sick she passed out in the middle of school and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. She almost died, and who showed up to take care of her? The Andersons. Not even her own fucking parents.

Her persistence and her will to live, even under such terrible circumstances, amazes me. She was practically tortured and lived a terrible life. Yet every time it knocked her over, she stood up and practically asked for another. I admire the fuck out of her.

She’ll be comfortable enough to open up to me one day. She’ll tell me. Maybe not yet, but she will. Guarding her thoughts and feelings has become natural to her, and I can’t wait to tear that down. I’ve never wanted or cared to know about someone this deeply before. My family? Sure. But you already know a lot about them just because they’re family.

My family is nothing like hers. Ashia? She has no one. She has Serena, her parents, and Emmett, but no one from her own family. No aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, no one left that could have helped her. I have so many cousins, she could take half of them, and I’d probably still have too many. I can’t imagine what a lonely life that must have been. I’m not sure I’ve ever really been truly alone. Between my huge family, and now DH, I always have someone. Though when I’m not with her, I feel more alone than ever. That’s how I know she’s getting to me. I have countless people that surround me, yet she’s the only one I look for.

One day we’ll have our own family, and she’ll have children she can pour her love into. Is that what we need right now? Probably not, but I don’t give a fuck. I see the way she looks at kids when they enter Cut Me Down, and how she interacts with all the babies she sees. She craves that kind of life. She wants to be loved unconditionally, and she wants to love someone unconditionally. She wants to be able to give someone everything she couldn’t have, and my guess is that’s a lot. I'll give her that chance. Maybe not now, maybe not in the near future, but someday I will, and she’ll want it with me.

I can see her tolerance for me continue to build. She gets upset about my work, or at least she says she does. She’s been watching that Adrien kid’s podcast, and she hears about what I’ve done before I come home to her. I think she’s more upset about loosening up to the thought of me so easily. How could a person like me be her knight in shining armor? How could the same hands that take life bring her such pleasure? She has guarded herself so well that her lack of control is eating away at her.

She likes me, and although she won’t admit it right now, she’s warming up to me, and that scares the fuck out her. She knows she shouldn’t like it, or how our relationship started out, but she does. Her soft smiles and glances tell me everything. Even her slight movements in her sleep. When she stirs from her dark thoughts, but instantly calms down when her fingertips glide across my arms encased around her. She’s more afraid of the void she’ll feel without me there.

She’s convinced that I'll leave her. Cast her out like a broken toy when I'm done with her, but she severely underestimates my feelings for her. She’s captivating, and surprising. So complex. She’s pushed aside her feelings for so long, she’s not sure what to feel. Not towards me, little dick Cooper, or even her parents, and she refuses to feel these things until the dam breaks, and they flow through her all at once. I can’t wait for the dam that holds her feelings for me to break.

I know she feels them, and she knows it too, she’s just too afraid to. Another layer of her to unveil. Every time I lift a stone in her heart to see what’s underneath, it leads me to another stone. Layers upon layers of self-preservation and survival, and I plan to unearth them all.

I’ve only ever seen her come out of her shell that one night she was at Until Dawn. I need to find the time to take her out more, push her comfortable boundaries, but with Dust growing so quickly, it's hard to. No. I need to though. I need to show her that there’s more to her life than sitting around and waiting for me to come home or working.

At the same time, I like her being home. She relaxes here, and I don’t have to worry about anything happening to her. I don’t know what I’d do if something did. I may have shot Cooper in the face, but that was only out of necessity. The things I had planned for that man would have made Satan blush, but at least now she’s safe. She’ll always be safe with me, and I'm going to do everything I can to prove that to her. The drug addict in the alleyway showed her that, but she’s always so apprehensive, never truly believing anything.

She’s starting to fill a hole in my chest that I didn’t know was there, and now that I do, I feel myself crumbling with need to kneel to her. I’d do anything she asks. Besides leave, which she likes to try and command me to do, but I'll never leave her.

I promised.

Screams awaken me. Tearing me from sleep in a violent swipe. As I feel her thrashing in my arms, I turn to witness Ashia launching herself out of bed. It takes me a second to fully wake up, but I can tell that she’s clearly distraught. She’s violently shaking. Full tremors wrack her body from her shoulders to her knees, and she’s having trouble catching her breath. Hot tears streaming down her beautiful face. I’ve never witnessed one of her nightmares get to her this badly.

“Ashia? Just breathe, baby. It’s okay.” I hold my hand out to her. Gently and soothingly. Offering her some type of assistance as I slowly get up from the bed. Showing the same caution as I would to the victims I rescue, but the moment I stand to my full height, she flinches and backs herself into the wall. Which just startles her more. As if she wasn’t expecting the wall to be there, and she sprints to the bathroom. Slamming the door shut and locking it behind her. I quickly throw my pants on and walk over to the door. “Baby, open the door.”

Quick, jagged breaths ring out from the other side of the wooden barrier, as if her back is pressed against it. Barricading herself inside as if the threat in her dreams was still right in front of her. Her breathing speeds up, and I can tell she’s not breathing as deeply as she was at first. My own chest tightens, and the urge to break down the door and pull her into my arms surfaces. I quickly cast that aside, knowing that such an aggressive act would only scare her further.

“Ashia. Take deep breaths. Wherever it was, you're not there anymore. You're in your own apartment, you’re safe.” I try to console her, though I wish I could just take her place and fend off the ghosts that snuck their way in.

My reassurance is bullshit, and she knows it. Cooper got in no problem, and, well, I do too. I break in every night. Without her permission or knowledge. Fuck, I pushed her too far. I’m a constant reminder that this apartment can't shield her from the horrors that plague her nightmares. She’s told me how she used to have nightmares like this, but she hasn’t in a long time.

Have I pushed her too far? Dug too deep into her past and her memories, causing them to resurface so violently? What could have possibly happened to her to be so tormented like this?

I hear her start wheezing slightly as her breathing picks up. Then from the weight shift in the door, and the dragging sound, I can tell she’s sliding down the door and onto the floor. My heart immediately sinks, and I start to work on the door handle. Turning it back and forth, pushing and pulling lightly as I do so. Hoping that this cheap, piece-of-shit knob will give in and allow me to open the door, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t fucking budge, and my heart might be beating as fast as hers is now.

“Ashia, either you let me in or I'm breaking the fucking door.” I plead, unable to hide the shakiness and worry in my own voice. Surprise shocks my body like an electric current when shuffled movement comes from the other side. The moment the lock clicks, I turn the knob and push the door open. Careful not to thrust so hard that I could hurt her.

I open the door to find her on her knees in front of me. Her hands are squeezed tightly between her thighs, and her eyes are heavy and red. The sight immediately weakens my knees, and I almost fall down beside her. Mustering whatever strength I can, I bend down and pick her up. Careful not to jostle her too much as the worry drains from my body the moment I touch her. Making me weak once again. Gently cradling her against my chest, I walk her to the counter and set her down on top of it. The cold surface against her bare skin will help snap her body out of whatever frantic defense mode it reverted to.

“Look at me, little wolf.” I beg, as she lazily lifts her teary vision to me. Her lips are trembling, and her eyes droop about as much as her eyelids. I’m having to hold her rocking head steady as she tries to focus her gaze upon me. She’s clearly on the verge of passing out, and I feel the familiar waves of protectiveness and possessiveness wash over me. “Keep your eyes on me and keep your head up.” I grab the hand towel off of the hanger, and get it wet with cool water before I place it on the back of her neck. Gently placing her hands in one another, I wrap my hand around her wrists and pull them up above her. Pinning them against the wall. Not so much so that I'm restricting her, but enough so it opens up her chest cavity. “Now take deep breaths for me.”

She tries, but they keep catching. The constriction in the way she breathes sets a clear picture of how hard she is really struggling. She begins to let her head fall, and her eyes start to roll, but I lift her chin with my finger to tell her to keep her head up. I feel her lips tremble beneath my touch, and right now I want nothing more than this to end for her. I take deep breaths with her. Slowly and drug out, instructing her to do the same. Much like on the night we met, and it only takes a few times before she’s able to breathe a little gentler.

“There you go baby, that’s good. Keep going.” She finally is able to take a shaky deep breath. A whimper escaping her lips as she feels the tension leave her lungs, and I lower her arms back down before I take the towel off of her neck and wipe the sweat off of her face with it.

“I'm sorry…” She chokes out through tears, and I feel a real pang of pain in my chest. Her words stabbing my pulsing muscle with a knife. I cup my hands around her face and gently wipe the tears away. Caressing her sweet, soft cheeks in such an adoring gesture, it takes me by surprise. She shudders slightly against my touch, but then quickly leans into it.

“Don’t you fucking apologize to me, Ashia. You have nothing to be sorry about.” I preach. Every ounce of conviction shining in it. She swallows hard and looks down at the ground. Almost as if she’s ashamed. My heart breaks even more for her, and I can almost feel the pieces dropping into my stomach.

Once I make sure she’s steady enough for me to step away, I walk out to the bedroom. Grabbing her favorite blanket and taking it into the bathroom to wrap around her. She feels vulnerable enough, she doesn’t need to sit in front of me completely exposed. Not like we don’t lay next to each other naked every night, but she doesn’t need to feel any more endangered than she does right now. I don’t know whether to give her space or try to comfort her.

If I had the choice, I’d wrap my arms around her so tightly that not even the strongest jaws of life could pry me away. I’d hold her so close to my chest that I would breathe enough for both of us. But as much as I want to do that, I know this needs to be about her. What she wants and needs, and whatever it’s going to take to ease this pain for her.

I gently run my hands over her covered shoulders to try and allow her to feel some other touch than what she remembered in her dream, and she shocks me by laying her head on my chest. Resting her forehead right in the middle. Close enough to hear the rapid, forceful beats of my heart. She takes another shaky breath as she buries her face into my skin. The tension in her shoulders loosening with the exhale. I hesitantly wrap my arms around her and rest my head on hers, encasing her body with mine, as if I’m shielding her from the threat I can’t see.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I say before taking a deep breath of my own. Inhaling the perfect aroma of her vanilla mixed in with my natural musk. She takes another deep breath, this one a little clearer than the last, as my hand makes its way up and down her back. Grazing the ridges of her spine.

“Not in detail.” She speaks, a little louder than before, and I can’t help but huff out a small laugh. Relieved that she’s able to speak clearly. I nod in response.

“Okay.” She nudges her face into my chest, and I kiss the top of her head. Allowing my lips to linger a little longer than necessary.

It’s only now that I realize I’m not only comforting her like this, but also comforting myself. I hate seeing her like this, the sympathy pains originate in my chest, but then spread throughout my entire body. It’s making me so fucking angry. Who caused this? Who did this to her? The obvious answer is her slimy, burden, ex. But, what if it’s not? Why do the people who hurt her have to be fucking dead? They deserve much worse than what they got, and I would’ve loved to present that to them.

“Who did this to you, baby?” My words come out more aggressively than I intended. “Your parents or Cooper?” She inhales deeply again.

“Both…” Well, that’ll do it. I probably would’ve woken up like that to if I saw the same thing she did. “I'm sorry…” I know she can’t help it, but it aggravates the hell out of me when she apologizes. She should never have to apologize for her feelings.

“Ashia…”

“Cooper used to get upset when I would wake up like this…” I tighten my hold on her, afraid it’s to the point of crushing her, but I can’t help it. He did unimaginable things to her, and then would get pissed off when she would show any emotions to it? Knowing what her parents did to her, and he had no fucking sympathy?

I hate that mother fucker.

“I know you’re not Cooper, and I know I need to stop comparing our relationship to him. It’s just hard in the moment sometimes…” Our relationship? Those words alone might make me faint.

“I understand baby girl, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. Ever. Sometimes our brains like to remind us that we're not truly over our past. It’s not something you can just turn off. It’s okay to feel this way.” She nods and goes back to burying her head in my chest. Gently moving my hand to the back of her head, I easily grab the base and caress her scalp with my fingers. She’s not shaking near as much anymore, and her breathing has finally evened out. “What do you need from me baby?” I whisper, and she shakes her head in the most adorable, bunting way.

“Nothing that you’re not already giving me.” A slight grin creeps on my face as I inhale her scent again.

“Then I'll stand here all night.” I gently rub her back with my other hand, and after a few minutes I feel her arms emerge from the blanket and wrap around my torso. I move my hand from the base of her neck to the top of her head and begin raking my fingers down her scalp. Just like she likes it. “I’ve got you, baby.” She lifts her head to look up to me, and I lower my gaze to meet hers. Those sweet, ember eyes look up at me with so much sincerity that it makes my mouth dry.

“I know.” Her sweet brown eyes glisten at me, and only from instinct, I reach down and place a tender kiss on her forehead. My chest swelling with a contagious warmth.

“You ready to go back to bed?” She nods her head at me, and I pick her back up. Carrying her bridal style back into the bedroom. Her arms snake around my neck in a tight comforting hold, and she mimics my caress on the back of my neck.

“You’re going to spoil me you know?” A small smirk finally emerges on her face, and it takes my breath away. Spoil her? She thinks taking care of her is spoiling her? She has no idea what’s she’s in for. I rest my forehead against hers, and stare into those golden globes that have me so entrapped.

“Little wolf, you have no fucking idea.” I lay her down on the bed and be sure that her blanket covers her before I lay underneath the comforter. Personally, I’d love to feel her skin touch me all night, but I know tonight she needs that sliver of space. Even though she wants to be next to me, she needs to feel that control of what she touches, and I'll let her have it tonight.