Page 15

Taylor

A painful cry, followed by the bed moving, has me jolting awake.

Quickly, I pull the string on the lamp resting on the bedside table.

A dull yellow glow bathes my room and next to me, Aries is thrashing.

I go to place my hands on his face, but his arm flings sideways, and to avoid his balled fist, I have to practically jump to the end of the bed.

“Aries. Wake up. It's just a dream,” I say, my voice low, but firm. I gently touch his leg so I don’t scare him and wait in hopes he wakes up.

“No. Stay away from her! You can’t take her away from me!” His words echo in the silent room and I repeat the same gesture I have been doing for weeks.

For the last month, Aries has come to my room and climbed into my bed and every night I have had to coax him out of whatever nightmare is plaguing him.

To say I’m tired is an understatement, but it's nothing compared to the hurt caused by seeing Aries walk around the compound, pretending to be fine, when, in reality, he is far from it.

I never ask him what is hiding behind those dark eyes as he drifts off into his restless slumber, but I want to because some twisted part of me believes maybe I could help him.

Now, as the holidays approach, I feel this desperate need to help him and get him to say something. Anything. Just so I can try to help in any capacity that he will let me.

Aries makes it no secret that Christmas is his favorite holiday and it would absolutely gut me if he was almost uncaring or couldn’t enjoy his favorite day.

As he murmurs the same words over and over, I wait for his arm to fly once more before crawling back to the head of the bed.

Carefully, I brush my hand against his bearded face. “Ace. Wake up. It’s Taylor. You’re safe.”

Nothing.

I repeat the same phrase over and over as my thumb glides back and forth, slowly coaxing him awake.

Aries eyes flutter open and the second they focus on me, his chest deflates, and he pulls me into his arms.

Once again, I don’t react. This is how it goes. I get him to wake up and then he refuses to let me go until one of us has to wake up in the morning.

I want to kick myself because I know he is in immense pain and fighting an invisible battle, but lying in Aries arms night after night has driven my nightmares away and provided me with an overwhelming sense of comfort and safety.

Not wanting to go too far off into my head, I whisper, “Ace. Talk to me.”

“I’m f—”

“Don’t you dare lie to me,” I say, cutting off his words that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

His gaze doesn’t meet mine. Instead, he stares at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry, Butterfly. I don’t know if I can.” Pain wraps around his words and it's like a kick to the gut.

“Can you try? Even if it makes no sense, maybe it will help?”

Still staring at the ceiling, he lets out a deep breath and, after a few moments, nods.

His mouth opens to speak but closes several times as if he is searching for the way to say what he desperately needs to get out.

Moving my hand to rest on his t-shirt covered chest, I say, “Hey. Only say what you’re comfortable with. I know this is all new and for some reason you chose me to be your safe-haven during the night, but know that I’m not going anywhere, no matter how dark it gets. I know what it's like to live in a world where nothing makes sense and the devil is constantly knocking at your door. But I want you to try to let me hold the door closed for a moment while you start to work through the dark walls surrounding your brave soul.”

Ari shakes his head and I suspect he is about to get up and run out of my room because who am I to be the one that breaks through his hard exterior? But he doesn’t.

Instead, his hand moves to rest atop mine and finally his gaze casts downward to mine. “I trust you with every fiber of my being, Taylor. You allowing me to use your presence to get even an ounce of sleep has been the only thing that has stopped me from disappearing inside myself. But you’re right, I’ve been aching to tell you, but every time I try, the hurt is all too consuming.”

I don’t allow myself to hang onto every word because if I did, I would get lost in a maze that I am not ready to enter.

Adjusting my body so that I am resting on my stomach, one hand still on Ari’s chest, the other propped under my chin, my elbow sinking into the mattress.

Ari’s head tilts back to look at the ceiling once more, his thumb absentmindedly stroking up and down my hand.

“I have a daughter.”

My eyes go wide and I’m thankful that he isn’t looking at me to see the complete shock on my face.

“Remember when you were sitting on the swings right after you came here and I told you the story of why we started Braveheart?”

Instantly, I know what he is talking about. That day opened my eyes, finally allowing this place to feel like home. I don’t think he realized that just by opening up; it allowed me to build a bridge of trust with the man I once betrayed and finally start living the life I could only dream of.

“Yeah.”

“That rescue that introduced Boone and I to Resilience was for my daughter. Her name was Rayne, and she was the beautiful outcome of a one-night stand.”

Shock overtakes me and my chin slips from my hand, but I quickly regain my composure and wait silently for him to continue.

“Her mother was heavily involved in drugs. After fighting the courts for months, I finally won full custody. The court allowed her to have supervised visits, but Boone and I never allowed Rayne to go without one of us present. It went great for months until we had a robbery at the repair shop. We had put all of our money into that place and were finally making more than enough to recoup our investment. But on the day of the robbery, Rayne had a visit scheduled. And she really wanted to see her mom, but neither of us could go, so we settled on Rayne’s maternal grandmother being the supervisor. I dropped Raynie off and that was—”

Ari’s voice cracks and I will the tears that I am fighting back to not make their presence known. I want to wrap him in my arms, but I also want him to get this off his chest. So I wait, even though it pains me to just sit here.

Ari clears his throat and shakes his head. “Sorry. Uh–That was the last time I saw her. After clearing everything with the police, I went back to grab her, and she was gone. Everyone was. We searched for days and the police were next to useless, so Boone called in favors, which led us to Landon. I was very hands on and determined to find my little girl, but after a few months, I started to lose hope. And that's when we got a hit.”

Judging by the sour look on his face and what he said that day on the swings, I know this is going to feel like a knife to the chest.

I watch as Ari’s eyes squeeze shut and his thumb absentmindedly continues its path up and down the side of my hand.

“We rushed to a farm that had to be worth at least a million dollars. By the time we got there, there was not a soul in sight and I thought they had moved on or got a tip that we were coming until we came across a—” Ari’s voice cracks and I watch a tear roll down the side of his face.

“Dammit. Sorry. We came across a room that was once a nursery. The room looked like a tornado went through it, but sitting in the center was a stuffed bunny rabbit ripped to shreds with RM on the feet. For Raynie’s birthday, I got her a bunny with her initials sewn on the feet so she could take it to preschool. RMC. Rayne Mackenzie.

“I refuse to say what the rest of the room looked like, but know it was evident that my little girl was no longer on this earth. We searched the grounds for hours and never found her, but I knew in my gut she was gone.”

The tears that I begged to stay in place flow freely, mimicking Aries.

Not waiting for permission, I move to lie on top of him, resting my head on his chest.

Aries’ arms wrap tightly around me and his chest shutters as a cry escapes him.

My heart aches for this man, and I wish I could take every ounce of pain away. But no words in any language could take away his pain, so I will stay in this exact spot for as long as he needs me.

Aries' words replay in my mind as I listen as his cries slow.

If he is telling me about Rayne, his nightmares must have a connection to her; otherwise, there is no way he would tell me about something so painful if they weren’t.

Aries' voice clears above me and I move to look up to him, but he tightens his arms, holding me in place.

“When I was trapped in the cage of hell, a man who always wore a mask visited me daily. He would beat the hell out of me and tell me how I failed Rayne. Every. Fucking. Day. I would pass out with his words on my mind, haunting me as I tried to sleep off the pain.”

No. Why? How? I have so many questions, but the red alarm blaring in my mind is how I can find this guy and slit his pathetic throat like I did his useless guard.

Continuing, Ari says, “When he realized he could no longer get a reaction out of me, he moved to you.”

This time I do lift off his chest, my arms propping me up to look at him. “What?”

Anguish fills his dark, bloodshot eyes as his arms wrap tighter around me, as if he’s afraid I will try to run away.

“He threatened to take you and do things I will never repeat, all while blaming it on me.”

“I’d never believe that for—”

“I know. And I know you would never go down without a fight, but when you are alone for months hearing what horror movies can only imagine of recreating, your mind starts to believe the lies.”

Knife meet heart.

“That’s why I was so scared when I saw you. I thought he lured you in to do—yeah. That would have broken me, Hellhound. You had already been through so much and—”

My hands move to cup his face. “Hey. It didn’t happen. I’m right here and you are safe.”

Ari nods. “I know, but the second I close my eyes, I slip into an alternate reality where Raynie’s death is my fault and you are back in a place where I promised you I would never let you return to.”

Aries hand moves to my face and swipes away a tear that I didn’t know escaped.

I knew it was bad, but I never imagined it would be to this magnitude.

How the hell am I going to help this man when some days I struggle to keep my head above water?

Once again, I find myself asking, why me? Why did he gravitate towards me?

“Taylor.”

My head snaps up, and Ari searches my eyes.

“Losing you would break me. I saw the woman you were when you came here, and she is not the woman I know today. And I know you’re confused about why I come here every night.”

I nod, wondering how the hell he knew that.

“You once betrayed my trust to save others. You never needed to prove that I could trust you with Braveheart, but you have worked hard to prove that there is no Braveheart without Taylor. And somewhere along the way of you being a pain in my ass, I found a critical friendship in you. So the day you showed up in that cage, despite your life being on the line, I knew you were the one I could run to when the fog and weight of everything I lost was too heavy.”

My head tilts down to rest on his chest as the weight of his words hits me like a brick.

Aries trusts me with his life. Aries trusts me with the deepest, darkest parts of his soul.

I knew Aries had a past that made him the ruthless leader of Braveheart he is today. Everyone here has one. I just never knew it was this cruel.

My past is filled with nothing but people using others for their own personal satisfaction.

Our paths that brought us to where we are today are not the same, but somehow we have found ourselves at a crossroads, meeting at a time where the next day is uncertain.

Aries is consumed by his grief for his daughter and the fear of losing a friend.

I stare at the wall, fearing I may not be the right person to help get this man, who saved my life, back on the path of being a ruthless and fearless leader.

“Butterfly?”

Aries' low, quiet voice has my head snapping up.

“Thank you. You were right. I did need to let it all out.”

I force a smile, despite my mind running a mile a minute. “Of course. That’s what friends are for, right?”

An expression I can’t quite place plays on his face and he nods. “Yes.” He pauses as a yawn escapes him, eliciting the same from me. “Mind if I stay a little later today? I’m exhausted.”

A wave of exhaustion hits me, and I nod. “Stay as long as you need.”

Ari smiles and hugs me to his chest. “I missed you so damn much, Hellhound.”

My head rests beneath his chin and a smile spreads across my face. “I missed you too, Ace.”

Ari’s hand strokes up and down my back, sleep consuming me almost instantly.