Page 72 of Intense (Beneath The Blaze #3)

FINN

Song- Drag Me Under, Sleep Token

I shake my head. The words are there, but they’re burning me from the inside out.

The memories flooding my brain.

The way the father would hold my arms behind my back. The things she would do to me for praise from her husband.

My wrists crash against the restraints, but Stephanie delivers another cut. And like that, it severs the memory.

I can’t see their faces anymore. I can’t feel them on me.

All I can focus on is my wife.

I open my mouth to say it, but the words don’t follow. I’m so fucking close. But I can’t. It feels like I’m choking.

Like I am in my nightmares.

“I can’t,” I stutter.

“You can.” Her words are sharp.

She grabs my face, forcing me to look into her deep blue eyes. Dragging the blade along my nose, she doesn’t cut. She tilts her head, watching me.

There isn’t pity there. Just strength.

I keep my eyes fixed on hers.

“They abused me.”

The words come out like fire, making me cough after. Stephanie goes still on top of me. Her eyes close, just for a second. I just need to get it out of me. Rid me of the fucking horrors they left me with.

“They had a daughter, who was a year younger than me at school. They lived near us. We used to play out on the road on our bikes together. I started to notice her bruises, and I got inquisitive. So I started going around to their house for dinner. The more time went on, the more I noticed. The more I saw her fear. I felt her pain, and I wanted to take it away from her. So, I went around more and more. They were very kind to me at the start. I thought perhaps I was wrong.”

Stephanie lets out a ragged breath, stroking her thumbs along my cheeks.

I can’t stop now, because if I do, I won’t have the guts to open up again.

“But then, it progressed very quickly into more. And I stupidly thought, if I took her place, they wouldn’t hurt her.”

“Oh, my god, Finn,” Stephanie whispers.

The shock in her voice is what hits me the hardest.

“W-what did they do?”

“It wasn’t just violent. It was everything.” I pause and swallow. “Sexually too. They’d make me watch them, they’d try and involve me. They would beat me if I didn’t comply.”

I swallow down the bile in my throat, that sickness I always feel. Disgust. Pure fucking agony. The visions of her, in her room, blood pooling out of her.

I close my eyes and squeeze them shut, but when I do, I’m just transported back there. So I jolt them back open, trying to focus on my wife. On my fucking anchor to the real world.