Page 54 of Restitution

Red, swollen eyes stare at me in horror, like I’m a demon haunting his dreams, the monster under his bed that whispers to him about nightmares and torture.

“I’m here,” I say, gulping as I brush my fingers through his hair. I’m still holding his hand tightly with the other, our fingers interlaced. “Do what you need to do, but I’m here. We don’t need to talk or do anything.”

The material hangs off his chin, but I don’t make it obvious or look at the deep purple line from the corner of his mouth. I just keep stroking his hair, my fingers getting caught in the dry blood.

Kade breaks my heart as he slowly lowers his head to my shoulder. His hair tickles my nose. It’s sticky and tangled in places from Chris’s blood – some of it dried in completely, some still wet from mixing with his sweat – and I run my fingers down and back up, separating the hard clumps while his breathing turns less heavy.

“You hate me,” he manages to say, his throat dry and rough. “You’re always going to hate me.”

“I could never hate you, Kade.”

The dam explodes, and he grips my wrist to stop me from removing the dried blood from his hair, his shoulders tensing as he lets out a deep sob that will be ingrained in my mind forever.

The last time I heard him like this was when we saw the blood on the bed sheets – the moment we knew we’d lost our daughter. And even then, he controlled himself. He isn’t strong enough anymore.

“Forgive me? Please. Please forgive me.” His words are broken, but I understand each one, muffled as he pulls away from my shoulder and drops his head into my lap, hugging the back of my knees. “I’ll do anything. I know we can’t get back what we had, and I’ll never be that eighteen-year-old kid again, but please don’t hate me. Please forgive me. I didn’t want to be like this, Stacey. I didn’t want this. I didn’t… I… Stacey.”

He drops his head again, unable to speak as he sobs and sobs and sobs until he’s barely able to take a breath without it shattering like glass.

I can’t speak. I’m struggling to keep it together as I hug him back, holding him.

Finally, he falls asleep, but I wake him enough to get him into the shower and stand outside the cubicle while he washes, giving him his space. Then I help him onto the bed, where we lie on our backs, side by side, hand in hand, listening to the silent night.

We don’t cuddle, don’t get close, nor do we kiss each other goodnight. I understand why. We aren’t ready for that, despite him claiming me in front of Chris. Kade’s mind, body and soul have gone through a lot over the past three years. Even holding his hand is making him flinch.

When he falls back to sleep, I watch him. I watch the way his chest rises and falls, the tension on his face, his dreams obviously causing him stress, even though he’s passed out.

Once I’m certain he’ll stay asleep, I lift his hand and kiss his knuckles. “I won’t leave you,” I promise. “And don’t you dare leave me.”

Barry reckons his PTSD will be severe, and he’s abruptly stopped drugs after being on them for years, so it’ll be a messy road ahead. He fears Kade may have dissociated a few times during his abuse, but he hasn’t shown any signs of it until tonight.

That version of him was terrifying, in all honesty.

And I knew he hated seeing me afraid of him. Not from the fake threats or the gun to my head. I saw the version of him that was created through extreme manipulation.

I only last a couple of hours beside him before he wakes thinking I’m a client.

When he shouts at me to get out in a terrified voice, I do. I sit outside the room with Tobias, leaning against the door, both of us waiting for him to calm down.

In the space of an hour, he wakes up four times yelling.

I want the real Kade back.

This Kade Mitchell is a glitch in the universe. But he’smyglitch, not Bernadette’s, not Archie’s, not the men and women who paid for his forced services and punctured him with needles to dope him up.

Under the skin of the devil they created, buried in the fucking void of the darkness he’s trapped in, I will find a glimmer of his humanity.

Why?

Because he’s mine.

17

STACEY

The first time I walked into Fields manor, a large pink suitcase trailing behind me, I was excited for a new start.

My mother was dead, and Dad had met a woman named Nora, with two sons who couldn’t wait to have me live with them.