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Dante

“How is she?” Macbeth asked, looking up at me for a brief moment before he returned to bouncing the tennis ball off the wall.

“I don't know,” I sighed, flopping down next to him. The tennis ball bounced back towards us, and I grabbed it, slamming it on the bench. “This,” I muttered through clenched teeth. “Is getting on my last fucking nerve.”

Macbeth huffed, budging up slightly, and muttered something about me sitting on his knee. I didn't have it in me to start an argument with him.

“Do they still think you're to blame?” My mother asked, handing me a disgusting cup of slop. “It's coffee,” she said, pushing the polystyrene cup towards my mouth.

I took it anyway, despite the vile way it smelled. I needed it more for the warmth it gave my hands than anything else.

I’d been frozen to the bone since I saw her.

I couldn’t even think about it.

She was on the floor, looking as pale as death.

Her blonde hair was matted as the blood seeped through it and coloured the floor around her.

Her lips had been turning blue. Her skin was taking on an ashen tone, and the most horrendous gargling noise was leaving her lips, a sound that would haunt me until my dying days.

I shook my head, wanting to rid myself of that picture forever, but I knew it was burned into my soul. I would never forget. It had shaken me to my core.

“Fucking wankers,” my dad hissed. “Took one look at us and assumed we beat the poor girl.”

“Sir, we've already asked you to keep the noise down. Next time, we'll have to ask you to leave,” a nurse warned from the reception desk at the end of the waiting area.

“And I've already told you cunts, I'll leave when my daughter-in-law is ready to come home and not a minute earlier.” He growled at her.

“Sir, we will not tolerate such foul language. Please don't make me call security.”

My dad went to march towards her. “Leave it!” I snapped.

He growled low in his throat, but he listened. He knew as well as I did that sometimes we had to pick our battles. Let them think the worst of us. Most people did anyway. And usually, we had no problem proving them right. But now was not the time, and it certainly was not the place.

We needed to be here when Rachel woke up.

Properly woke up. Not stuck in whatever reality she was currently in.

This was all my fault. I made her relive her time with her ex, and now she was trapped in the past.

My heart clenched as I saw her face as she pleaded with me not to let Alex come near her. She had looked on the verge of fainting through panic, her eyes wide and wild.

She had called me “her darkness” and though I didn’t have a fucking clue what it meant, she said it with such longing and possessiveness, I had to hope some part of her recognised me, that some part of her wanted me.

My dad shot the receptionist a filthy look and resumed his position of leaning against the wall, his arms folded, and his legs locked at the ankle. He looked at me with concern as I held my head in my hands, wracked with guilt as the same scene played over and over in my mind.

“They don't know what to think,” I said to my mum after a long silence. “Until Rachel wakes up—”

“I thought she was awake?” Macbeth frowned.

“She was. Kind of. They don't know if she was half awake and confused, or if she was fully awake and had memory loss.

She doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know what year it is. She doesn’t know who I am.

She's trapped in her mind somewhere. Until she wakes up properly, we won't know for sure.”

“What happened to her, Dante? What happened in her past that's trapping her?” My mother asked, worry creasing her brow.

“What makes you say anything happened?” I snapped. I knew it was uncalled for, but I couldn’t seem to get my emotions under control, and I was taking it out on all the wrong people.

I knew who I should be taking it out on, and I vowed to get revenge for her.

Rachel belonged to me. Her hurt was my hurt.

Her pain was my pain. I would heal what time had not.

I would destroy all those who dared so much as look at her in a way she didn’t like.

I would track her rapists down and make them bathe in acid.

They would all pay. She would get her vengeance.

“People don’t start screaming about not letting them take her if they weren’t terrified of the people doing the taking,” my mother said, her lips twisting.

I sighed heavily. “It's not my story to tell, and truthfully, I don't fully know. But I'm going to fucking fix it.” I got to my feet and shot my dad a look.

“Dante, are you sure this is a good idea?” My mother frowned.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything. Rachel is terrified of these people. There’s one surefire way to make her believe that she’s safe.”

“What if she wakes up?”

“Comfort her then, for fuck's sake. I have to do this.”

“We’re right behind you.” My dad reassured me, pushing himself off the wall. “Aren’t we, Macbeth?”

“Not really,” he shrugged. “What?” He muttered when our dad shot him an angry look. “I don’t even know the lass. She’s not my old lady. Let Dante go bash some heads together. He’s more than capable.”

“Mac,” my dad warned.

“Leave him,” I said in disgust. “He’s fucking useless, anyway. Round up the rest of the lads. We've got some people to take care of.” I stormed away, but not before I hissed down Macbeth’s ear. “Just so you know, when I’m president, you’re fucking gone. Even if I have to kill you myself.”