Page 5 of What’s Left of You (What Left #2)

It’s the phantom feeling of knives in my skin that wakes me from the nightmare.

Swallowing the scream as I bolt up, I jump out of bed and hurry to the bathroom.

This is becoming a habit now, and when I jerk back the lid to the toilet there’s nothing to throw up except a bit of bile.

As I dry heave I can hear hurried steps, and then I feel Vinny’s strong presence behind me.

The familiar muscles of his arms wrap around me from behind, one hand pushing my strawberry blonde locks out of the way as I close my eyes again.

“...make me do this,” Mom cries, and I turn my head slowly. I’m too tired to do much else, and the pain from before flares to life without me having to move. I stare across the space, the heavy smell of gas choking me.

My mom was muttering something when she fought with Alastair the night I thought she died, but try as I might I can’t remember what the beginning of that sentence is. Everytime I try to envision the past and think about who she was, all I see is what she’s become.

The blunt hair. The facial reconstruction. The cold… everything. Whoever my mother’s become in the past fifteen years is a shadow of who she once was.

“Don’t worry, doll. I’ll take care of our boy.”

There’s no doubt in my mind she means Alastair.

He’s the only prisoner missing after the attack.

There’s no telling where Porscha took him or what comes next.

All those years sneaking around and falling into a whirlwind romance with both Vinny and Alastair, I thought my mom didn’t know him until the night I believed she died.

I’m the stupidest kind of idiot there is. How many things did I miss?

“Breathe,” Vinny says in my ear, leaning over me. His fingers stroke up and down my spine, helping to calm the tremors. I haven’t had such graphic dreams in years, but the last six weeks since Alastair disappeared prove the nightmares never truly went away. “You’re here with me. You’re safe.”

“Safe,” I echo, because not once has Vinny lied to me about that. The only time I ever felt like we were truly in danger since returning to Florida was when the penitentiary got gassed.

And even then, I wasn’t worth my mother’s time at that point either. She comes back from the dead and I see her for the first time in over a decade… and she spoke about someone else instead.

I throw myself backward once the dry heaving ceases, nearly taking out my husband with the back of my head. I twist and throw myself over his leg, gripping the counter to help me stand. My gaze locks on the medicine cabinet seconds before I’m fully upright retching the door open.

Little bottles stare back at me, but it’s all over the counter crap instead of my prescription meds. I had a prescription filled by my uncle’s PA before I headed out to Florida, and I had to refill it two weeks ago. Turning each bottle, I don’t see what I want. “Where is it?”

Vinny stands, the flush of the toilet turning to background noise as I check the bottles again. “I hid it because you asked me to yesterday when you were more yourself. You don’t need to keep popping sleep pills, Jo. It’s not helping you.”

I stop searching to turn and glare at him. His eyes are nearly black right now, the bathroom light only half turned up. “You don’t get to decide!”

Then my gaze catches on one of the red lines on his chest. Scratches.

The sleeping pills kind of help the nightmares, and I’ve started scratching Vinny until he bleeds in my sleep.

He’s never going to outright complain about it, but I keep scratching the same patches of skin over and over.

The shirt he’s started wearing to bed is a feeble attempt to give his skin a break, and we passed out too quickly last night for him to put it back on.

My gaze drifts to the clock for a moment, the glowing numbers almost comical above his head.

We added that a few weeks ago when I realized we were spending an awful lot of time in the shower and needed to ensure we kept track of time.

Sterling gets prickly when he’s kept waiting, and I kind of feel the same way seeing the date on the clock as my mind spirals.

April 20. So it’s almost seven weeks since Alastair disappeared and I’m just getting worse.

Clearing my throat, shame bleeds through and I look away, catching his gaze in the mirror instead. I’m a lot to handle right now, and I’m doing my best to not make it easy either. “You can’t decide to hide my pills, Vinny.”

His brows lift on his handsome face, and for a moment I fear he’ll look at me with pity. That concern disappears when he speaks. “I didn’t decide anything. We talked about it and you agreed that the pills have a hold on you when things get bad. I removed them as you requested.”

Damnit, I think he’s right. Sleep has been an evasive little fuck the past week, and I think I’m actually getting less the longer my mother and Alastair are gone. Scrubbing a hand over my face I look away from his reflection, the treacherous burn of tears hitting the back of my eyes.

I’m not going to cry over this.

He steps in behind me, his presence always comforting when the world feels like it’s a little too much.

His lips press against the base of my throat, making me shudder.

I shouldn’t be attractive in any way right now; I’m sweaty and my hair is tangled into knots, but Vinny just brushes it aside and kisses me anyway.

It’s the grounding, loving touch I’m used to.

The little touches he peppers along my skin make me sigh, some of the tension in my body slinking away.

It’s our special language, one we’ve learned from each other over the years.

No one can understand me quite like Vinny.

His voice is rough when he speaks, and I can’t help wondering if maybe he decided to nap in the middle of the day too. “Do you want to relax?”

My fingers dig into the edge of the counter. “I wanna be able to sleep and not have nightmares for a while.”

He hesitates, his chin brushing across my shoulder before he props it there and looks at me in the mirror. “I can get them if you absolutely want me to. Say the words, Jo.”

I bite my lip. He’ll cave if I beg enough; the addiction to the pills isn’t as bad as it used to be.

It’s becoming a crutch I’m uncomfortable with.

I don’t like to take just one; I want the silence of several, falling so deep into sleep I’m not sure I’ll ever come back out.

It should scare me, considering I have fallen into a deep sleep before.

I was in a coma for three days after the attack years ago.

Now? If I give into the desire for absolute silence I may never come up for air again.

Shaking my head once, his eyes meet mine in the glass and he nods. “Then let me shut off your mind in a different way. You have to get some sleep.”

Unlikely. Sterling didn’t phone fast enough this morning before we heard the news. After six weeks of silence there’s a new body, which means the CGS or the Copycat or whoever is really responsible for all of these deaths is active again -

I squeal, my thoughts interrupted when Vinny scoops me up and moves us out of the bathroom.

He carries me through the bedroom where I’ve left the sheets and pillows half on the floor, moving with ease down the steps in Emeric’s home.

Instead of fighting I cling to him, pressing my cheek to his chest and idly rolling the dimple piercing against his skin.

It gives me something to focus on as we move.

Sunlight bathes the house in an afternoon glow, and I squint against the light.

The scratch marks on Vinny’s chest are hidden, but I see another red line by his neck and wince.

I’m really taking out my fears on him while I dream, and they might just be scratches but they are marks I never meant to put there.

Vinny doesn’t falter once as we head downstairs, his arms tightening for a moment as we swing into the kitchen.

He sets me down on the counter beside the coffee pot, pulling his phone out to toss it away from us to the other side of the sink.

Grabbing a mug from the cabinet, he turns on the machine to brew a cup before returning to me.

He’s successfully distracted me if nothing else, winking before he kneels beside the counter. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Trauma. I don’t care if it’s 3 in the afternoon. I’m starting my day officially with the taste of you.”

God, I slept all day. Vinny kept the room dark enough I didn’t even notice what time it was, and when I saw the clock I thought it was the early morning not the middle of the day. My nightmares are really taking a lot out of me.

My shoulders drop as he speaks, and I let myself fall into his game. Vinny is the one drug I’m not afraid of becoming helplessly addicted to. He tugs up my loose-fitting shirt and I lose focus when his tongue traces over my center.

Dropping my head back, I don’t even care when it bangs on the cabinet behind me. I slide closer to the edge to allow him more access, opening my legs wider as my eyes fall shut. This is the kind of dream I want to have, not the ever-present nightmares.

His tongue darts out, teasing my clit as I settle back into the counter.

This is becoming a routine; when he can’t soothe my fears at night because I can’t escape my mind, he makes my heart beat faster with his talented tongue to erase the worries.

His hands come up, sliding beneath the t-shirt to palm my breasts as I gasp.

Vinny grazes his teeth across my pussy lips, making me buck against his face.

It’s the tease of pain, the little hints of what he could do if he really wanted to, that makes me a frenzied mess rocking against him.

I don’t want him to hurt me beyond repair; it’s the restraint that turns my skin to fire.