STEP (The Senses) (20 page)

“And your father, what was he like?”

“I sought his approval for everything, but it never seemed good enough.”

“I’m certain that isn’t true, Rayne. Your perception maybe, which is a pattern of anorexia—never feeling wanted or good enough. But it isn’t true.”

She shrugged. It didn’t matter anymore. Her father was gone.

“Did Anton take your father’s place?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it possible that you tried to make Anton proud, needing that approval since you could no longer get it from your father?”

Boy, she was good. It sucked that she was so insightful, but then again maybe it wasn’t. She was getting better and it was all do to Rebecca. “Yeah, I guess. Worse actually.” Because Anton forced her to use her capabilities, and she was never strong enough or good enough for him. He pushed and pushed for hours a day. Even when she was exhausted in mind and body, he forced her to do more. “I could never live up to his expectations.”

“He was a terrible person, Rayne. You know that, don’t you?” Yeah
, Kilter had told her to divorce him that day on the roof. The day he’d left her behind. “He may have suffered from OCD and no matter what you did, you’d never meet his expectations.” No, he suffered from malevolence and lust for power. She hadn’t known that as a child, but she knew that now.

He
’d trained her as if she were a robot; pushing her to the limit, until she collapsed with exhaustion. When they moved to the compound, she could remember a woman talking to Anton. She stayed in the shadows, but she kept glancing her way. It was then that Roarke joined them and she knew, even as a child, that they were different. Of course, Rebecca couldn’t be told any of this.

“You were a child who lost her parents in a horrific accident. Of course, you needed approval and love from whoever was closest to you. Unfortunately, that became Anton. We will reconstruct your perception of not being good enough for your father. Okay?”

Rayne nodded and took out her journal.

“I want you to write down one memory of you and
your father together, then we’ll re-write it.”

Rayne wrote about the day her father taught her how to ride her bike. She always thought he was upset with her for falling so many times. She cried only when she saw the disappointment in his eyes.

As Rebecca helped her rewrite the story, she began to realize that he hadn’t been frustrated or disappointed with her inability. No, it was possible that her father had felt her pain when she scraped her knees and palms. He hurt because his daughter hurt. Her father had been proud of his daughter, who got right back on that bike despite her injuries.

****

Weeks of constant thirst. Mouth so dry it felt as if she had sandpaper for a tongue and dried, cracked glue at the back of her throat. But it wasn’t water she craved, it was the thick warmth of blood. The urgency to sink her teeth into anything that was breathing. Everything else around her was a blur. The scent of a man nearby had her insides coil with anticipation of easing the suffering, the thirst that refused to let go.

She heard a voice in the distance, an echo inside her head as if it were her own, but different. “Please,” it said. Begging and harsh with a hiss in every word.

“Water,” the deep Irish voice said.

The bed sagged under his weight and the scent grew stronger. Blood. Fresh blood. It smelled so good. It would end the thirst, end the pain that made it difficult to swallow. In the haze of her vision, she saw him . . . Damien. No.
God no, don’t make me . . .

The urgency was too strong
, like a great white shark seeing its prey. No control. Just hunger.

Abby jumped. A strange unfamiliar hiss emerged from her lungs as she went for his throat. Fingernails racked into his flesh. The sound of a breaking glass. Hands covering her own, dragging her away.

“Abby. Stop.” The voice was shouting like a tuba pounding into her head. Damien? What was wrong with him? Why did he sound panicked?

Thirsty.

So thirsty.

Through her blurred vision, she saw red lines dripping down his flesh. She licked her lips and frantically pushed at the hands.

“Nooo!” she screamed.

Wild hunger took over as she fought him. Her voice no longer distinguishable
, she cursed and hissed, fought the restraints of his hands. He forced her to lie back as she kicked and screamed, his hands gripping her upper arms and pressing her slight frame into the mattress. Her pulse jolted as if electricity were jerking through her body. Her body flung back and forth, desperate to get free and end the torture.

Just one drop, to stop the pain.

“Abby, for Christ’s sake, listen to my voice.”

She shook her head, managing to get an arm free as her knee came up between them and the blockade. She punched out with a fist and heard a grunt, her other arm became free as the weight on the mattress eased.

“Fuck,” he said.

Abby’s eyes widened and focused in on the blood now dripping from his neck and arms where her nails had dug into the flesh. A loud hiss echoed in the room and she leapt from the bed. She hit his solid chest and was immediately thrown backwards
, landing back on the bed.

“Abby, please.”

That voice, she knew that voice.

“Abb, you have to listen to me.”

Thirsty. Her eyes darted around the room, unable to see anything clearly except the redness trickling down his skin.

“Abb!” The voice said louder. “It’s me, Damien.” Footsteps moving closer.

Damien. She knew that name. Was he here? Who was trying to hurt her? The scent was so strong and it reminded her of passion, of . . . .

Hands suddenly grabbed her wrists and bolted them above her head on the bed. Instinctively, she reacted, squirming, fighting, screaming until the dryness in her throat caught her voice and there was no longer any sound emerging.

She struggled until she no longer could raise her limbs. There was a sudden release of her wrists as if the shackles had been released. She lay still for a few seconds, her mind searching for what was happening. Footsteps. A door opened and then slammed shut.

It was gone. The blood was gone.

She scrambled off the bed and ran to the door. Her fists pounded and pounded.

“Please,” she cried over and over again.

Time meant nothing as she clawed at the door for hours, until finally she collapsed to the floor with exhaustion.

“No fuckin’ way,” Damien shouted into the phone as he paced back and forth across the scuffed hardwood floor. “I can't do this. Screw it. The girl is way past saving. We’re too late.”

“It is the poison in her blood, Damien. It eats away at your insides until every sense focuses on one goal—blood.” Balen’s voice was calm and purposeful. “Do not let it sway you from the purpose. This will pass. Trust me, I’ve been there.”

Damien kicked out at the ragged area carpet that had pastel stripes and frayed tasseled ends. “She’s crazy. That woman is not Abby anymore. I'm telling you we’re too late.”

Balen sighed. “Unless she has tasted blood again, it’s not too late.”

“No wonder the Wraiths wanted to kill us if we drank from a vamp.” Damien paused outside the door of the bedroom and peered through the bulletproof glass Jedrik had installed.

“She’s been lying on the floor for hours.”

“It
’s a thousand times worse at night. Keep the door locked and leave her be. It took me weeks to learn that being around anything with blood running through it made it a hell of a lot worse. It’s almost dawn, she should be out of it by now.”

Damien never wanted to enter that room again, yet somewhere beneath the creature he tried to calm was Abby. “How long?”

Silence.

“Hell
, Balen, I’m not good at this shit. I never wanted a woman. This is bull crap.” Damn it, he could feel the pain in his words, the emotions that he swore to never feel again. Abby would destroy him. Seeing her like this—the destruction of the soul was by far the last thing he needed in his life.

Danielle’s voice blasted into this head like a trumpet.
“Don't you dare give up on her, you bastard. Stop thinking of yourself and help her get through this.”

“Tell your woman to get out of my head,” Damien said and hung up the phone.

It was the beginning of the end. End of his understanding, beginning of madness.

He ran his hand through his raven strands and opened the door. He s
tared down at the sleeping figure lying on the cold floor. She was curled up in a ball, so innocent looking yet—

“Damien?” Her eyes flickered open and he was relieved to see that they appeared sane, not red with rage and thirst. She was often like this during the day, her normal self, confused and scared.

He picked her up in his arms and strode over to the bed, gently laying her down and bringing the sheets up to cover her. His scowl increased at the sight of her bleeding and bruised fists.

“I’m . . . sorry. For last night.” She’d said that every morning for the
past two weeks and yet she had no recollection of what she’d done. It wasn’t hard to figure out, with the scratches on his neck and arms. Now he knew why Jedrik had left chains in the cupboard. He had to admit, he’d been too cocky, thinking he’d be able to control the waif with his muscle power.

He nodded.

“Leave me here.” Her voice was soft and quiet like the trickle of a stream. “Go home, Damien.”

“You will die.” Damien stated the obvious.

“This is my fault. I did this. I can’t . . . I can’t any longer,” she whispered. “And neither can you.” A tear escaped the corner of her eye and he almost—almost reached forward to wipe it away.

Do not go near her,
he told himself again and again. Following his own warning was difficult during the day when she was more herself, innocent and sweet, that girl he’d lost his own common sense to.

“You have to eat.” Damien took a step back from the bed and turned for the kitchen—if you could call it that with a miniature fridge, two cupboards and a microwave that looked
to be the first of its kind.

“How long
, Damien? How long can we do this for?” she asked.

Could be months, years or there was the good possibility she’d die. Her and the child. His child. He’d remain though, not one to shirk his responsibilities even when it involved a woman. He deserved this hell for screwing her when he should’ve been heading back to Florida.

He remained with his back to her, unable to meet the desperation in her eyes and the torture of thirst he knew she was constantly feeling. “As long as it takes, Abb. As long as it takes.”

Six Months Later

Rayne left therapy feeling psychologically drained. Today she had a breakthrough, as Rebecca would say
—more like a breakdown—and it opened up a part of herself that she thought had died long ago.

It took months of Rebecca constantly urging her to open up, to feel emotions with the role-playing and art. When Rebecca had urged her to take on the role of Anton, that was when her panic had gone full tilt. She felt the immense failure dragging
her down as she used his words to continue to belittle her over and over again. The feeling that she was never good enough. How when he shouted at her, he made her feel like a tiny bug on the floor that he could squash at any moment. Sometimes he’d put the bug in a glass jar and watch it with those beady eyes until it cowered in the corner. He liked that.

When she took on Anton’s voice and Rebecca took on her role, she saw herself in a whole new light—cowering and meek with the self-esteem of a pigeon. She hated herself. It was there right in front of her. Anton had steamrolled every bit of pride. It was the first time she saw herself through another’s eyes. And it sucked. But it made her want to change.

Rayne walked home thinking of her safe place to center herself. Her step was lighter and her shoulders were straighter. She didn’t want to feel scared anymore. She wanted to find her voice and fight back. The battle was to constantly try to crawl out from under the blanket she lived under. It was smothering, the weight suffocating, but every week she managed to push it off a little more, seeing the light that Rebecca was talking about. It scared the be-gibbers out of her because she was walking into a completely new world without a blanket, and it made her feel naked and vulnerable. It also made her feel free of the weight she’d been carrying around for years.

But one thing held her back. Kilter. A tear escaped and she quickly brushed it aside. His actions and words were insensitive, but she saw something in him. The image of him picking her up off the bathroom floor. His finger
s pushing aside her hair. His gentleness in the shower. Despite his words, Kilter had a heart, he just refused to let anyone see it. And she missed it. Missed him. Where was he? Why had he never come to see her?