Page 61 of Psycho Beasts

My stomach hurt for whoever had harmed Xerxes, but my chest burned with unadulterated rage.

For a split second, when his hand had slammed against the wall beside me, Dick’s belt had slashed across my skin.

Warm blood had splattered across the floor.

The worst part wasn’t the during; it was the after. Adrenaline got you through the moment, and when it left, nothing tempered the agony.

The shock wore off into a tsunami of unfathomable hurt.

I collapsed into bed, exhausted.

The nightmares came quickly.

Chapter 12

Sadie

MISGUIDED OMEGAS

Clothed in an oversize sweatshirt and soft leggings, I brushed out my long hair. Gray morning light barely illuminated the room, and the dull patter of rain was the only sound.

In the room’s massive antique mirror, the red highlights in my white hair were fading to pink. They reminded me of old bloodstains.

I shivered.

The skin around my eyes was still bruised.

My skull ached with the beginning of a headache as I shoved my recent memories back into the dark recess where I hid basically everything that happened in my life.

There were healthy coping mechanisms, and then there was trying to forget your entire existence.

At this rate, I didn’t know what it was like to not want to forget.

My joints ached from torture, and my head was splitting under the weight of compartmentalizing.

A knock sounded at the door, and Aran grumbled in her sleep. It had actually been great sleeping with her.

Sort of.

In the middle of the night, we’d both woken up from nightmares and comforted each other for an hour by complaining about how hard our lives were. Then, after bitching about everything and everyone, we’d passed back out.

Highly therapeutic.

The best part was since neither of us were built like mammoths (like the men), we’d spread out comfortably.

The only snafu had been a short time after we’d fallen back asleep, when Aran had sleepily wrapped her arms around me and tried to cuddle.

When I’d tried to push her away, there’d been a brief tussle where Aran, who’d still been dreaming, had locked me in a choke hold with one arm and used her other arm to smother me with a pillow.

I’d blindly punched her in the trachea until she’d released me and fallen backward, screaming.

At first, I’d panicked that I’d hurt her.

Then I’d realized she was writhing on the bed screaming about her back, not her throat.

I’d done what had always helped me.

Gently, I’d turned her over, so she lay sprawled on her stomach.

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