Page 88 of Unbroken

“I promise…I’mokay. I’mokay.” Her voice broke over the last word, and rather than say anything more, I took the stack of shirts from her hands and set them on her dresser. Then I lifted her into my arms. She didn’t protest when I laid us both down on her bed.

Looking down, I saw silent tears rolling down her flushed cheeks. The emptiness in her eyes was replaced by a pain so sharp and potent, I swore I could feel it. And I had the wayward thought that at least there was emotion there again. The emptiness was terrifying.

Without a word or prompting, she tucked herself into my side and clung to me. My arms were steadfast around her, and I tried to exude that calming presence she always talked about. My instinct told me she didn’t want to talk just yet, that she needed time.

“I’m here, Blake,” I promised, kissing the top of her head and preparing to weather the storm with her. She still smelled like sunscreen and lake water. “I’m here.”

THIRTY-NINE

Blakely

For the firsttime in a long time, I woke up slowly. I didn’t startle awake from a nightmare, and there wasn’t blind panic at the thought of opening my eyes.

I just gradually gained consciousness, first feeling the bed beneath me and the soft blanket above me. Cocooned in warmth, my eyes began to flutter open when the next thing I felt was a large body pressed into my side.

Somewhere in my subconscious, I knew who it was. I breathed deeply, and when his distinctive smell hit my lungs, I burrowed deeper. The arm around my shoulders tightened, and I sighed.

My limbs were exhausted, and my mind felt like it had been through a battle, but there was also a bone-deep contentment. I nuzzled my nose into the crook of his neck and let my lips brush against his skin.

“Mmm,” Devon hummed, and I felt the sound vibrate where my hand rested on his chest. “You’re awake.” His voice was thick with sleep, and I loved how it dropped an octave when he’d just woken up.

“I am.” I kissed his jaw, and when the memories came flooding back, I clung to him tighter. I don’t know how it was possible, but somehow, he quieted my chaotic thoughts and calmed my exhausted heart.

Everything didn’t feel so life-shattering and impossible when he was around.

The terror that had come with the realization that the man who’d held me hostage for months was still out there was there, but not as potent. And I could blame it on the sleep I’d finally succumbed to after my body finally gave out, but I knew it had more to do with the man lying next to me. Who was rubbing soothing, idle patterns over my back and cradling my head with his other hand.

“Did Tato let you in?” I finally asked. After I’d hung up with my mom, I remembered wanting to succumb to the nothingness but knowing it was a horrible idea. Instead, I obsessively tried to keep myself busy with anything and everything I could manage to do around my apartment, trying to stave off the sinking, daunting feeling that it would never be over.

That for the rest of my life, I would constantly be looking over my shoulder. The only closure I’d been afforded when Nick Hammond was arrested had been a fallacy.

“You don’t remember anything, do you?”

I shook my head the best I could without raising it from his chest.

“I…umm…broke in,” Devon responded tentatively. I pushed up onto my elbow and looked down at the disheveled man.

My jaw dropped, and my brows furrowed. “What?”

He sighed and pushed up on his hands until he was sitting against the pillows propped against my headboard. “I broke your door.” He pointed to the sliding glass door behind me, but the curtains were covering it, so if there was any damage, I couldn’t see it. “When you didn’t answer your phone or the front door, trying to look through this door was my last option.Tato came up and parted the curtains enough that I could see you lying on your closet floor.”

“So, you broke in…” I muttered, filling in the blanks. I had a vague recollection of the closet floor.

“Yeah, which I know sounds desperate and irrational, but when I saw you laying there, I couldn’t just?—”

“No, no,” I said quickly, scooting forward until my knees were pressed against the outside of his thigh and I could take one of his large hands in both of mine. “It doesn’t sound desperate or irrational. It sounds like…you care.”

A humorless chuckle broke free from his lips, and he scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “Blake, I’d say I care a whole fucking lot. You…you scared the shit out of me.”

I cringed and looked back down at our joined hands. That was the last thing I’d meant to do.

“Guess I’m pretty good at scaring you, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, I’d say so.”

“I’m so so—” The word wasn’t completely out of my mouth before Devon was insistently shaking his head and tightening his hold on my hands.

“Don’t apologize. You get to have hard days. You get to process and work through everything however you need to. I hate not being able to do a damn thing to help, but that doesn’t mean you should apologize. Because, Blake—” He stopped, and he tilted my chin up so our eyes locked. “I’m going to be here no matter what. The good days, the bad, I want them all.”

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