Page 64 of Unwrapping Deviance

My shoulder collides with the solid wood. It thumps, but remains firmly jammed.

“What’s going on?”

I hear Christian behind me, but barely; my every sense is locked on Mira’s sounds of despair. Each one twists around my chest, forming a chokehold that sends alarm bells blaring.

I don’t stop to think. I rear back and kick.

I do it twice before the barrier swings open with a crack and splinter of wood. I’m over the threshold before the door hits the dresser behind it, but all I know is I need to get to Mira. I need to protect her.

She’s three feet from the door, ashen face streaked with tears. She must have been on the way to get the lock, but I’m in. I’m in her fucking room and moving towards her, and she’s running to meet me.

I scoop her up into my arms. Her legs lock around my hips and I squeeze her as she cries softly into my shoulder.

“I got you,” I promise. “I’m here.”

She sucks in a heaving sob and tightens her hold. I can’t breathe, but I don’t need to.

“Daniel...”

“Shhh.”

I take her to the bed and pull her down without ever dislodging my hold on her. My palms rub over the hot curve of her heaving back. Her skin radiates a blistering heat that burns every part of her pressed into me. Her tears drop across my collarbone, tiny lit matches that mark my flesh.

“It’s just a dream,” I tell her. “I’m right here.”

From the corner of my eye, I can just make out Christian in the doorway, but I don’t look. I don’t take my focus off the shivering bundle in my arms.

I’m awake long after Mira finally settled down enough to drift back to sleep. Christian hovered in the doorway until I motioned for him to go back to bed. That was hours ago.

It’s not that I’m not tired. I’m exhausted, my brain hurts and I know I’m going to regret not sleeping once the sun comes up, but I’m too wired. Too scared to shut my eyes.

It hadn’t occurred to me just how deep into enemy territory we were until Christian unfolded his own fears earlier at the diner.

No one in Jefferson wants us here and they had nearly killed me and Christian once to get us out.

And I brought Mira with me.

I peer down at my baby with her face mashed into my chest and her arms and legs steel bands forged around me. The faint light from the moon is caught in her hair and the damp spikes of her lashes.

I brought her here. I put her in danger.

No matter how many times my lawyer brain tells me it would be illegal for them to hurt her, to do anything, the rational part that grew up with these people knows better. It’s seen what Jefferson mob mentality can do.

Like jump two kids on their way home with bats.

It didn’t matter that Lucy lied. It didn’t matter that we tried to explain. They wanted blood and nothing was going to quench that thirst.

I barely got Christian out of there that night. I don’t even know how I got us home. The pain had been blinding and everywhere. Chris wasn’t moving. My arm was broken, but I somehow dragged him home. I didn’t stop until I had the locks latched on the door. I woke up still in the doorway with Chris sprawled next to me.

Blood everywhere.

We were covered. It dripped from my hair and rained into my eyes. It pooled thick and red beneath Chris.

Dad was in his armchair, flipping through the channels on the TV. A beer bottle squeezed between his meaty hand.

I called to him, my voice a wispy wheeze hindered by the broken ribs.

He turned the volume up.

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