Page 76 of Cherry Auction

“Mads! Brooke!” I try to hold her and shake her awake but she fights me so I let her go. Finally she screams herself awake, almost falling off the bed. I catch her at the last second, lassoing my arms around her waist. I let her go again as soon as she’s safe, knowing she might not want the touch right now.

“Brooke, are you okay?”

The TV’s turned itself off at some point so I reach over and flip on the lamp beside the bed.

Brooke’s eyes are wide and terrified, darting left and right until she finally seems to register me there on the bed beside her.

“Donny.” Her voice is reedy and thin, and she’s fisting the blanket. She still looks like she’s in some terrified trance.

I get closer to her on the bed, reaching for her again. She yanks back so I pull my arms away, holding them wide so she knows she’s safe. She’s like a spooked animal right now.

“You’re safe,” I say carefully. “It’s just me here. You’re safe.”

“More light.” She yanks the covers up to her chest.

I nod and launch out of the bed to turn on the overhead light and several other lamps around the room until it’s as bright as it can be without daylight. I glance at the clock. Four-thirty in the morning. Sunrise isn’t for another couple hours.

She’s breathing so hard. Whatever was in that nightmare, it scared the shit out of her. She’s still so fucking terrified.

And I feel as inept as I have all day.

I don’t know how to help her.

Useless stupid little fucking dog.

I shake my head.

“Can we do a scene?” she says suddenly, “Please. I need you to hurt me.” As she says it, she reaches out unexpectedly and grasps my forearms.

Wrenching out of her grasp is a knee-jerk reaction. “Don’t touch me.”

She turns away from me and starts to cry. Loud, wracking sobs as she pulls herself into a little ball on the bed.

And I fucking hate myself. I want to punch myself in the face. Fifty lashes on the back wouldn’t be enough. Pain. I need pain.

“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. We don’t have to do that shit anymore. I’m sorry for fucking everything, Mad—I mean, Brooke. Fuck!”

I reach out tentatively and put a hand on her back. When she allows that, I pull her into my arms again and thank god, she lets me, dropping her head against my chest. Thank fuck I can allow some touches.

She only rests her head for a moment, though, before lifting her face to stare up at me with tear-filled eyes. “I don’t want you to see me as broken. I’m not something to be put behind glass because I’m too delicate and too fucked up.”

“What?” I bark, at the same time hating all the ways I understand why she thinks that. “I don’t?—”

I breathe out harshly and meet her piercing gaze. “Me either. I want to be the man you needed back then. I’m trying to be.”

My guts twist. She’s in my arms now but it feels fucking selfish even though I know she was hurt when I pulled away a moment ago.

But how fucking dare I even fuckinglay a fingeronher after failing her so badly? I know we were both insome fairyland for a little while with the sun and the pool today, trying to pretend the whole world didn’t exist.

But then she saw the truth of me. She saw that I’m a weak, unworthy fuck. And I always have been. I spent all these years so angry at her when I’m the one who failedherso badly back then.

“Mads,” I manage to growl out between gritted teeth. “I fuckingleftyou with him. All I saw was my own shit instead of realizing that you—” I glare down. “—That you needed me to save you.”

She throws her arms around my neck and crawls into my lap. I scoop her up and crush her to me. Her hands cup the back of my head like I’m something precious in the world to her, when everyone else me whole life only looked on me like I was shite to be scraped off their boot?—

“You were just a kid, too,” she whispers, eyes searching mine while more tears run down her cheeks.

I wasn’t though. At least not compared to her. And now she has nightmares from whatever he did to her.

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