Page 46 of Through The Woods

The woman blew me a kiss before getting caught up in the inferno. “Neve, honey, open your eyes! Open your eyes. It isn’t real!”

Clint pounced on top of me, knocking the air from lungs. His hands sought out my throat and I thrashed wildly to keep him away. “I’m not finished with you…where’s the money?”

The fire faded and the window closed again, leaving a mirror in its place. I was still trapped in a burning room with Clint though. I’d been so preoccupied with that damn book that I hadn’t thought to keep myself safe.

“Neve, honey. Wake up!” Rough hands gripped my face and my eyes flew open. I immediately tried to sit up, only to collide with a wall of muscle.

“You’re okay. Shhhh…it’s okay.”

I was hyperventilating through the tears. I could still see them clearly in my mind, stuck in a burning house.

“I couldn’t stop it. I’m so sorry...” I repeated the words softly to myself.

The hands moved up and brushed the hair off my damp cheeks. He whispered, “It’s okay, it’s alright. Just breathe. You don’t have to be sorry for anything. I’ve got you.”

I lay my face against his chest and wept until a soft knock sounded at the door. A sliver of light cut across the dark as Rooster poked his head in. “Is she okay?”

I stiffened. If Rooster was at the door, then who was holding me?

“Ain’t nothing, but a bad dream. She’ll be alright.” His hands were still holding onto my hair, so I couldn’t move away.

Charm.

Rooster closed the door and left the two of us alone again and I wiped at the tears on my face. “I’m sorry I woke everyone up—”

“What’d I tell you about apologizing?” He grumbled.

“I—I think I’m good if you want to go back to bed.” I shifted, but his hands remained where they were, pinning me against him.

“What was it?”

I inhaled a ragged breath. “House fire. I just—” A sob worked its way free and I tried to cover it up by clearing my throat.

Charm was silent for a moment. “Did you start it? You kept apologizing in your sleep as if you were the one who set the fire.”

I thought back to that night and a small tremor passed through my body. Hadn’t I? “I don’t know why I was apologizing.” I cleared my throat again.

What else could I say—that I’d worked so hard to get clean—only to lose everything? That the feelings of anguish were so strong I was certain they’d incinerate me, from the inside out? That I tried to overdose, but found the numbness a better alternative?

I couldn’t admit that to anyone.

Love was the same as addiction—destructive.

Charm tightened his hold on me, using his hand to push my head against his chest. He didn’t do the awkward thing people do—where they apologize as if they had something to do with it. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all. His hands just made small circles across my back and I began to drift off. His voice startled me awake again.

“When I was five, my mother took me to the grocery store with her. I remember that I’d always beg to ride the mechanical horse at the front of the store or even to play the crane game. We walked in and she handed me a small bag of quarters—told me to enjoy myself while she shopped.

“It wasn’t until it began to grow dark out, that I got worried. I found a store employee and we looked for her. She’d been gone for hours by then—knew if she took me, my old man would come after her. So, she dropped me off in the front of the store and never once told me goodbye—never gave me any indication that she was leaving for good.”

My arms broke out in goosebumps as he softly spoke. It was something that he’d never written about, but it had impacted his life. I didn’t understand why he was telling me though; didn’t know what it meant. Knowing the things that Luck had put him through, I couldn’t fathom how she could’ve left him with a man like that.

Luck had been a monster and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that his mother had taken his childhood when she abandoned him in that grocery store.

“Charm?”

He shifted. “Yeah?”

I took a deep breath. “Thank you—for waking me, I mean. Would you, would you mind staying a little longer?”

He exhaled softly. “I’ll stay—try to get some sleep.”

Maybe his presence chased the demons away. Wrapped up in his arms, I realized I’d gotten a piece of what I wanted. I had the man from the journal—if only for the night.

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