Page 185 of The Stalker

The shower turned on in the bathroom, and Tatiana forced herself to try and calm down enough to call Jesse.

“Tatiana. You and Hayden are back?” he asked as soon as their call connected.

“Yes. Would you mind going down to the bus and getting Hayden a change of clothes, please. Probably some underwear, jeans, and a t-shirt as well as sweatpants to wear to bed.”

“Of course. I’ll see you in ten.”

“Cool. We’re in room seven-fifteen.”

He arrived less than fifteen minutes later, but Hayden was still in the shower. Tatiana let Jesse into the room and he put the clothes on a rack by the door.

“How is he?” Jesse asked.

“Traumatized. I was there when he told them what happened. It wasn’t pretty, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, let alone Hayden.”

Jesse blew out a breath of air. “Shit. That sucks.”

“Yeah, it does. Anyway, he’s in the shower, and I expect he’ll want to see the guys as soon as he can. We probably won’t need you until tomorrow.”

Jesse nodded. “Okay. Tell him I said that I’m glad he’s back.”

“I will.” She smiled at him, and he left the room.

When Hayden wasn’t out of the shower after another five minutes, she opened the bathroom door to check on him. He was sitting on the floor of the shower, scrubbing at his shaking body with a washcloth.

She dashed across the room, opened the door, and crouched down so she was at eye level with him. “Hayden?”

He looked over at her and she couldn’t tell if he was crying because the spray from the shower was hitting his face.

“I can still feel her touching me,” he moaned as he rubbed roughly at his chest.

Large, purple bruises ran across his stomach and up along his ribs, but it wasn’t the result of the physical torture that was tormenting him right now. He had moved on to scrubbing his arm, and Tatiana reached across and placed her hand over his to stop his movement as gently as she could.

He turned to look at her with wide eyes and she said calmly, “Hayden, you have to stop. She can’t touch you anymore. She’s gone. She’s never coming back.”

“I can feel it, though.”

Tatiana swallowed and nodded. “You can, and those memories are powerful, but she’s not here, and she can’t touch you.” She reached up and turned off the water. “Come with me.”

She helped him up from the floor and handed him a towel, which he used to dry himself. She retrieved the sweatpants that Jesse had brought up from the bus after she decided that visiting his friends would have to wait until the morning. He wasn’t in a state to do anything like that this evening.

She walked back into the bathroom to see Hayden rubbing his chest again, and she walked over to him and placed her hand on his. “Stop, Hayden.”

He blinked at her, then nodded and set the towel aside. She handed him the sweatpants, and he put them on before she led him to the bed. He lay down, and she went over to her suitcase, pulled out a nightgown, and put it on before joining him.

She turned off the lights in the room before she rested her head on his chest and he stiffened for a moment, causing her to recall how he’d slept the last two nights. “Sorry, do you want to sleep alone?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Please don’t think that. I just remembered—I don’t want to sleep without you, no.”

He wrapped his arms around her, and she placed hers over his chest, carefully avoiding the injured areas on his torso. She gently stroked his skin and kissed his chest softly.

“I love you, Hayden.”

“I love you, too, preciosa. Thinking of you was what got me through this. Knowing that you would come find me, that I would get this moment, the one where you’re in my arms again. That was how I got through it.”

“I wish you didn’t have to go through it,” she whispered.

“Me, too.”

---