Page 139 of Branded
My eyes flew open when I heard another moan.
Only this time it was a moaned-out word. A moaned-out, “No.”
Spine going stiff, I shot up to my feet.
Beth’s brows were drawn sharply together, her eyes still closed, shifting uncomfortably on the couch, head digging into her pillow. Dreaming.
A bad one.
“No!”
Not a moan this time, but a yell, and not the kind that had me finding the motivation on the ice or in the weight room. This yell had every single one of my nerves freezing as I shoved out of the chair.
“No.” Quieter now, her head shifting from side to side. “No, don’t hurt her. Don’t touch her. No!”
The last was ear-piercing, making me jump.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
Nightmare or memory, I didn’t know.
What I did know?
That I wasn’t going to stand there like an idiot and watch the fear in her mind etch itself onto her face, wasn’t going to listen to her groaning and gasping and telling some fucking monster in her brain no.
So I moved to her side, knelt on the carpet, and reached for her.
Six
Beth
I was in the corner of the room.
Plush carpet beneath my bottom, silk on my body.
The air conditioning was pumping in the house, like it always did, summer or winter or in between, and since I wasn’t under the thick, down comforter my mom had picked out for my bed, I was shivering.
But it wasn’t just the air conditioning that had me shivering.
He was hurting her.
Again.
The thunks were familiar, and they always meant that my mom walked carefully the next day, winced when she went up the stairs, and I had to be really really gentle if I hugged her.
And I was in the corner of the room, hiding behind my five-story dollhouse, being quiet.
Like my mom had said to do.
Because I always listened to my mom.
Always.
But that night the thunks were louder than normal. That night my mom, who normally was silent, began crying out.
And…I couldn’t take it.
So I stood up and stepped out of that shadowed corner, goose bumps spreading on my skin as the air-conditioned air moved over my body.
