Page 117 of The Masks and the Dancer (Their Obsession 2)

“It hurts. God it hurts,” I grind out, my head tipped back against the wooden floorboards, my neck strained, my muscles taught. My blood is like acid in my veins, burning it’s way through my body and sliding from the newly-scabbed wounds that rip open from all the writhing.

“Brother, easy now,” Leon placates.

I don’t question how he’s here. I have no recollection of when he arrived, but as he moves into my peripheral vision, I’m grateful for his presence. We’ve always shared our pain, and this time is no different. Another scream rips out of me and my body shudders violently.

Leon grasps my shoulders, pinning me to the floor. “Hold him down. He’ll hurt himself more if we don’t restrain him.”

Another pair of hands wrap around my ankles as I judder and shake, twist and turn. I recognise his touch. Konrad.

“We’re here, just ride it out,” he says, his voice thick with emotion, withlove.

And I feel it. I feel their love for me. It floats around me, uncertain but there. Tentative but hopeful. As kids we forged a deep bond through mutual suffering and a desperate need to belong, to find affection even if it wasn’t readily given. We buried that love deep inside, holding it close to our hearts so our father wouldn’t pry it away from feeble hands that weren’t strong enough to fight him off. I’m grateful for their presence, but it’s not their touch that forces my eyes open, that pulls me back from the brink, that soothes the boyandthe man, that comforts my soul.

It’shers.

“Shh, it’s okay now. We’re here,” she whispers, her fingers trembling as she cups my cheek in her hands, stroking my skin with a tenderness I’ve no right to receive. “Just listen to my voice. Concentrate on my touch. Okay?”

My heart thumps painfully as a groan releases from my mouth, the electric current of my pain ebbing away with every gentle stroke of her fingers. She caresses my skin like a mother would her sick child and I so want to curl into her touch, seek warmth and safety in her hold.

But I’ve no right. I’ve no right to want such things, so I flinch away instead.

“Don’t fight this. Just let me do this for you,please,” she begs, her voice trailing off as she chokes on the words, like it’s as hard for her to offer up her kindness as it is for me to receive it.

My eyes refocus, muted light creeping into the darkness as she leans over me, her long hair falling in a curtain around us both. We lock gazes as guilt and gratitude fight for my attention. I don’t know how to form the words to apologise, to beg for forgiveness, so I do nothing but stare at the woman who’s turned my whole world inside out, and who’s saved me from death when I only granted hers.

“Let him go,” she orders softly, a host of emotions passing over her features as she looks up at my brothers.

I feel the absence of their touch as the warmth of their fingers is replaced with cool air. Without them pinning me down, I turn on my side and clutch my legs to my chest in self-comfort, because even though my soul may have found its way back into my body, I don’t have the strength to stand, to do anything other than lie here, utterly vulnerable and at her mercy. She could kill me now and I wouldn’t have the strength to fight her off. Not that I would. It’s the least I deserve.

Except there’s no violence, there’s only kindness as she lays down beside me on this disgusting, dirty floor and wraps her body around mine, her arms circling my back, her thighs pressing against my shins, her nose brushing the tip of mine.

I don’t move.

I barely breathe.

A bone-weary tiredness washes over me, drawing me into a different kind of oblivion. My eyelids begin to droop and I don’t fight the pull of sleep, too exhausted to stay awake.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“For what?” I murmur, fighting to stay conscious because it should be me who’s apologising, not her. Seconds tick by as she stares right into the very depths of me.

“For what’s to come…” she replies sadly, just as I’m dragged into a deep, dreamless sleep.

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