Page 147 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

“Alice, wake up, please, sweetheart–”

“Scarlett, let me... no! Let me go–”

“Alice, wake up. You’re safe. Please wake up. Come on.” I held her against my chest again, and she struggled to get free. Her eyes were open now, but I could tell she was still asleep.

Then her hands went to her throat, her nails digging into her skin, scratching at her neck like she couldn’t breathe.

The only thing I could do was restrain her, so I held her tight and kept her hands away from her neck until she screamed and cried herself out. Slowly, the panic seemed to drain away and she fell back asleep.

I climbed into the bed beside her, watching her sleep until I was sure she wasn’t going to have another nightmare, and then I surrendered as well, waking up at my normal time and escaping her room before she noticed I’d slept beside her.

The next morning, she seemed completely fine. Over breakfast, which consisted of an omelet for me and coffee and a half a piece of toast for her, I asked her if she remembered her dream last night.

“Oh, I don’t know. I never remember my dreams.” She shrugged nonchalantly.

“You don’t remember any nightmares?”

She hesitated, her coffee cup halfway to her lips. “No, I don’t think so.” She sipped her coffee and looked at me. “Did I talk in my sleep or something?”

I didn’t answer, and instead tried to decide how I was going to help her. Nightmares were not uncommon with the girls I worked with, but I didn’t want to put Alice through intense therapy and treatment without talking about it first. Especially when she was already so sensitive to the belief that she was broken. But right before I left for the day wasn’t a good time to bring any of that up.

“Yeah, you were pretty upset, and I couldn’t wake you up. Let’s talk about it when I get home, okay?” I stroked her hair and kissed her forehead.

“Okay,” she said, and immediately launched herself into telling me about some digital war that was happening on her discord server between the brats and the Doms.

I planned to have the conversation that night when I got home, but that evening when I returned, I found her lying in bed, her eyes red from crying, almost lethargic from not having eaten or drank anything that day and crying too much.

I tried to comfort her, holding her in my arms and trying to get her to drink something, but she was nearly nonresponsive, alternating between shaking and crying and long stretches where she stared off into space.

That evening I finally got her somewhat communicating with me, and she admitted that she was afraid I was going to send her away because she was fucked up. Only by threatening that I was going to take her to the hospital was I able to get her to consume some watered-down apple juice, and then she passed out.While originally I had planned for her to spend a few days here with me before returning back to Cullowhee, now I thought sending her home after this episode would be more damaging than helpful. I decided not to mention her return to North Carolina, and would let her bring it up herself.

She had another nightmare that night. I stayed by the side of her bed until morning, and then rescheduled my appointments for the day so I could get some sleep.

When I woke up that afternoon, she had managed to knock over half the items in the laundry room in an effort to wash her clothes because she couldn’t reach anything on the shelves, and apparently, I didn’t own a stepstool. When I looked at the load she’d put in, I realized she had stayed here for almost a week and was out of clothes because she hadn’t brought any underwear, so I made her get dressed and took her out to the mall to get her a few pairs of panties.

“But I hate panties,” she whined.

“Good girls wear panties for Sir.”

“What about bad girls,” she asked coyly.

“Bad girls have to do laundry every few days because they only brought one pair of jeans and some fishnets.”

“WellI’m sorry, I figured I’d spend most of my time naked,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. A couple standing beside us made a face at her comment. Alice didn’t notice them.

“I have no problem with you spending the majority of your time naked. But you have to wear panties when you leave the house.”

“Why-uh?” she whined, somehow managing to turn a one syllable word into two.

“So you don’t flash anyone by accident. And because I said so. Now stop being so impolite or you’ll be writing more lines when we get home.”

She rolled her eyes but said, “Yes Sir.” We really needed a rule about eye rolling.

She begged for a milkshake on our way out, and I refused, because it was four o’clock and I knew it would ruin her appetite.

“But I haven’t eaten all day!”

I stopped short and looked at her. “What? You haven’t eatenanything?”

---