Page 70 of Dark OZ

Quietly, I added, “Don’t call me Dorothy.”

Crowe glared at him over the top of my head. “You fucking know she wants to be called Thea. You’re such a prick that you can fuck her into screaming your name but can’t be bothered to call her by the one of her choosing.”

Danny paced against the far wall like a caged lion. “Sorry, she just told you that Emily-fucking-Rosen pimped her out to sweeten a few shitty deals, and you’re going to focus on the name thing, too. There is seriously something wrong with both of you. Fucking hell, Crowe, why are you not more furious right now?”

“Oh, I am. The idea of anyone ever touching our girl with anything other than adoration makes me want to start stalking the night for heads to roll.” Crowe was speaking with such calm, cold fury. It was the complete opposite of the waves of rage that Danny was putting off. Despite that, the hand tracing soothing circles against my arm never slowed. His focus was still on my well-being.

To stop the cold war brewing between them, I explained, “Em called me Dorothy. Her, Henry, the rest of The Farm, Eastin, theyallcalled me Dorothy…Butmy mom, she called me Thea.” Danny’s eyes widened with understanding, his jaw going slack. “I can barely remember her, but I remember that much.”

There were very few memories of my life before The Farm. Most of them were hazy and lacking in any real detail. But, I had one vivid and recurring dream. It was of my mother rocking me to sleep.

Her arms held me to her chest, humming a song I’ve never heard anywhere but with her. The auburn ringlets of her long hair swayed, and the amber hue of her eyes looked like honey. When I was lucky enough to dream of her, I always awoke to her voice softly whispering,“Sweet dreams, Thea baby.”

My mouth had gone dry, and I swallowed around the building emotion. I pushed away from Crowe, being sure that I could clearly see both him and Danny.

“Em calling me Dorothy was fine. I let her claim that name. In my mind, I wasneverDorothy. Dorothy was powerless, but Thea isunbreakable. When the smoke settles, it will be Thea standing over Em’s ashes. I left Dorothy behind the moment I was loaded on that truck.”

Chapter 32

ThefullgravityofThea’s confession hung like a volcanic ash cloud in the air. It was the kind of information you couldn’t ignore. The kind that ate away at your thoughts and set homicidal plans in motion. My old demons stretched their wings. The man I used to be sharpened his blade and prepared for battle.

Emily Rosen had bad, wicked things coming to her. That was the silent promise I made to my girl as she laid back on the pillow, and I tended to the wounds along her back. All while Danny prowled the length of the room.

“Go get something to eat,” I finally snapped at him. “It’s been days since you’ve had a proper meal, and you’re making me manic with your pacing. Maybe Nick still has some of the lasagna from earlier left.” Danny needed to get a handle on his rage. Behaving like this didn’t help Thea. If he really cared, he’d put that strategizing mind of his to work and figure out a plan to take the bitch down.

Danny gave a long glance at where Thea lay on the bed. She lazily yawned and blinked slowly up at me.

“Go, Danny. Thea needs to rest, and she’ll never sleep while you’re like this.” I waved generally at all of him. “Look at her. She can barely keep her eyes open.”

With a huff, he trudged out of the room. The door closed behind him with a near-silent click. I pulled the blanket over us and urged Thea to rest against my chest.

“It isn’t a big deal,” she murmured. “If I had known it would make you both so mad, then I never would have told you.”

I kissed the top of her head. “The fact you think it isn’t a big deal is exactly why it is. Your aunt abused you so thoroughly you’ve accepted it as a normal part of life.” Her slight frame curled deeper into me. I wrapped my arms around her, hoping that she could sense how I would never let her suffer alone again. “The damage may seem slight, but you’ve carried that pain for so long you barely feel it anymore. You might have become stronger, but that doesn’t make it weigh less.”

***

I stared at the claw-like shadows the tree outside the window cast on the ceiling, running my fingers through the tangled mess of auburn waves splayed over my chest. I wanted to fall asleep with her, needed to. I had barely slept more than ten hours combined the past few days. The lulling sound of her breaths, coupled with the sleep deprivation, were as good as any sedative.

Every time I closed my heavy eyes, I couldn’t keep the images from coming. Thea’s strangled screams cut off by her ragged vocal cords. Was it what Em had subjected her to that haunted those hallucinations or something the men she’d beengivento had done? Or perhaps it was some other abuse that Thea hadn’t even told us about. If Em had allowed her niece to be beaten nearly to death, raped, and sold off to a sadistic butcher, then what else had she rationalized as reasonable?

My dark imagination was getting the better of me, twisting what I already knew with the things I had done in my Scarecrowe days, tangling them together. When I finally gave in, it wasn’t into the blissful nothing of deep sleep. No, it was into a new hell of my own creation. I dreamt of torturing Thea. Those screams from her lips fell from the treachery of my own hands.

I wasn’t sure how long I was under for when I jolted awake. The room was still blanketed in the thick darkness of night, so it couldn’t have been long, but it felt like an eternity.

Thea ran her fingers down my cheek. I could feel them trailing through cold sweat. The welcoming softness in her eyes exorcized the demons still lingering in the eaves of my mind. “Shh. It was only a nightmare.”

I sighed a laugh beneath my breath and drew her to me, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I guess you’d know a thing or two about those.”

This beautiful creature was so fragile and yet refused to break. She didn’t shy from the monsters that stalked the shadows. She stared them down and dared them to do their worst. She waited them out and unflinchingly took the damage they offered. Because, when they were done, that was when she would rise.

I saw it that day in Eastin’s office. When she stood over the carnage, a savage goddess painted with the blood of her enemy and dressed in nothing but scars and scraps of lace. Thea should have screamed and run. Instead, she dropped the globe and stared at the ceiling with relief, not terror. Now, she was looking at me with the same expression.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” she whispered.

“The ghosts of my past are best left there, Beautiful. The things I’ve done…I don’t need to burden you with my nightmares when I saw first-hand what yours look like.” I tried to smile but couldn’t seem to find the energy to fake it. I was still so exhausted, and with Thea, I didn’t want to pretend.

“What if we erase them instead.” She brushed my sleep-tousled hair from my eyes.

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