The Destiny of Violet & Luke (The Coincidence, #3)(94)

“Are you okay?” he finally asks, sounding breathless, on the verge of panicking.

I nod, pressing back my content smile even though he can’t see it in the darkness that’s settled in the room, but it’s weird being happy. Plus the smile is a real one, not my fake one I always show people. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, seeming self-conscious. “Everything’s fine? Even after… well everything.”

I glance up at him, propping my chin against his chest. “Everything’s fine, Mr. Stoically Aloof, now would you relax?”

“I’m relaxed,” he insists. “I’m just making sure you are—that you’re okay with me.”

“I’m perfectly fine with you and with what happened,” I assure him. And I am. For a moment, everything is absolutely perfect.

*


“Would you shut the f*ck up?” the guy shouts as the woman sings to herself over and over again. “We need to get out of here.”



“Lean into me. Lean into me. Take. Help me. I need to understand. Help me. I can’t do this without you,” she cries as he holds her weight in his arms.



“Stop singing that f*cking song!” he yells with rage and kicks one of my toys across the room. “Get your shit together and let’s get out of here.”



“I can’t,” she says through hysterical sobs. “What if someone saw us?”



“No one f*cking saw us,” he says, shaking her like a rag doll. “I already checked the house.”



She glances around my toy room and I swear her eyes land on me in the dark corner. Does she see me? She has to. Is she going to tell? “Lean into me. Lean into me. Take. Help me. I need to understand. Help me. I can’t do this without you.” Tears flood her eyes over and over again and I start to cry to as he starts smacking her over and over again, the lyrics and slaps haunting my head as I wait for the monsters to find me. Hurt me. Because that’s what monsters do.




*

I wake up in a panic, like I always do, my arms flailing as I sit up, my surroundings distorted as that song echoes in her head. I gasp, clutching my neck, breathing loudly as I search the dark room, my mind searching for something familiar, and finally it lands on my teddy bear on top of my desk.

Luke sits up, rubbing his eyes as he places a hand on my back. He’s become so used to this it doesn’t even faze him anymore. He smoothes his hand up and down my back, allowing me to regain my breathing as I clutch the sheet to my naked chest, telling my heart rate to settle. I have to work not to do it the way I’m so used to doing—by seeking an adrenaline rush through danger. I know that the only reason I’m not running to the window and contemplating jumping is because he’s here touching me. Calming me down. He’s the one doing it now.

After I settle down, he pulls his shirt over me, slips his boxers on and lies us back down in bed, wrapping his arms around me. “I wish you’d tell me what you dream about,” he whispers against my forehead as he kisses it. “Maybe I could help.”

“Talking about stuff doesn’t help,” I whisper with my hands on his chest. “And trust me, you don’t want to hear about it.”

He combs his fingers through my hair and I feel his neck muscles move as he swallows hard. “I have nightmares, too, sometimes about… about shooting up my mom… I actually really hate needles and doing that stuff… Well it still gets to me.”

“But you’re a diabetic?”

“Yeah, it’s a great inconvenience.” There’s forced humor in his voice.

I rack my head for something to say, but I can’t come up with anything. I could make a joke, create an elaborate story—those things are always easy for me to do. But he keeps telling me things about himself, without me even asking. Dark and screwed-up things, like the ones I’ve been holding inside me for thirteen years.

“It’s about that night,” I say and his muscles stiffen, but he continues to run his fingers through my hair. “I saw them…”

His fingers stop moving and he catches his breath. “You saw the killers.”

I nod, looking down at the foot of the bed. “I did, but at the same time not really… I guess it was more like I heard them… they were noisy f*ckers.” My tone is light but everything else inside me feels like bricks tumbling down, crushing me, trapping me. “They didn’t know I was in the room, so they didn’t even bother to be quiet.”

“Did you tell the police this?” he asks.

“I told the police everything; what I could remember happening, the shoes the lady was wearing… I even described the sound of her stupid voice… the way it sounded when she sang that messed-up song.”

“She was singing a song?” he asks. “Really?”

“Yeah, it had some really f*cked-up lyrics,” I say, summoning a deep breath. “ ‘Lean into me. Lean into me. Take. Help me. I need to understand. Help me. I can’t do this without you…’ ” I trail off. “It’s what I hear every night in my dreams.”

He’s silent for a while, the sounds of cars rolling by the only noise in our room. At first I think it’s because he’s taking in what I said, but then I realize how stiff he’s gotten and how it doesn’t even sound like he’s breathing.