Mind Game (GhostWalkers, #2)(27)

It was only then that she realized she was wrapped around him, her thigh carelessly between his, her head on his abdomen. She moved away from him and felt her hair slip from between his fingers. She lay in silence, unable to think properly, wanting to apologize but not knowing how. In the end she took the coward’s way out. Uncomfortable, Dahlia slipped off the moss-filled mattress, careful not to touch him, not to make physical contact. It was only an hour or so until dawn. She knew the night sounds of the bayou. She was awake more often than asleep after midnight so she knew each hour that insects, birds or frogs serenaded one another.

Nicolas didn’t move, but she knew his eyes were open, watching her as she padded on bare feet across the floor and opened the door. She could feel the intensity of his gaze as it burned over her. She was immediately aware of the thinness of the shirt she was wearing. The tails covered her body, even went to her knees, but she wore nothing beneath it. Her body felt hot and achy, completely foreign. The cool night air rushed over her. She hoped her face wasn’t glowing as hot as it felt.

Dahlia climbed onto the roof with the ease of long practice. Few physical activities were difficult for her. She sat carefully, tucking the shirt beneath her and looking up at the clouds floating above her. So many times she’d spent the nights looking up at the stars and wishing she could grab on to the clouds as they passed overhead. The rain had ceased sometime in the night. She loved the sound of rain, the continuous rhythm a lullaby that sometimes aided her in sleeping. The roof was damp, the bayou clear and crisp and fresh after the cleansing rain.

She refused to dwell on the fact that she had awoken with her body tangled with his. It happened. There was nothing she could do about it anymore than she could change what Whitney had done to her. “Lily.” She whispered the name softly. Her secret, pretend friend. Lily had kept her sane on more than one occasion, yet Dahlia had been told there was no Lily. There never had been a Lily. Lily was a figment of her imagination. Milly had been her nurse for as long as she could remember. Milly had to have known Lily if she were real. It was a small thing, but it was a betrayal. Dahlia thought of Milly as family, as a mother. If she couldn’t trust the things Milly told her, whom could she trust? What could she trust?

“I should have searched for you, Lily. And Flame and all the others. I shouldn’t have stayed here, a prisoner really, and believed them all. I really thought maybe I was crazy.” She stared out over the water and her vision blurred. “I should have been there to stop them from killing Milly and Bernadette. They never hurt anyone or anything in their lives. It just doesn’t make sense.”

She didn’t hear the opening or closing of the door. She didn’t even hear a noise as Nicolas gained the roof, but she was aware of his presence the moment he came up behind her. She rested her head on her knees, not turning as he stepped carefully to the spot beside her, avoiding the cracks in the roof.

“I was late. I should have been there.”

Nicolas watched as Dahlia rubbed her face against the collar of the shirt she was wearing. His shirt. It enveloped her completely. He settled close to her. Close enough so that his thigh touched hers. He felt waves of grief pouring off of her, surrounding her. “Your being late is what saved your life, Dahlia. They were there to kill you. That was a hit squad.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But they were there to kill Milly and Bernadette and to destroy my home.” She looked at him. “Why? After all this time, why would they decide to do that? Don’t you think the timing is a bit coincidental?”

Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. He felt a claw tearing at his gut. “I considered that immediately. I think it’s more than likely that Lily dug in the wrong places and tipped someone off that she found you. She inherited everything.

The paperwork is enormous. She found the trust for the sanitarium buried in a lot of legal mumbo jumbo only the lawyer understood.”

“Is she happy?”

“She seems very happy. She’s married to a friend of mine. Ryland Miller. They’re never very far apart.”

“I’m glad.” She looked up at the moving clouds. “Someone needs to have come out of this sane and happy. I’m glad it was Lily.”

“Don’t give up, Dahlia. There are things we can do to minimize the effects of what Whitney did to you.”

She turned her head to look at him. “If there were things anyone could do for me, why was I kept apart from the rest of the world? Why was I raised alone in what was virtually a prison? I could walk away, everyone always reminded me of that, but I really couldn’t, because in the end, it was the only place I had that gave my brain respite from the sensory overload. Now I don’t have it anymore.”

Nicolas felt awkward. If she needed him to shoot someone for her, he was her man, but comforting her was something altogether different. He didn’t like feeling uncertain; it was foreign to his nature. Men didn’t pat women like dogs, did they? He put his arm around her, drew her closer to him. She seemed so fragile he was afraid he might break her. She stiffened immediately, but she didn’t pull away. “You might not have your home, Dahlia, but you have the GhostWalkers. Not just Lily, but an entire family of people just like you. We’ll work through it together.”

Dahlia kept her face averted. She sensed how Nicolas was struggling to find a way to help her and it was endearing, the only reason she didn’t pull away from him and put distance between them. She knew he was trying to comfort her, but the thought of being around people she didn’t know, in a house that was unfamiliar, was terrifying. Dahlia knew no other way of life. The sanitarium and the bayou were her home. She forced down grief and fear.