Beautiful Beast (Gypsy Heroes #3)(45)

I couldn’t walk.

‘She just needs a bit of fresh air,’ she told the bouncers. I could feel my legs hitting the concrete steps, but I felt no pain.

‘You all right, love?’ the bouncer asked.

I wanted to tell him that I had not drunk a lot, but the effort was too much. But even then I did not panic. If only I had made a real effort to tell him, everything would have been different. I was watching with great detachment as Andrew and Kim walked me down the sidewalk. We came to a car. Andrew opened it and together they put me inside. Both of them got into the front.

I remember dry heaving.

‘Is she all right?’ Andrew said.

Kim turned to me. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll take care of you,’ she said, but her voice was echoing.

When she turned and talked with Andrew, their voices felt like they were coming from very far away or from underwater. Then I blacked out. When I came to again, Andrew was pulling me out of the car and carrying me. The sidewalk was wet. I felt the drizzle fall on my face. I tried to talk. I wanted to know where Kim was, but I could not open my mouth. I had no control of any part of my body. I felt a shaft of fear then. It crawled into my head on all fours.

‘Don’t try to talk. It’s OK. Everything is going to be OK,’ he whispered.

But I remember thinking that he looked nervous.

Then I blacked out again.

When I came around, I still couldn’t move a single muscle and I was in that dreadful hotel room.





Twenty-three


SHANE

I wake up suddenly with a jerk and freeze. Moonlight is filtering in through the curtains. Everything is still .... and wrong. Immediately I turn my head and look to the pillow beside me. It is empty. I jack-knife to a sitting position and listen. There is an intermittent scratching noise coming from the bathroom. I leap out of bed and rush towards the sound. There is no light coming from under the door. I rap on it. The scratching stops, but there is no answer.

‘Snow,’ I call. ‘Are you in there?’

There is no answer. I can feel my heart hammering in my chest.

‘If you don’t open this door I’m f*cking breaking it down,’ I say. My voice has a thread of panic running through it.

Still she doesn’t answer.

Dread is like an icy claw around my heart. I stand back and start kicking the door. After three kicks it smashes open. I switch on the light and find her naked and cowering in a corner. Her fists are covering her mouth. Above her fist, her eyes are large and wild. Her hair is messy and strands fall over her face. She stares at me without any recognition. As if she is not even looking at me.

What the f*ck! It is an incredible shock to see her reduced to something so feral, but another part of my brain takes over. Calmly, it deduces where the sound has come from. She has been scratching the side of the bathtub with her fingernails.

I take a step forward and she presses her back into the tiles, a look of sheer terror on her face.

I lift my hand. ‘It’s just me, Snow. Shane.’

She stares at me without comprehension.

I very slowly get on my haunches, and when it looks like that that action does not spook her, I get on my hands and knees and start a half-shuffle, half-crawl towards her. ‘It’s me,’ I urge softly. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’ I stop a foot away from her.

‘What are you doing here, Snow?’ I ask in a conversational tone, as if I was asking her to pass the salt.

‘I feel cold. So cold,’ she says, and indeed her teeth are chattering.

‘Here, let me warm you,’ I say without making any move towards her.

‘No,’ she whispers. ‘Nobody can warm me. I saw them again tonight.’

‘Saw who?’

‘The bastards who did this to me.’

‘What did they do, Snow?’ I ask, the blood in my veins turning to ice.

‘This,’ she says, and opens her thighs. She makes a fist with her small hand and is about to hit her own exposed sex when I grab it and stop her. I stare at her.

‘No,’ I say. ‘You can’t hurt that. That’s mine.’

She doesn’t fight.

‘That’s yours?’ she asks in a small voice.

‘That’s mine, Snow. I don’t care what happened before this, but that is now mine.’


‘I was a virgin and they didn’t even use a condom,’ she sobs.

‘Oh Snow,’ I say, and feel tears start prickling my own eyes. The sensation is novel. I haven’t cried since the day I found out they slit my father’s throat. I blink the tears away quickly and gather her into my arms. At first she thrashes and hits out instinctively, but I hold her tight.

‘I got you,’ I tell her. I got you, babe. No one will ever hurt you again.’

‘Something terrible happened to me in that hotel room, and I cannot tell you about it because it was too horrible.’ Her body shakes with emotion.

I hold her tightly. ‘It’s not your fault this happened to you. Nothing you did made you responsible for your assault. Shhhh … Shhh … Shhhh’ I whisper in her ear until her struggles cease and she is limp in my arms.

I slip one hand under her knees and the other around her back and carry her back to my bed. I lay her down, and when I try to disengage myself she clings desperately to me, so I sit on the bed and hold her. After a while she starts sobbing.