Page 19 of Deceptively Dead

“Ok,” I say quietly, “just… just don’t hold me down, yeah?” my voice trembles a bit at the end but I’m not crying yet so that’s got to be a good sign. At least it is until I see what my words do to Chase. I watch as his eyes go from soft pools of understanding to hard chips of steel and he snatches his hand from my face, as though even that small amount of control over my body might break me.

“Who?” he rasps in a quiet voice. “Who has held you down before?”Oh, shit. This took a turn in the wrong direction…“Was it that asshole who thinks he’s a king? Is that why he’s chasing you so hard?” I feel my face drain of color even as I shake my head. Chase obviously doesn’t believe me because he runs a hand through his short hair and growls “I’ll fucking kill him.” His face is a mask of rage and it’s at that moment I notice his pants are still partly undone. Combined with the anger in his body and face the sight sends chills through my body, kicking my fight or flight reflexes into high gear and causing me to scramble backwards across the bed. I startle Chase and his hand shoots out to wrap loosely around my left ankle, “Hey,” he says gently “Where are you going?”

It’s the wrong thing to say.

I’m immediately thrust back into a memory of the times when those words were said in a completely different tone of voice and the hand on my ankle wasn’t nearly so gentle. I yelp, kicking out with all my strength and catching him off guard, in the chest. He lets go immediately but doesn’t fall back and all I can see is Jacob leering down at me“Where the fuck do youthink you’re going? We’re not done yet.”Only to be replaced by Ben’s sneering face “Where are you going, honey? You’re with me tonight, remember?”I start to hyperventilate as the things that happened after those words replay in my mind like a horror movie I can’t turn away from.

Distantly, I hear Chase calling my name and the sound of a door crashing open, but I’m gone, lost to my nightmares again.

Chapter Twenty-two

Icome back to myself slowly, a trio of smooth male voices speaking softly, tempting me back to the present and somehow over-riding the harsh voices of my past. When I groggily open my eyes, I quickly assess the situation I’ve gotten myself into. Backed against a corner and wedged under the big desk, I’m curled in on myself with my back to the wall. Someone has managed to place the thick comforter from the bed over most of my body and I curl it more tightly around me on instinct. The slight movement catches the attention of Hunter (of course it does the creeping stalker) and his sharp command has the other voices in the room go silent. I wish they didn’t, the silence makes me nervous.

“Darlin’?” Hunter voice is soft and deep, the kind you might use on a cornered animal, one that’s likely to rip you apart if you move too quick.Fair analogy really. Considering Iamhuddled in a corner like said animal. And I probably did already try to rip them apart.

“Sweetheart, you comin’ out?” his soft voice insists. I manage a pathetic squeak in return, then flinch back violently as I hear the unmistakeable thud of a fist hitting flesh, followed by a manly grunt of pain. Despite my conditioning I find myself clutching the comforter to me tightly and scrambling towards the edge of the desk, needing to see what happened and make sure one of my guys wasn’t hurt.

I peek out from under the desk and immediately spot Hunter, crouched to the side of the opening under the desk intent gaze already cataloguing my features and obviously not liking what he sees if the tightening around his eyes is any indication.

I’m not able to maintain the eye contact with Hunter, feeling far too vulnerable right now and so I swing my eyes over to the side of the bed where Chase stands slightly hunched over, holding a hand to his stomach and a stony-faced Nate slowly unclenches his fist beside him. My attention flickers from Nate to Chase and back again, trying to understand what I’m seeing. Chase has a mark on his cheek, red now, but promising to darken into a truly impressive bruise. I wouldn’t be surprised if it caused a black eye; most of the hits I got that looked like that, turned in to black eyes.

I expect Chase to respond to the physical attack but he just sighs and nods at Nate, who doesn’t even twitch from his stony-faced expression. That is until he notices me staring. His blue eyes lock on to mine and he moves forward quickly. Too quickly, and I flinch back from him. Nate stops dead in his tracks a second before Hunter barks “Stop” at him. I watch Nate’s fists clench against his sides and he whirls suddenly to Chase again, landing another brutal punch to his stomach.

Again, Chase just grunts, his devastated eyes never leaving my face. “Don’t even fucking look at her!” Nate snarls at Chase, making him flinch and his face harden, but he drops his eyes from mine and I can’t stand it. I gather my blanket like courageand dash out to stand between the two of them, facing Nate with a hard stare.

“Stop it! Don’t you fucking talk to him like that!” I snap at Nate, anger making my face flush. Nate gives me a perplexed look before gesturing to Chase behind me. “That fuckface hurt you Trouble. He fucking admitted it. He said he caused your panic attack!” Nate tells me quietly his Texas drawl doing its best to smooth his hard words “That’s not ok, baby. Not ok at all.” His words and his defense of me makes me melt a little bit, but then I remember how miserable Chase is behind me and I have to try to make things better.

“No, it wasn’t his fault! We were… it was just… umm…” I suddenly realise that I have to tell the other two men in my life that I was in here making out with their friend. More than making out. How do I get myself into these situations? I stammer and stutter and try to get coherent sentences out until Chase finally takes pity on me and says “It’s ok Angel, they know what we were doing and what happened. You don’t have to defend me, beautiful, it was definitely my fault and I am so freaking sorry.” I turn around to look at him and his face breaks my heart with the sorrow and guilt in his eyes. “I swear to you Inevermeant to hurt you. You don’t have to forgive me; I know I fucked this right up.”

“No, I don’t… it’s just… it’s not like that. You didn’t hurt me at all I promise.” I say pleadingly, only to receive a disbelieving stare in return. “Fine.” I huff “You didn’t hurt me physically. You just… when you grabbed my ankle… and… and saidthat.It… reminded me of before and… I just… I can’t be held down, ok? Never. No restraints. And… and some things might set me off. Things you say and stuff. And, yeah. You… you can’t get mad again, ok?” I say the last bit beseechingly, pleading with him to understand. I watch as his tortured eyes start to soften towardsme and he opens his mouth, only to be cut off by a hard voice at my back.

“The fuck were you doing getting mad at her? While she wasnaked?”I expect the snarling tone to come from Nate but its Hunter’s deep voice that silences Chase. And, smart man that he is, he stays quiet, his grey gaze flicking from me to the two men standing protectively at my back then back to me. I can see the struggle in his head of whether or not to defend himself, to tell them what he learned about me. Obviously, he put two and two together. Eventually though, his eyes settle on me and he decides to keep his mouth closed on the subject, protecting my secret, at least for now.

Of course, that only serves to increase the agitation coming from behind me and I have to force myself not to roll my eyes at all the testosterone clogging the room.

Looks like the time has come to spill the beans on some of the worst moments of your life, so you can assuage some male territoriality and save the day. Damn it. This is going to suck.But I see no other way for the guys to move past what happened between Chase and I.

“He found out I was raped.” I state semi calmly into the growing tension. The effect the statement has is like a bomb going off. Chase flinches back as if I it hit him harder than Nate did earlier and when I turn to look at Hunter and the doctor, I find their reactions similar. The silence stretches on for a few beats of my heart, then it explodes, as Hunter picks up the armchair in the corner and slams it into the wall, leaving a gaping hole behind as he stalks out of the room. Nate doesn’t even seem to notice as he starts to pace, fists clenching and unclenching over and over again, breathing hard as he moves about the confines of the room, muttering quietly to himself. The mutterings sound suspiciously like a plan to kill every last male with-in a ten-mile radius, interspaced with vicious cursing.

I let out a defeated sigh and go to slump on the bed, wrapping my blanket around my body like a shield.Pretty sure I just said they shouldn’t get mad.I lift my sad eyes to Chase who hasn’t moved from where he was standing when Nate hit him. As he looks at me, I see his eye twitch, before he too storms out of the room.

Bloody fuck. Temperamental bastards. I didn’t even get to the bad parts yet.

Before I can get fully into a funk, Chase comes barging back into the room, frog marching a furious Hunter in front of him. He stops Hunter before the bed and kicks his legs out from beneath him, effectively sitting him on the floor at my feet, before turning and grabbing a still pacing Nate and doing the same thing.

“Sit the fuck down you idiots and listen. She just said no anger, or have you already fucking forgot? At least try and learn from my god damn mistake, would you?” Chase growls at them and I watch in fascination as they both go still and draw in calming breaths before nodding their heads and turning to me expectantly. Still sitting on the floor. At my feet. When Chase plonks himself down, too, my discomfort only grows.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Nate says gently, using Hunter’s nickname for me, “we shouldn’t have done that. We’re here, we want to hear what you have to say. It’s just the thought of someone hurting you… it doesn’t sit well with us.”

“Ha! Shit. That’s a bit of an understatement.” I deadpan, looking pointedly at the hole in the wall. Hunter just grunts and I sigh. “Look, maybe it’s not a good idea to talk about this, because honestly, I got hurt, a lot. And I don’t think you guys want to hear about it. I certainly don’t want to talk about it.”

I watch a red flush creep over Hunter’s handsome face but he manages to stay silent, and even more impressive, he doesn’t put another hole in the wall. It’s Chase who speaks up first.

“No, Angel, we need to know what happened. We want to know everything about you, good and bad. But weneedto know who hurt you. If you can’t talk about it now then that’s ok. Of course it’s ok.” he reiterates at my look of surprise, “But, eventually when you are ready to talk about it, we just… We have to know.”

Ah shit, that’s a not-so-subtle way of saying they aren’t going to let this drop.

Right, well then, let’s get this shit over with.

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