Page 18 of Her Avenging Angel

A finger and thumb gripped her chin and with a firm but gentle touch, turned her head so she looked at Raven.

“It’s okay, little one. We know there will be triggers. We know there will be things that freak you out. Learning what they are and how to deal with them will take time, not just for you but for all of us. We’ll be patient with you if you’ll do the same for us.” He held her face, waiting until she nodded her agreement. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but we need to anyway. Can you tell us what happened before I got there?” He released her chin, then smoothed that hand over the top of her head and down her back.

She took a deep breath and let her gaze fall to her lap, after a moment she began.

“I’d been sitting on the floor going through things, cleaning and organizing, like I started while you were in there.” She glanced up to find Raven nodding. She’d been doing that when he’d left, though she hadn’t been sure when he’d left only that at some point she’d looked up and realized his spot was empty. “Dax had been coming and going, handing out drinks, dealing with things, it was no big deal. When Dax went into the kitchen, I got up and went back to taking care of the bar.” She paused, taking a deep breath. This was where she had to admit she freaked and why. “When I stood, I kept cleaning up. I grabbed a bunch of empty bottles off the bar and was going to take them to the recycling bin. I turned around and walked right into Dax. He hadn’t been there a second before. He was supposed to be in the kitchen.” She shuddered trying to push back the wave of panic that threatened to overwhelm her.

Raven’s hand that had been sitting low on her back began to move in circles. She loved the heat of his hands against her, though it had taken her more than a few minutes of reminding herself that not every time someone touched her would it end with her hurting. It had been these casual physical touches, these small touches, mostly from Raven, that had helped get the thought stuck into her brain.

“Anyway. When I ran into him, I dropped the bottles. His hands came up and he grabbed my arms. I know now he was just trying to keep me from falling,” Her already hot face flashed hotter, “but in the moment, that’s not where my mind went. In the moment all I could think was I’d made a mess, and now I was being held still. In my mind I wasn’t going to let that happen to me again. I was going to fight with everything I had to stop it.” She didn’t want to say exactly what she was thinking and hoped she wouldn’t have to.

“That’s good. I’m glad you wanted to fight. I’m glad you had what it took to fight, even without knowing who it was or what was going on in the moment.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to interrupt, but I need you to answer a couple of questions for me, Taylynn,” Freud said, drawing her attention to him once more. “Does any of this hurt? Does it feel any different than it has since we put the cast on?” He once more flexed her hand in different directions, seeming to move it through its entire range of motion.

“No. It feels the same.”

“Good. It feels like you didn’t do any damage, and you’re doing good. But you really need to avoid using your hand like that again, at least for a while.” He gave her what she would like to think a fatherly smile would look like. But since her own father had never looked at her like that, at least not that she could ever remember, she couldn’t be sure.

“I didn’t really hit him with my hand,” she said, wrinkling up her nose as she made the confession. “At least not more than a couple of times. It only took a few blows to realize that didn’t hurt as bad if I hit him with the cast instead of my hand, and since it’s harder, I could do more damage with it, so I started using the cast to hit him with that hand.” She covered her face with both hands now that Freud had released her injured one. “Oh, God. I need to go apologize to Dax,” she said through the hands over her face, knowing this wasn’t the first time she’d said it and not caring if they understood her or not. She didn’t want to do it, but the men had been nothing but kind to her, and she couldn’t repay that by not apologizing when she had done something wrong, especially when she had possibly hurt one of them. The last thing she wanted to do was to hurt someone. She knew how it felt to be someone’s punching bag, and she refused to treat another living being that way. Well, unless she was fighting to protect herself. She’d do a lot more than a few clumsy punches then, if she could.

“I can have him come in here, if you’d like, or we can go somewhere else. Whatever you’re more comfortable with, and when you’re ready.” Raven’s hand still made gentle circles on her back, as if he was doing his best to keep her calm. It was working.

Taylynn took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds before pushing it out in a rush. “I attacked him in front of everyone, I should apologize the same way.” She let her gaze drop to her hands as she worked on gathering her nerve to go out and tell Dax she was sorry and hoped she hadn’t hurt him.

“If you were one of my men, I’d agree, but we all know what you’ve been through, at least some of it. I would say you don’t have to do it but I’m sure you will insist on apologizing to him.” Raven continued to make slow circles on her back. “He would be fine if you said nothing to him about it again.”

Taylynn closed her eyes and shook her head. She couldn’t give in to the easy way out. She couldn’t let these men and their sympathy, their pity, keep her from doing what she knew was right. “Here,” she whispered, having no doubt Raven would know what she meant.

“Your arm appears to be fine. Let me know if it you feel any discomfort.” Freud released her hand, and she pulled it close to cradle the cast against her chest. Less because it hurt and more because it was heavy. Keeping it curled against her body meant she misjudged a movement and smacked it against something less often. She also didn’t tell either of the men that her attempt to fight off her—in her mind—unknown attacker wasn’t the first time she’d hit something with her cast. It wasn’t even the tenth, and hitting his chest hadn’t hurt nearly as bad as smacking it into the wall or nearly any other thing she’d run into.

The sound of footsteps stopping at the open door of the room where she still sat in Raven’s lap made her look up. Dax stood in the doorway, his eyes on Raven. But it wasn’t who he was looking at or even his appearance that made her gasp. That was because of the three bloody furrows scratched down the left side of his face, one starting above his eye and continued almost all the way to his jawline, with only a short break over his eye, as if he’d managed to protect it by tightly closing it.

Her heart ached as she saw what she’d done to him. Dax had been nothing but kind to her and it wasn’t his fault that she’d freaked out over such a small thing. She could admit, at the time, it hadn’t seemed small. Fighting had seemed like the only thing she could do with what her brain told her was happening. But she hated that she’d hurt him.

She brought her hands up again, this time just covering her mouth as she stared at the damage she’d done.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, unable to look away or even make herself speak louder.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Dax said, shaking his head. “I should have made sure you knew I was there.”

Raven’s hand on her back continued to move, but she had to ignore it as she stared up at the prospect. “I hurt you.”

“I’m not hurt.” One corner of his mouth lifted, as if the thought that she could hurt him was funny. Dax continued to watch her, his eyes filled with concern.

“Your face.” Tears pooled in her eyes at the knowledge that he had been trying to keep her from hurting herself and him. She’d thought he was trying to hurt her, but she had hurt him instead. If he’d been trying to do what Taylynn thought, she wouldn’t feel bad for what she’d done. She would see it as he’d earned it by trying to hurt her. But he hadn’t. And that was the problem. She moved one hand away from her face, the other still covering her mouth as she reached toward him, even knowing that he was too far away, and that even if she could touch him, she would stop before she actually did.

She hadn’t reached out and touched anyone but Raven voluntarily for months and she didn’t want to now, but she felt like she should do more than just apologize for the damage she’d done to Dax and his face. Hurting him, or anyone, had never been her intention.

Realizing she didn’t have the nerve it took to get up from Raven’s lap, much less to go to Dax and touch him again, even to say she was sorry, she pulled her hand back and curled her fingers into a fist. She clenched her hand, not in preparation for hitting anyone but as a reminder to keep her hands to herself. She swallowed then cleared her throat.

“I shouldn’t have hit you. I’m sorry. I’m even sorrier that I hurt you.”

Dax started to speak, to deny that she hurt him, she knew, but she shook her head, cutting him off.

“I know you say I didn’t hurt you and that I have nothing to apologize for but you’re wrong. I can see I did hurt you. I can see the injury. I kind of lost it for a minute and I want you to know that I know you didn’t do it on purpose. That I know you aren’t who my messed-up head told me you were.”

Dax took a step closer, then crouched down to sit on his heels, so he was eye level with her. She didn’t take her eyes off him and forced herself not to flinch or move away as he got closer. He was not one of the Iron Demons. He would not treat her as a plaything the way they had. She reminded herself of this every day. That the Fallen Angels, despite their name, were not the same as the men who had abused her. They were not the same kind of men who had beaten her and discarded her, leaving her for dead. These were the men who had rescued her. They had taken care of her while she recovered, while she was still recovering. They had told her time and again that she didn’t owe them anything. That they would not be making her pay off her debt on her back, like the Iron Demons had done, not in the least part because she had no debt. She still found it hard to believe but everything they did, everything they said was working to convince her.

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