Page 36 of Sunrise

Mine.

I protect what’s mine.

“Alex.” I crawl over and hold his face in my hands. “Please, look at me.”

He’s a robot with the power turned off.

“Alex, please, let me help.” I kiss him, but he doesn’t kiss me back. My stomach drops. “Alex, please. We need to get you help.”

How do I make this better? I can’t call Ryker and Dmitri. This isn’t my secret to tell. They’ve got so much badshit going on in their lives anyway. Vault would hate me if I added to their pile up.

It’s me and him. Ride or die, to the end.

I’m scared this is the end.

“Hey, I’ve got you, alright?” Hooking his arm around my shoulders, I try to stand him up. He cries out. Maybe his ribs are broken? “We have to get you to a hospital.”

“No.”

“Vault, we—”

“NO!” He shoves away from me and climbs into the shower. “No one can know about this.”

What does he mean? We have to tell someone! He’s been violated… hurt… “You need help.”

“I don’t need anything.” He turns on the water and grabs the loofah. “I’m okay now. It’s done.”

He’s not okay. Nothing about this is okay. But if he doesn’t want to tell anyone, I’ll respect it because I don’t know what else to do. He starts crying again and I quickly climb into the tub with him and yank the curtain closed. He’s not going through this alone. Not today, not tomorrow, not in fifty fucking years.

Cold water saturates my jeans. My shoes are still on because I was in such a hurry to find him when I got here, I never took them off at the front door like I’m supposed to. He shakes violently and I adjust with the faucet to warm the water up more for him.

“I’ve got you.” My voice sounds small and stupid. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to.”

Alex cries against my shoulder.

And I fucking cry with him…

Without looking at Ryker or Sophie, I loop Vault’s arm around my neck and get him into the bathroom.

“Get the water going for us,” I say to Sophie, falling back into old actions. She cries silently as she turns the faucet on and I tip my head to the door. “Wait outside, okay?”

Nodding, she leaves, and I put all my energy into Alex. “I got you.” We step into the shower, and I rest his ass on the bamboo bench.

His red-rimmed eyes look up at me. “I fucked up.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“That day…” He swallows hard and looks away from me. The ice that shoots into my veins has nothing to do with the shower. “I told you not to touch me. I kicked you away.”

“I told you before, and I’ll say it again, it’s okay.” I grab the loofah and soap it up in case he needs to scrub himself raw like he used to back then. I’m such a fucking enabler. “You did what you needed to do for yourself, Alex. You were violated and traumatized and couldn’t stand to be touched afterwards. Your actions were a defense mechanism. I get it.” We’ve been over this before. I never understand why he gets hung up on that part, of all things.

“I hurt you by doing that.”

Is that what he thinks?

“I never wanted to hurt you,” he whispers.

But he did a hundred times after that day. Probably more. I never counted. “I told you, none of it matters. You did what you thought you had to do.”

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