Page 46 of Reaper & Ruin
“You win,” she repeated, louder this time. She rolled onto her back, spreading her arms out to either side as if in surrender. Her chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow breaths, and for the first time, I saw the exhaustion etched into her features. “Now get up and finish it before they figure out what happened.”
I hesitated, my body trembling, my mind screaming at me to move, to do something. But I couldn’t. Not yet.
“Dani—”
“Don’t,” she snapped, cutting me off. Her voice was sharp, but there was no malice in it. “Just do what you have to do, Atlas. Survive.”
Her words hit me like a blow to the chest, knocking the air from my lungs. I swallowed hard, forcing myself to move. To pick up the knife and stumble to my feet. To stand over her, my shadow falling across her motionless form when I pinned her to the ground.
The timer ticked down behind me, the numbers a blur in my peripheral vision.
My grip on the knife tightened, my knuckles white with the effort. This wasn’t survival. It wasn’t winning. It was something else entirely. Something hollow and bitter and wrong.
The blade came down, missing her by a fraction of an inch as I drove it into the floor beside her. And when the timer hit zero, I stood over her, my chest heaving, my vision swimming, and blood dripping onto the cold concrete floor.
We’d survived. But it didn’t feel like winning. I knew we would both lose.
I came to gasping for air, with a soft set of hands gently stroking along my face, eager to calm me. To whisper promises that I was not fourteen. I was not trapped.
I was free, and I was okay.
My brain just didn’t know it yet.
“You’re okay, Atlas.” A delicate voice murmured, even as I automatically reached out, hands wrapping around the throat of whoever was touching me. Aching to snap them in two.
Desperate to kill the danger. To end the monster coming to tear me alive once more.
“Watch yourself,fantasma.” A deep voice grumbled, thick with sleep. “You won’t like it if you hurt her, even if it’s not on purpose.”
I blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Hands still, not choking, even if they were tight around my target.
I blinked again. The main room of the cabin coming into focus. My heartbeat lessening in my ears.
Silence. Silence and then the best sound in the world suddenly broke through the haze in my mind.
“It was just a nightmare, baby.” Heaven smiled at me, her face barely a few inches away. No care in the world for the danger she faced. “You’re safe here. The monsters aren’t real.”
My fingers tightened around something soft and warm—something fragile that I would have died before ever hurting. My breath hitched as the realization sank in.
Heaven.
The thought slammed into me, pulling me from the jagged edges of the nightmare. I froze, my pulse roaring in my ears as I stared at my hands, where they curled around her neck. I could feel the soft thrum of her pulse beneath my palms.
Her voice came, soft but steady, cutting through the chaos in my mind. “Atlas.”
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Couldn’t acknowledge her or the soft, cold nose of Mali that nudged against my bare thigh, below my shorts.
“You’re really okay,” my girl murmured, her voice like a distant echo. Her hands rose slowly, resting over mine. “You’re awake now. It’s just me and Gio and Mali. No Bigfoot.”
Slow as anything, I methodically peeled my fingers away from her throat, one by one, my hands trembling as though they belonged to someone else. The warmth of her skin lingered on my palms, a reminder of how close I’d come to…
No, I couldn’t finish the thought.
Heaven didn’t flinch or pull back. Instead, she stayed close, her blue hair a messy halo around her face. Her big brown eyes were steady, focused entirely on me.
“It was just a nightmare,” she said gently. “You didn’t hurt me.”
The weight on the couch shifted as Gio sat up beside us. His dark hair was mussed from sleep, his jaw shadowed with the beginnings of stubble. He didn’t say anything right away, but his gaze was calm, assessing.
