Page 86 of Tethered to the World
She’d refused to break.
She swallowed the pain, made it her bitch, refusing to give into the bastard.
The flames licked at her feet, the stench of burning flesh making her gag, and she grabbed onto the table to steady herself. The flesh bubbled up, the blisters popped, and her skin curled as it blackened, leaving the bottoms of her feet a raw, charred mess. Minutes felt like hours as he moved up her feet to her ankles and legs, the flames searing her flesh.
And he wouldn’t stop until she screamed.
She wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction.
“Annora!” Hands grabbed her from beyond the darkness, and she was suddenly free. “Wake up!”
Her eyes fluttered open to see Logan standing next to the bed, his chest heaving, his eyes wild. She struggled against the impulse to lash out at her tormentor. She panted, the phantom pain clouding her mind, and she realized she held one of his blades in her palm. She forced her hand to release the weapon, the metal clanking to the ground, horrified to realize she could’ve hurt him.
She grabbed Logan’s arm and clung to him, desperate to banish the memories that wanted to suck her back into the nightmare. She focused on steadying her breathing as the cold scent of winter filled her lungs, grounding her in the present.
By the time she got herself under control, Logan was sitting on the edge of her bed, holding her tightly against him, as if afraid she would shatter and vanish if he let go. She blinked up at him, not liking the utterly helpless expression on his face and forced a small smile, glad to focus on anything other than the past. “We’ve gotta stop meeting like this.”
He gave a watery snort just as Camden’s gruff voice broke the silence, “What the fuck was that?”
She jerked upright to see the rest of the guys standing around the bed. Mason was partially shifted, his need to do violence a living, breathing thing. Camden was pale and shaken, refusing to blink as he stared at her.
Xander looked stoic, intimately familiar with the aftereffects of torture, but a muscle ticking in his jaw betrayed just how disturbed he was to experience her nightmares firsthand.
“You heard me scream?” Annora hated the tremor in her voice.
Shame heated her cheeks, and she couldn’t bear to look at them.
She tried to pull away from Logan, but he refused to let her retreat. The ferrets squirmed into her lap, clinging to her in an effort to offer her comfort, and she dropped her gaze to her hands, hating the small tremor that shook her fingers.
Mason grunted as if struck, Logan huffed, while Camden hissed.
Only Xander didn’t react. “That was your uncle.”
Her head snapped up, her mouth opening in surprise, then she blanched in horror. “Our connection…I pulled you into my dreams.”
She didn’t mind the lack of privacy. After so many years of loneliness, she welcomed the closeness, but she wanted to spare them reliving the nightmare of her past.
Instead of answering, she glanced at the stairs, the need to run and hide an itch under her skin once again. She wanted to ghost, vanish from the world, but instinct said whatever was hunting her in the afterworld was waiting for her, the dream having drawn him close, too.
Logan cleared his throat, then reached for the end table behind him. He flicked his fingers over the screen on the tablet he held before handing it to her. He scooted back until he was resting against the wall, then casually reached over and plopped her in his lap, her back to his front, her body between his spread legs.
She stiffened for all of two seconds, then leaned back into his embrace. His arms encircled her, lifted the tablet that sat in her nerveless fingers, then pressed the arrow frozen in the center of the screen.
The sounds of a movie began to play.
The rest of the tension went out of her. While she had limited access to the internet, her weakness was movies. She was fully engrossed by the time the rest of the guys climbed up on the bed.
Almost imperceptibly slow, as if afraid she’d spook, they curled around her—their touch grounded her, tethered her in the land of the living. The ferrets huffed at being displaced, scrambling around the bed before settling by her feet, having somehow stolen a bag of chips from somewhere and were busy pillaging their prize.
One scrambled up her leg and dropped a chip in her lap before scurrying back. She smiled and popped the chip in her mouth, having eaten far less unsavory and unsanitary things during her life in her cell…one of her uncle’s many punishments.
Before she knew it, she was startled awake, the morning light streaming through the attic room. All four guys were stretched out around her. Logan was crunched up behind her, still holding her even in his sleep. Mason was half on the floor, his body contorted awkwardly. Xander lay curled up next to her, using her stomach as a pillow, his one hand resting possessively on her thigh.
Camden was at the foot of the bed, careful not to touch the others. To her surprise, he had her feet in his lap, as if he needed to make sure she was all right even in sleep. While her skin tingled, she barely felt the toxin in his touch.
Instead of feeling crowded or smothered, their touch calmed her and kept the nightmares at bay. She loved the heat of them, the comfort they gave without being asked.
Like she mattered.
