getting on."
She smiled and thanked me – as if she meant it.
As I walked out the front door, I had this mad urge not to go, to stay and just sit in the kitchen while she slept. She had surveillance cameras all over the house and Navid or someone else nearby, keeping watch. There was no need for me to be there.
I made myself get into the car again and pull out of the driveway. For a second I thought I saw her silhouetted in the window, but I must have imagined it.
Sleep, Caitlin, and stay safe. Please.
55
Waking up in the dark, hurting and cold.
My face wet with tears.
Screaming for them to let me go until my throat hurt and my voice was almost gone.
No one. No reply, no light.
Cold. Rough. Hard. Draughty.
I was lying on concrete.
I didn't know where I was or who they were.
Someone else breathing in the dark.
Would they hurt me or help me?
Who was it?
Had I imagined it?
Not sure what was worse – cold and hurting, alone in the dark, or hot and in pain, with some prick hurting me more?
It was always dark.
And out of the dark came
Fuck.
56
Blood and bare skin; sand and screaming; struggling and shots.
Oh God, Caitlin!
My sleep that night was plagued with nightmares about what she'd looked like when I found her, thinking she was dead. That they might get to her again while I wasn't there. I worried that she wouldn't survive the night without me.
I just couldn't help myself. My waking thoughts at dawn the next morning were of her. I had to see her. For weeks now, all I'd had to do was open my eyes and turn my head to see that she was okay, but now I didn't know and it drove me insane. I put it off for as long as I could, then had to drive over to her house.
I didn't have second thoughts until I knocked on her door, when I wondered how she'd react to my being there so early. Something told me she wouldn't be civil if I woke her up. I started to wish I'd waited.
Somewhere nearby, a child started to practise playing the piano. First the slow plunking as the little fingers learned a new tune, before the monotonous drill of finger exercises. The jerkily played scales jarred with the confusion in my head. Should I stay or should I go? I wasn't sure I could go. I'd sit on the steps and wait, until I saw she was safe.
I knocked again. "Caitlin, it's me. It's Nathan," I called, hoping she'd already be awake and hear me.
She took a while to reach the door and even longer to unlock it. When I reached to open it for her, she almost fell. I think she would have if I hadn't been there to stop her. As I tried to hold her up, I could feel her exhaustion. It was as if gravity pulled her to the ground harder than it did me.
Then I saw her face – it was positively haggard. I'd only been gone a night and I wished more than ever that I hadn't left. What if they'd managed to get to her while I was gone? She'd almost knocked herself out, falling out her own front door. She was no match for anyone who wanted to hurt her in this condition.
"What happened?" I burst out.
"I can't sleep," she mumbled, not looking at me. Even in my arms she was swaying and unsteady. "The nightmares didn't go away – all night. It got so bad that I woke up and was too scared to go back to sleep again. I tried to write them down, but that only made it worse. I just have to get used to sleeping alone... uh, in my own bed, and at home, again."
This was my fault. I should never have left. "Come on, I'll take you to bed and make sure you sleep this time."
She was too exhausted to refuse. Her arms wearily resting on my neck, I lifted her up. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to have her in my arms again, instead of one of the stranger things I've ever done. Nothing I do with Caitlin is normal, I reflected as I re-entered her house.
"Tell me where to go," I said softly.
She pointed vaguely. Her hand looked too heavy for her wrist to lift. "My room's down the hallway. On the left."
It was an old house with wide hallways, so I didn't have to walk sideways to keep her feet or head from hitting the walls. Shouldering my way into her room, I headed straight for the big bed. I laid Caitlin carefully on it.
She grabbed my hand as I tried to straighten up, pulling me close again. "Stay. Please," she said.
"Sure," I replied, freeing my hand and sitting cautiously on her desk chair.
I watched as she smiled and her eyes slowly shut, slipping back into sleep.
A blinking blue light attracted my attention and I turned toward the desk, where Alanna's old laptop sat. With a glance at Caitlin, I lifted the laptop lid and watched the screen light up, the blinding white of a Word document drawing my eyes.
Caitlin was definitely asleep, for she didn't stir at the sudden increase in light levels, so I scrolled through some of the document. She'd been writing down her nightmares and it looked like she'd spent most of the night doing it.
I started to skim through what she'd written. Most of it was just adding details to what I'd typed in for her, but I stopped dead when I came across something she'd never told me. This I read slowly, trying to commit every word to memory.
I lost track of the days, the difference between day and night and any sense of time. Some minutes stretched for hours when I just wanted it to be over, but it felt like I'd only just gone to sleep when someone else would hurt me and wake me up to start all over again.
I was always tired. Maybe the pain or the horror of it made me so sleepy. Sometimes I was even too tired to fight, too tired to spit the insults at them that I was thinking. Maybe they hurt me less because they didn't get much of a reaction to whatever they did to me. Maybe they hurt me more to get a reaction.
There were four of them who hurt me, all different.
One of them was there more often, a big bully who'd crush me under his weight. He was rough and strong and he probably left bruises wherever he touched me. He'd hit me or hurt me some other way with his big, meaty hands, until I'd at least whimper, before he'd start grunting his way to a climax. He was the one the others called Mike. The bastard who'd drugged me in the car.
This was what I needed, what she hadn't told me or the police. Details about what they did to her... hurting her... My mouth went dry as I started to see what she'd been subjected to, the horrifying view through her eyes in the dark.
Another one liked to break my fingers, or twist the ones he'd already broken. He liked to pinch and slap, too. He was a small, skinny bloke with a nasal, whiny voice. Torture with him couldn't have lasted more than five minutes. I heard Mike say to him once, "C'mon Pete, your five minutes are almost done!" and, thankfully, Pete had been done, too.
One of them always brought one of the others along to hold me still. He took forever and his hands were everywhere. It was like being groped by two squids. He'd make comments to himself or the guy holding me for him. I know I fell asleep more than once and I doubt he noticed. If Mike was holding me, he'd hit me 'til I woke up and he'd laugh that he and the other guys had exhausted me before it was Simon's turn. The cold fish was called Simon.
Simon's preferred accomplice he called Tom. Tom didn't say much, he just did what he came for and left. I asked him once why he bothered with me at all. He told me to shut up or he'd break my jaw. Don't remember if he came back after that.
Then there was Her. The woman who wanted me to speak to her friend. The woman who drove the red Mercedes. She hit me and pushed me in and she knew what they'd do to me. I'll kill her if I can.
Caitlin's scream was so loud it rattled the window glass. I'd been too intent on her written nightmares to realise she was trapped in a real one and needed my help.
I turned, knocking something pink off the desk as I did so. I reached to pick up the nail file from the carpet, dropping it back on the desk. Caitlin cried out again, jerking me into urgency.<
br />
I slammed the laptop shut, twisting out of the desk chair to stand up. "Wake up, angel. It's another nightmare and I'm here. You're home, you're safe..."
The next scream was longer and louder, drowning out my voice.
I knelt on the end of her bed. "Caitlin, it's okay, you're safe..."
She started swearing, loud and panicky.
I did a bit of swearing of my own, though not as loud, as I crawled across the bed to be closer to her. I started with the reassuring litany again.
"Let me go, you bastard!" she screamed at me.
I reached out and lightly patted her cheek. Caitlin went berserk, her hands claws that homed in on my face. Arms and legs flying, screaming like nothing human, I thought she was having a fit. I scrambled off her bed and into a half-crouch on the floor, out of her reach.
She let out an agonised wail as her hands clutched at the pillow beside her. It took me a moment to realise she was saying my name.
I wished for the narrow hospital bed now, as I climbed back onto hers so I could reach her. "I'm here, angel, like I promised. It's okay..."
Hesitant, I touched my fingers to the hand closer to me, her nails digging into the pillowcase. When she didn't turn the nails on me, I slid my other hand under hers, lifting it between mine. "I'm here," I said.
Her eyes were open and dark with tears. She attempted a smile. "You stayed..." She said it like she didn't believe it, pulling her hand away to wipe her eyes.
I smiled. "Of course I did. I said I would." I shifted and spread out, so my head was on the scrunched-up pillow she'd tried to strangle. I turned my face toward