Keep Me Safe (22 page)

The room was dark and Tori could sense she wasn't alone, but she had no idea where she was. Too terrified to make a sound, she huddled inwardly, praying that she wasn't seen or heard.

The smell of blood was acrid in her nostrils, assaulting her senses. She gagged, the scent overwhelming. She was all too familiar with the odor of blood. Particularly her own.

She clamped a hand over her mouth when her stomach revolted again. Silently heaving, she closed her eyes and tried to breathe through the nausea.

And then a sound, close to her. She forced herself to open her eyes and slowly let her gaze drift over her surroundings. She frowned when she realized she didn't recognize her environment. Blinking, she drew a shadow several feet away into focus, straining to make out who or what was in the room with her.

The shadow moved closer. Her breath caught as she realized it was her brother. Relief hurtled through her body with dizzying speed. Oh God, she'd been so terrified. But Caleb was here. He was with her and he wouldn't allow anyone to hurt her.

He took one step closer, the shadows suddenly gone from around him. Her heart thumped hard against her chest and her mouth opened in a silent scream and she kept screaming as she stared in horror at the gruesome sight in front of her.

Caleb was drenched in blood. It covered his hands, was smeared on his chest and splattered across his abdomen. His eyes were empty and hollow, soulless pools of ice.

Tori screamed again and again, desperation seizing and twisting her insides in a panicked frenzy. She shut her eyes in a frantic attempt to block out the sight of Caleb soaked in blood, but it was as though his image were imprinted on the backs of her eyelids because it was as vivid with her eyes closed as it was with them open.

Her head wobbled back and forth and she became aware of someone
shaking
her and urgently calling her name.

“Tori! Tori, wake up, damn it!”

She pushed outward at the offending person, shoving so hard she tumbled backward. Her head cracked against the headboard of her bed and she saw a burst of colors. Pain yanked her from her seeming state of paralysis, and she didn't waste any time scrambling from the bed on the other side, prepared to flee for her life.

No one would take her again. Never. She'd
die
first.

When strong hands grasped her arms again, she lashed out, swinging her fist. A muffled curse and cracking pain in her knuckles told her she'd connected with a very firm jaw.

“Damn it, Tori, wake the hell up. It's
Dane
, for God's sake.”

Her knees buckled and she sagged, hitting the floor with a resounding thump. Again she heard curses but the hands that touched her were gentle and nonthreatening.

Fingers carefully pushed her hair from her face and back behind her ears and then warm thumb pads smoothed away the tears silently tracking down her cheeks.

She flinched and made a guttural sound as she tried to slide backward on the wood floor. Much like an animal backed into a corner. She shoved the hair from her face so she could at least see to defend herself.

“D-don't t-touch me.”

He immediately released her, holding his hands up where she could easily see them. She regarded him warily, the remnants of the horrible vision still lingering like a ghost in her mind. Her pulse roared in her ears and she blinked trying to bring her surroundings into focus.

“I'm just going to turn on the light, okay, Tori?”

The soothing pitch to his voice served to calm her. Gradually the red mist faded and Caleb's bloodied body no longer confronted her when she opened her eyes.

“Dane?”

The quivery jitter to her voice made her sound like a terrified little girl. Not an adult woman who'd seen the harsh realities outside the privileged existence she'd lived for twenty-three years.

“Yes, Tori, it's Dane. Are you okay now?”

Tears flooded her eyes and sobs welled from her throat as she slumped in relief.

“Oh God, Dane. You have to check on Caleb. I think he's
dead
.”

Dane's head jerked up and his gaze narrowed, causing the hard lines of his face to seem even scarier than he normally was.

“What are you talking about?” he asked sharply. “Talk to me, Tori. Did you have a vision?”

Her mouth fell open and she stared at Dane in absolute shock and dismay. “What are you talking about?” she whispered.

“I know,” he said. “So does Eliza. But no one else. Not even your brothers' other security experts or hired muscle. Now tell me what happened, Tori. Is Caleb in danger?”

She scrubbed her face with her hands, her eyes burning like they had sand and grit blown into them.

“I don't know,” she said in frustration. “Ever since . . . ​
him
 . . . ​I don't know what is a vision or simply a nightmare brought about by what happened to me. Oh God, I thought I was past this. I thought everything was going to be okay but I swear I think I'm losing my mind. The other night I dreamed that someone shot me. And now I dreamed of Caleb covered in blood.”

Carefully Dane pulled Tori into his arms, slowly easing her against him as if he were afraid she'd freak and bolt away.

“Shhh, Tori. You aren't losing your mind. You've undergone a lot of trauma both physically and emotionally. That isn't going to go away in a week, a month or even a year. It takes time but you'll get there.”

“You believe in my abilities?” she blurted out, peering up at him from underneath her lashes.

Dane had always intimidated her and if she was completely honest he scared her to death. There was a harshness to his features that made him look extremely dangerous. And he never missed the slightest detail.

He certainly hadn't treated her like she was damaged goods as everyone else did. Not that she blamed them because that was what she'd fostered. Because it was easier that way. If she gave the impression she could break at any time then no one pressed her. No one made her do more than she wanted to do.

Only, Dane hadn't particularly cared whether he upset her or not. He'd coldly told her to stop acting like a spoiled child and stop treating Ramie like she was the enemy. And Ramie wasn't the enemy. But she was Tori's past. The only person who knew precisely how close Tori had come to losing her very soul.

Shame crowded into her heart and she winced as those terrible days came back in a rush.

“Please. Go make sure Caleb is all right,” she begged.

“He's fine,” Dane soothed.

“How do you know?” she demanded, anger replacing the bone-deep sorrow she was immersed in.

“Because he went to bed with Ramie hours ago,” Dane said. “And all is quiet on the home front. No one makes a move on this property without us knowing about it. Trust me when I say that he's just fine.”

“What if it
was
a vision?” she whispered, giving voice to her greatest fear. “What if they were
both
visions? What if Caleb and I die? I don't want to die, Dane. Maybe once I did but not now. I'm scared to death that I'll die before
doing
anything with my life. I've never had to do anything for myself. It didn't used to bother me until I saw just how much my brothers protected and shielded me. Do you know how ridiculous it is that I can't go to a movie or a restaurant without a contingent of security? Who the hell lives like that?”

“All I know is that at least for tonight, nothing is going to happen to either one of you,” Dane said matter-of-factly.

For some reason she drew comfort from the fact that he hadn't offered her blind assurance by saying nothing would ever happen to them. Just that it wouldn't be tonight. If he'd claimed anything else she would have known he was simply placating her and spouting nonsense.

For that matter he was the only person who didn't handle her with kid gloves. Everyone else was determined to protect her from the slightest upset as though her mental state was so fragile that any stress would cause her to have a nervous breakdown.

And maybe she
was
just that close to the edge.

How did Ramie do it time and time again? Once was horrific enough. Tori narrowly escaped with her life, even if she'd lost pieces of her soul in the process. But to endure such atrocities over and over? Who the hell was that selfless? It damn sure wasn't Tori.

Tori hadn't been fair to Ramie. She knew it. Acknowledged it. Even if she couldn't quite make herself blindly accept Ramie's presence here, Ramie was a stark reminder of every single painful thing Tori wanted to forget.

Tori blinked, yanked from her thoughts as realization dawned that she and Dane were sitting on the floor beside her bed, the sheets and comforter in a tangle, barely hanging from the bed.

She suddenly felt very exposed and vulnerable and she hated that feeling more than anything. But neither did she want to freak out on Dane and drive home the fact that she was hanging on to her sanity by a single thread.

“I'm sorry,” she apologized in a low voice. “I didn't mean to wake you. The vision—dream, whatever it was—scared me. It was so . . . ​
real
.”

“No apology is necessary.”

The interlude was over. Dane stood and extended a hand down to help her up. She pretended she didn't see and turned to drag the sheet over her body to shield her from view.

“Will you be all right or do you want me to stay up with you? We can go in the living room if you'd prefer the brighter light.”

Her brows scrunched together and she shook her head. “No. I'm fine. Really. You should get back to bed. I'm sure you have a full day ahead of you tomorrow. Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” he said after a brief pause.

He seemed to be studying her, perhaps to determine the veracity of her words. Evidently he was satisfied that she would truly be okay because he headed for the door.

Once there, he turned back, one hand on the knob.

“Sleep well, Tori. Try not to kill anyone in your dreams.”

Her mouth fell open in surprise when she saw the teasing glint to his eyes and heard the sardonic drawl in his voice.

Dane had a sense of humor. Who knew?

His eyes opened and he stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Without making a sound, he eased from the bed and walked robotically to the closet. With precise, measured movements he selected a pair of jeans, picked up one of his neatly pressed and folded polo shirts and quietly dressed in the dark.

A sense of alarm prickled down his spine but it was quickly stifled as he turned to walk back by the bed where Ramie lay sleeping. His gaze caught on Ramie and he hesitated a brief second before stumbling forward. A stabbing pain in his head caught him off guard. His jaw was tightly clenched and a nerve twitched in his cheek.

His steps reluctant, as though he were fighting a battle not to leave the room—not to leave
Ramie
—he walked haltingly into the hallway. Once he cleared the doorway, his steps became jerky, the distance from Ramie tugging him lesser and lesser until finally he moved with ease.

He descended the stairs, pausing at the bottom as he glanced furtively right and then left.

Quiet blanketed the house. It was eerily silent as he headed toward the audio/visual outpost next to the safe room where surveillance cameras monitored the grounds.

He punched in the security code to gain access through the sliding wood panel built into the wall. As soon as he was in he went straight to the bank of monitors on the far left side of the room.

His gaze flickered up and down and then settled on the monitor he was looking for.

An unwilling smile that felt all too wrong slashed his lips upward, making it more of a grimace than anything else.

Gotcha . . . ​

The word whispered through his mind followed by distant laughter and triumph.

His gut tightened and a sense of foreboding gripped his insides. The muscles in his neck twitched spasmodically. His eyelids drooped and then began to tic.

Wrong. All wrong
. And yet he was powerless to do anything but obey the overwhelming compulsion that gripped him.
His mind was not his own.

He was engaged in a battle of wills. One his own, buried beneath this . . . ​creature he didn't recognize and hadn't known existed, the other wrapping icy cold fingers around his heart. Sweat formed on his brow, his pulse thudding hard and fast in his neck. The silent tug-of-war over his level of consciousness raged, hard and strong.

He was being pulled in opposing directions. His heart raced, his breaths rapid-fire as sweat gleamed on his skin, visible in the low light of the monitors.

Pain seared through his chest as he finally turned his back to the damage he'd done. He left the security room as quietly as he'd entered.

Moments later he carefully undressed and arranged the clothing just as it were before. Then he slid back into bed with Ramie, carefully arranging the sheet and comforter over both their bodies.

A sense of dismay warred with the part of his subconscious that urged him to relish victory and fall into sleep.

His jaw tight to the point of pain, his pulse twitching in his neck and temples, his eyelids fluttered and then finally closed. Laughter once again sounded in the distance but then grew fainter and fainter before finally subsiding as Caleb drifted into a troubled sleep.

TWENTY-SIX

CALEB
looked as though he hadn't slept at all the night before. He'd been quiet and withdrawn ever since he and Ramie had gotten up. For that matter no one was setting the world on fire. Tension boiled in the kitchen, the silence yawning like a chasm.

This whole situation was wearing on them all. Dane and Eliza looked drained. Tori was pale and listless and she sat in a silent stupor at the breakfast table. Quinn and Beau sat on either side of her, eating quietly, their attention focused on no one in particular.