Page 101 of She Walks with Broken Things

No movement.

No distant voice drifting through the house. A strange ache settled beneath my ribs. I didn’t understand it. Or maybe I did.

I turned away before I could linger on that any longer and headed for the bathroom. The hiss of the shower spray made me flinch. The sound almost deafening. What was going on with me today? I pulled off the gown and slipped out of my nightdress before stepping beneath the water.

“Oww.”

The spray scalded my skin.

I jerked away, adjusted the temperature. When I stepped back in it, the water felt colder.

Not the shower.

Me.

Cold wet earth.

The screaming of crows.

I wrapped my arms around myself and stood there.

Fragments returned in pieces.

The trees.

The panic.

The knife.

His hands around mine.

His voice against my ear.

Here are the places you stay.

The water ran over my skin. And for an agonising moment I wished he was here. He already heard me, right? Last night. He heard… me. A moan escaped. Low. Guttural. Not like me at all. This whole thing wasn’t me. I wasn’t the woman in a mansion trapped with a man who was blind and fucking gorgeous.

Christ, he was gorgeous.

No, not just gorgeous.

He was dangerous and that was even better.

That’s what I wanted.

Scarred.

Real.

I cupped my breast. I knew exactly what I was doing now.

I knew exactly what he was doing to me.

His shoulders.

They were big enough to block a doorway.

Big enough to stop anything coming at me.