Page 16 of Dominic

“And what happens right now?” She narrowed her eyes at me, daring me to give her the wrong answer.

“I’m going to go home. Annie will be there and I’m going to find out what exactly happened to make her run, and I’m going to fix it.”

She slapped me again.

“Christ, Lemon.” Rocket gripped her shoulder and pulled her back, wrapping his arms around her from behind. “You gotta learn when to stop, sour puss.”

“I know exactly when to stop.” She never took her eyes off me. “I’m not sure he’s got the message yet.”

Rocket met my gaze. “He did.”

Lemon shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Chapter Nine

Annie

I couldn’t breathe. My chest was tight and my heart pounded. Sweat coated my body and my clothes stuck to my skin. My ears rang and my vision tunneled. I had to get inside the house. Lock the door.Hide!

The second I got inside and shut and locked the door, my stomach rebelled and I vomited before I even realized I was going to vomit. I knew I should clean it up, but I couldn’t do anything but sink to the floor where I landed.

“I’m not there. I’m safe. I’m not there.” I chanted the mantra I’d started repeating to myself when this happened. I hated feeling like this! It hadn’t happened since I’d come to Grim Road and I was pretty sure it was because of Dominic’s presence, but, in a way, the absence of this panic the last month had made this event so much harder. It blindsided me. And for no particular reason! Everything had been fine, then the memory of the last time someone had kissed me hit me like a physical blow.

I rested my head on my knees, putting my hands over my ears. I could actually hear the men in the camp in the reconditioning hut berating me. Jeering. The night before I escaped, the Divine One had stripped me bare and groped me. He said he wanted to make sure I was a virgin, but I’d stopped him. He’d promised he was going to do the ritual marriage ceremony in front of the whole church. The thought of submitting to that vile, evil man, of letting him touch me, letting him have sex with me, was bad enough. But to know he was going to do it in front of the whole church to show them how his expert touch had “gentled” me? To show them all he was so powerful he could even bring the camp’s most difficult child to heel? It was disgusting and vile. The whole church was just another way of saying everyone in the compound.

He’d done it before. The man had six wives already. I was to be his seventh. Of course, it might not do him much good to take a seventh wife after what I’d done. Just thinking about it made me nauseous again.

I tried to fight my way through the nausea but that wasn’t happening. I vomited before I could get my head turned and puked all over myself. This was it. This was the day I lost my mind completely and couldn’t find my way out of the waking nightmare threatening to swallow me whole.

I coughed as I tried to suck in a breath of air and choked on my own vomit. My body was completely out of my control. Every instinct inside me was telling me to run like hell and never look back, but I couldn’t seem to do anything but sit here in a pathetic heap.

“Sweetheart, you’re safe. I swear I’d never hurt you.”

I screamed, turning onto my knees so I could stand and run. I wanted to stand, but couldn’t seem to get my legs under me. Not to mention the vomit around me made the hardwood floor slick so my uncoordinated efforts only made maneuvering more difficult. So, I crawled, even as I sobbed in fright.

“Annie.” The man calling out to me sounded upset. An angry man was never a good thing in my experience. “Annie!” His voice was sharper this time, his tone letting me know he meant business. I sobbed even more, as I scrambled to the corner of the room behind an armchair.

“Girl!”

OK,thatvoice I knew. It filled me with a surge of adrenaline and I stumbled to my feet. Across the room, hands out to his sides as he put one foot in front of the other very slowly, inching my way carefully, was Dom.

“Girl, listen to my voice. You hear me?”

I nodded.

“Gonna need you to tell me you’re listening to me.”

My breath sawed in and out of my lungs in a ragged wheeze. I nodded again, then remembered what he’d said he wanted. “I-I’m l-listening.” This was so hard! I could see Dominic in front of me, but when he stopped speaking, it was like I was seeing the Divine One where Dominic stood instead.

“That’s good. Very good. I need you to take a deep breath and hold it. Can you do that? Hold it until I count to three.”

I nodded, then took a couple more breaths before taking one deep breath and holding like he said. Dom immediately started counting. When he got to three, I let out my breath in a rush.

“Very good, girl. Do it again.”

I did. Then a couple more times. After the fourth time, the pressure in my chest eased a little and I wasn’t light-headed anymore. I was trembling where I stood, but I was starting to fight my way out of the panic gripping me. While I concentrated on taking one breath after another, Dom came steadily closer until he stood right in front of me.

“Girl, I need to get you to the bathroom. I’m going to pick you up. I’m only going to help you. You can always tell me to put you down, but I need to get you to the bathroom.”