𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 ❸

𝟒. ✭ 𝐋𝐔𝐊𝐄 ✭

I jolt awake at the feeling of thrashing to my right. Malyssa is whimpering, grabbing at her stomach, clawing at it. My eyes connect with Denver's, who's on the other side of her. They're just as freaked out as mine probably are.

He grabs ahold of both of her arms while I brush the hair out of her face with, "you're okay, Mal. Everything is going to be okay. You're alright." Her eyes open in a panic and she immediately starts to try and fight Den's hold.

"Get your fucking hands off me!" She screams and it has my hand pulling away from her feral features. Denver's hold remains though as she continues to try and get free. "I said get your fucking hands off—"

"Get my fucking hands off you, I know. But that's not going to happen until you calm down. You're going to hurt yourself." Denver tells her in a calm, authoritative tone.

"Stop touching me! Don't fucking touch me!" Mal is still thrashing and the wild look in her eyes, one that's completely out of control, has me slightly terrified.

"Luke?" Denver questions my name like I have the answer.

And for the first time— I don't.

"Get him off of me," Malyssa growls at me.

"Let go of her, Den." And Denver does so automatically, though side-eyeing her as he does.

She launches herself off the bed, from the space between us, and practically catapults to the bathroom. I hear the shower turn on and guilt immediately floods me because this behavior isn't a behavior Mal has had in years. Not ever since it was just me and her in New York.

After she'd been forced to give Scott what Malyssa so freely gives me and Denver; her body. After she'd been stabbed. After she lost our child. A part of me aches for her past-self even more because all I'd known about at the time was the stabbing and the absolute scum she was affiliated with.

I suppose, one could not entirely know how bad things are for any given person at any given time. But I hate to think she was going through all of that alone. Yes, I had been there for her but I couldn't properly be because I didn't know the extent of her wounds. And, for someone who can usually read her like the back of my hand, I'm disappointed that I couldn't see how truly bad it was. That there was more trauma than what she'd already endured.

And Malyssa, well, between her past and her present, she has had ten lifetimes worth of bad.

Some of those days and nights back in New York she would wake up much like this; in a state of either sadness or panic. We would have sex, make love when it was the former. I'd coax all that hurt and pain out through soft touches, kisses and the whispers of sweet nothings; telling her that she would always and forever be safe with me.

But it was the other times, the fits of torment and rage, that she would do just this— shower. Sometimes for an hour. Sometimes more, on the really bad occasions, especially the really loathey ones.

"That look on your face is freaking me the fuck out, Luke. Care to explain what the fuck that was?" He flings a hand out toward the en-suite bathroom. Because he's never seen her like this but I have. I've known Malyssa nearly my entire life. Her mind may as well be my own.

"Post traumatic stress is what that behavior is," I deadpan. "You know Mal's past, all of the trauma she's endured, and what she went through recently has stirred all that bad up. Not to mention two back-to-back losses."

"I know she's lost a lot of people but it's not like Torey and Brooks are dead." He grimaces on the last word. "Fuck, don't even make my brain go there." He rolls his shoulders out, repulsed at the thought.