Loving a Dangerous Life (editing)

Chapter 11 - Recurring Nightmares

Her body- abused by mine- was curled up, the pressure on my side from her weight being contrasted with the warmth. Her body, her words, her sounds, they all took me to a different world. Her shaky breaths and body as she slept gave me the reminder that I lost myself with her.

That's the thing when you have sex with me. I don't fuck. I destroyed- but Audrey had taken it all, unlike most of the girls I had before.

I had been angry because the party didn't go well, but she made it all disappear. That's the effect this crazy stubborn woman had on me. When I met her I couldn't control myself, and now I can't either.

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I woke up to Audrey whimpering in panic in her sleep. She had moved away from me, and the blankets were tangled around her' twisting in a way that had me thinking that there was no possible way they weren't ripped. I called her name quietly, staring at her, but she didn't respond.

"No. No! Take me! Take me-" She cried, desperation filling her voice. She tossed and turned, and her panic made me panic. I reached out to her, but she flinched away from me. I grabbed her arm, pulling her to me, and wrapping my arms around her. She tried to get away, each time I tried to touch her she flinched away, trying to protect herself from the demons in her head by punching at me."Please! No! Don't hurt her! Take me!" Her desperate voice clouded my sense and all i wanted to do was wake her up and comfort her and hold her and make it all-

No. I can't be thinking shit like that.

She started punching me. I held her down, willing her to wake up.

"Wake up!" Her body was trapped underneath me and all I could do was repeat her real name over and over. Audelia flinched away from me in her sleep. She screamed, and I pinned her arms down as her punches became brutal. "Please, wake up!" I tried to keep my voice down, pressing my body on top of hers. She opened her eyes, but she didn't see me. She saw the nightmares. She fought against me and managed to win.

She was strong.

She wiggled out from under me, pressing her back to the headboard. She was trying to make herself as small as possible. Her breathing was ragged and her shoulders tense. Her beautiful brown eyes were wide, bottomless pits that I saw so many emotions in, too many emotions. It hit me then how little I knew her- how little I knew the stories behind all her scars, how little I knew why that hopeless look came over her in the dead of night. How little I knew why she still hacked the security system to check in on a random family in the U.S.

I reached towards her, pulling the blanket out of her scarred hands. She had been twisting it around her fingers, and it had almost ripped. Audrey was visibly trying to calm herself down- taking deep breaths and forcing her mouth closed.I reached towards her, and anger surged through me when she flinched away. She looked at me with wide eyes.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, sending shock through me. Sorry for what?. She smoothed her brown hair away from her face and climbed out of the bed. She went into the bathroom, finding my shirt and pulling it over her naked body. She came back into the bedroom. "I'm so sorry, did I hurt you?" She asked, walking towards me but never meeting my eyes. She stood at the end of the bed, her body filled with tension. I shook my head.

"What the hell happened?" I kept my voice quiet, knowing how harshly violent nightmares are. I sat up and pulled the blankets around my waist. Audrey sighed, running a hand through her hair and smoothing back the beautiful strands from a gorgeous face.

"I can't tell you, I'm sorry." She muttered, her voice breaking a little. Something happened to my heart right there, when I realized that Audrey was being stronger than anyone should ever have to be. Even in this moment tears did not glisten in her eyes. Even moments after nightmares, she did not break like I used to.

She turned around, her shoulders set in a stubborn line. My shirt fell to the middle of her thighs, but I ignored how sexy she looked. I grabbed her wrist pulling her into the bed.

"Tell me." My voice was the softest, the gentlest I have ever heard it.

"I cant." Came her reply, in that same voice. I shook my head.

"Tell me Princess."  I pulled her closer to me despite the fact that she was stiff in my arms. She studied me for a minute.

"I can't." Audrey's voice was quiet this time- the crack in it was all I needed to know. I didn't say anything, rather pulling her close to me and allowing her to hide her face in my neck as she pulled herself together.

I remember when she told me she hasn't cried in nine years. Even now she doesn't cry. She took deep breaths against my skin, calming herself down from the nightmare. I know how hard it is to do this, so I simply hold her, wishing she knew she didn't have to be strong right now.  We sat like that for endless moments.

The song Photograph came to my mind, bizarrely. I smiled a little bit as the chorus played through my mind.

And if you hurt me, it's okay baby only words break. Inside these pages you just hold me.

It was a random song, but I did like it. The moment I was sharing with Audrey was so random, so different from my normal life that a song I hadn't heard in forever would not make it any different.

Audrey didn't wrap her arms around me, but chose to hold them around herself.

"Don't hate me please." She finally muttered. I chuckled immediately.

"It's impossible for me to hate you," I replied. She turned away from me, but I cupped her face in my hands. "Look at me," I whispered. She closed her eyes, but then opened them. I could tell how tired she was.

"It's just nightmares. I get them a lot. Some nights, it's about the explosion, other nights-" She shook her head, and I didn't say anything for a minute.

"It's okay, you can tell me," I whispered, kissing her shoulder. I felt the tension melt from her body.

"Did I ever tell you why I joined the Mafia?" She asked. I shook my head. "I wasn't born into it, no one in my family even knows about it. I chose to join so I never had to feel helpless again." Audrey turned her head away from me, taking in a deep breath. She was still pretty shaken from whatever she had seen in her nightmare.

"Again?" I asked, looking at her. She sucked a breath in, nodding her head. Anger surged through me. "Who hurt you?" I asked, my voice low, angry. Audrey ran a shaky hand through her hair.

"When we were 16, I and my best friend went to DisneyLand. We had everything planned out, we were going to stay there for a month and just explore California. We never got to though. On the first day, literally two hours after we got there, we were walking around outside when men came up to us and knocked us out. When we woke up, we were tied up, in a dark room. The men came in, and toured us, raped us, for weeks on end. My best friend was so innocent, so amazing, so I begged them to stop. I begged them to just hurt me and to let her go. They murdered her, right in front of me. I was thankful that she didn't have to be hurt anymore, but I hated myself because she had so much more to live for." A sob fell out of her mouth, and all I could do was sit there.

"They made it worse for me. They would lay hot knives against my skin, while they had a rope in my mouth so that they didn't have to hear my screams. They would whip my back while they had knives within an inch of my skin so that if I moved a single inch, I would be killed. I finally got out after two months. I was so fucking tired."  She buried her head in her hands, yet I still just sit there in my shocked state.

"I fell into depression, but I went home. I faked my death not long after that, then I joined the Mafia. I hunted down the people that had killed my best friend, and I used their own weapons against them. After that, I disappeared. Not even the people in the Mafia remember me, they just know that if they need a job done, I can get it done. I haven't had anyone for a while, and I fucking hate that I'm the best assassin. I hate being a damn murderer." She paused one more time.

"And I don't even fucking know why I'm telling my enemy all of this. I was supposed to fucking kill you." Self-hatred filled her voice.

All I could do was sit in silence, anger flowing through me that I had never felt.