Through His Eyes

Through His Eyes [19]

{{Dedicated to @frailflowers, because she left a really sweet comment that made me smile}}

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was getting dark outside; the night was fast approaching, bringing with it a chilly breeze. Rhea sat next to Floyd on the couch she'd slapped him across the cheek not long ago. She'd been cautious to put a reasonable distance between them when they'd first sat down. She mentally gave herself a pat on the back for managing to be back here in such a short period of time, especially when the images from that night were still seared inside her brain.

"I'm glad you agreed to come," Floyd said, angling his body to face her completely.

"Me too." Rhea forced out a smile, but the undeniably heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach grew by the second.

"Will you come to my room for a second? I have something to show you."

"Floyd, I don't... I don't think that's such a good idea."

"Come on, we will just be a minute."

She let out a weary, inaudible sigh but followed him out of the living room nonetheless. They passed a narrow, short corridor and came to a halt in front of the door at the end of it.

He opened the door to what had to be his bedroom and within the two seconds that went by before the flicking of the light switch, Rhea noticed a phosphorous glow to the room.

Tilting her head up, she noticed... glow in the dark stickers on the ceiling that had lost their power to illuminate the room once the light had been turned on.

Before she had a chance to ponder what that meant, she was pulled into a solid form.

"What the hell?" she shrieked.

She tried to push him away, but it was as if she'd lost control of her limbs, because no matter how hard she tried to push him away, he just wouldn't budge. It was happening all over again and this time she was powerless to do anything about it. The desperation grew within her as seconds passed and her body remained in close contact with Floyd's. He wrapped his arms around her body in a way that would limit the movements of her own arms, decreasing her change to fight back even more.

"C'mon, I'll be good to you," Floyd breathed against the exposed skin of her neck that was already coated with a sheen of sweat from all the struggling and she felt her skin crawl.

This wasn't happening.

This. Was. Not. Happening.

***

Rhea woke up, tangled up in her sheets from all the thrashing she'd done. Her chest was heaving and her heart was beating erratically against her ribcage. A sob lodged itself in her throat as she sat up in the darkness. She tried to shake the dream off, but it was an impossible feat.

It had been an entire week since the incident, as she and Willa often referred to it around Wade, who remained blissfully ignorant about the details of it. It was for the best, really; all he'd known was that Floyd had somehow upset Rhea, causing her to skip school and he'd tried to punch his face in so Rhea didn't want to think about how he'd react if he knew the whole story.

Even though Rhea was a month older than Wade, he always treated her like the little sister he'd never had, and while it was good to know someone had your back no matter what, it could get suffocating to be babied all the time.

It had been an entire week since the incident, the details of which were only known to a select few. Caleb, for sure, was among those who were oblivious to them, as was Wade.