I kissed Harlyn on the forehead as we stood outside the school. “Have a good day, baby girl.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “I’ll try,” she muttered as she walked away.

In my gut I knew that there was something going on, my usual bright baby had become uncooperative and was finding every damn excuse in the book to not attend the private school we’d enrolled her in. Guilt settled in my stomach as I climbed into my car and started the engine. I didn’t want her to be unhappy. Hell, I’d spent the last six years fighting to do the complete opposite. She’d thrived at her old school, with a large group of friends and supportive teachers. It was a definite contrast to how she was feeling right now, and I hated that I’d pushed that on her.

It was even harder for me to explain why.

Almost impossible actually.

I just wanted the best for her, I wasn’t sure why people couldn’t understand that.

I drove back to our new house. We were still unpacking, but Optimus had managed to get all our things sent from our old place to Athens pretty quickly for which I was grateful. It was slowly starting to feel more and more like home, a comfort I was desperately seeking. I needed normalcy, structure, but at the moment it just seemed like one mess after another.

As I pulled into the driveway and turned the car off, my cell phone beeped. I picked it up and opened the message with a smile on my face, expecting it to be from Wrench. He was coming over this morning to help me unpack and arrange my furniture. Wrench was becoming a welcome fixture in my life. There was something about him, something I couldn’t even explain, that made me feel just… happy.

As I opened my phone, I instantly noticed that the message I’d received was from an unknown number. My hand started to shake as I pressed to open it. For a brief moment, I was relieved when a blank message came up.

Maybe it was a mistake, an accident.

Then I heard a voice, a voice I hadn’t heard in a long time, one that haunted my memories and infected my dreams.

It was my voice.

“Please, I need it.”

Tears sprung to my eyes as I listened to what seemed like a dream, a horrible fucking nightmare. It was my voice but it was distorted, affected by months and months of abuse.

“I can’t take the noise. Please, Peter.”

“It’s okay, Annabelle. I’ve got what you need,” Peter vowed, his tone gentle and comforting.

A light relieved sigh followed and I knew in that moment, that he’d placed the pill in my hand, and that I knew everything would be okay.

The noise would stop.

That was where the recording ended.

But my heart, it continued to thud against my chest. My skin burned, I felt dirty, itchy. The air around me felt like it was heating up, burning at my skin as I held the phone in my shaking hand.

No, that’s not me.

I scrambled for my bag and reached for the door handle, the soft breeze that hit me as I threw myself out of the blazing car felt like complete bliss. I inhaled deeply, but the fresh air did nothing to soothe the wave of nausea that swept over me. Slamming the car door, I ran for the house, tripping on the stairs and falling forward. I fought to get to my feet, needing to get inside the house, images of him swirling inside my brain, memories that I’d squashed fighting through with a vengeance.

Finally managing to get through my front door, I slammed it behind me causing the glass panels to break. I waited for the smash but it never came. At that moment, I couldn’t care less whether I broke every damn panel in this house, there was only one thing I was searching for and it was hidden in my bedside table.

You don’t need it.

Fight back!

The voice in the back of my head screamed at me, demanding that I stop and take a breath. But I was struggling to breathe as it was, I couldn’t take a breath when my throat was slowly closing, cutting off the essential life source.

I threw myself to my knees next to the bed, tears streaking down my cheeks. My body was shutting down, the darkness was coming and my limbs felt like heavy weights. I couldn’t reach for the drawer, I couldn’t move at all. The walls of the room started to close in on me. I knew that I should run for the door, but my brain couldn’t figure out how to get my body onto its feet. I tossed my head from side to side, the buzzing sound in my ears becoming louder. It was like the television when that grainy screen came on, my brain was a mess of dark fuzzy colors and noise.

I threw my head back, beating it against the bed, trying to shake the buzzing, just for a moment so I could reach for my pills.

One. I just needed one.

The space was becoming smaller, squeezing me, constricting my breathing.

“Sugar?”

His voice hit me in the chest, and suddenly I inhaled a deep breath.

Wrench.

I looked up, seeing him standing in the doorway. Even through the blur of my tears, I could tell his face was full of concern. With each step he took toward me, the weight on my body lifted, and I sucked in another soothing breath.

“Hey…” he whispered softly. “What’s going on?” His gaze moved down to my legs, his eyes widening. I looked down, there was a large graze up the front of my shin, blood trailing down in droplets onto the floor.

He rushed forward, the movement too fast. I screamed, pulling my knees to my chest and turning my head away, waiting for the touch that would burn my skin. But it never came.

Peeking out the corner of my eye, I watched as he kneeled down beside me, his movements now slow and deliberate. My breathing was rapid but shallow, my heart feeling like at any moment it could explode from my chest and coat the room in my blood. I swallowed back the bile that formed in my throat.

He held up his hands, showing me he wasn’t going to touch me. “I just need to know what happened. I want to help.”

“You can’t,” I rasped. “Just don’t touch me.”

He nodded, but I could tell he was struggling to hold back, his brows pinched together in fear and his eyes scanning the room as though he was expecting a monster to jump out at any moment.

What he didn’t realize, was that the monster was sitting in front of him.

The colors of the room were fading, almost as though I was in some kind of black and white film. The darkness lurked in the corners, threatening to swallow me at any moment, feeling my fear, looking for any weaknesses they could use to their advantage.

He shuffled back against the wall, a few inches separating our feet, as he bent his knees and rested his arms on top of them, his eyes constantly watching me. We stared across at each other, no words spoken as he held my gaze.

My body shook, I desperately wanted it to stop. I wanted to run, I just couldn’t figure out how. This was it, the world was crumbling down around me, and there was no stopping it. I couldn’t even fight my way out, it was fucking pointless trying.

I was waiting for him to start laughing at me, to point over and tell me how weak I was. I couldn’t argue.

I was weak.

I needed the pills.

They would get me through this.

They would make it all better.

Numb, I want to be numb.

I was broken, twisted and screwed up.

I waited for judgment to reach Wrench’s eyes. He must know. He must be so disgusted. Shame built up in my gut, and I curled my arms around my knees, pulling them into my chest, not even caring when I looked down and saw that blood was smeared across my arms.

It will make you feel better.

The words made me want to vomit as they played over and over in my head. I screamed out loud and threw my head back. My hand twitched. I wanted to reach for the drawer where they were hidden. It was an internal battle—fight the darkness alone or give in to the one thing that I knew would offer me peace.

I wanted one, just one.

No, I needed more than one.

Then I could drift away into oblivion and never return. The pain would fade, as would the noise.

That’s what I hated most.

The noise.

It clouded my senses, driving me to the point of insanity.

But as I looked across the room at Wrench, his fists clenched as though he would leap off the floor at any moment to beat the demons back, protect me like he promised, that was when I realized… there was no noise.

The room was silent, so silent all I could hear was his heavy breathing and the way he was grinding his teeth together. I could hear the squeak of his leather cut when he moved. He wanted to reach out to me, I could feel and see just how much he was struggling to hold himself back.

This was different, an experience I’d never felt before. For once, I wasn’t fighting this alone.

During these times, it would usually be the pills that would comfort me, chase the shadows away and bring back the color to the world. They were my ally. But as he sat there, in silence, his overpowering strength, his words of protection playing over and over in my head, I could see the shadows sinking away.

The sun began to shine through the window, lighting up the room again. Maybe it had always been there, maybe my mind had simply blocked it out, but either way, the darkness was slowly being forced back into the corners of the room.

My lungs expanded further, taking in deeper breaths, urgently filling my deprived lungs and brain. My body continued to shudder and shake, but I held onto Wrench’s gaze. He didn’t have to speak, or touch me, or try to comfort me with words. To be honest, if he had, it would have only made things worse.

It was like he knew that his presence would be enough, the silent unspoken look in his eyes speaking a thousand words that he couldn’t say. The sunlight moved across the floor of the bedroom. I felt like time was moving quickly, but in reality, I knew that hours were passing by. My body continued to shake, even as my racing heart changed from a fast beating hum to a slow thud. When my fingers began to heat, I finally looked down. The sunlight was touching my hand, warming my skin, casting its light on me.

I licked my lips. “You think I’m crazy.”

“I’ve been sitting here for three hours, not saying a word, but that’s what you think you heard?” he answered calmly.

“I…” I struggled to find a reply.

“I’m gonna run you a bath,” he said softly. “Is that okay?”

I looked down at my leg, the wooden steps that led up to my front door had torn it up when I’d tripped. Blood was smeared over both my arms and droplets had settled on the carpet beside my foot. The pain was slowly feeding back into my senses, and I shuddered.

“Yeah… that would be okay.”

He pushed to his feet as he moved toward the door but my eyes began to blur again. “Wrench,” I gasped.

He spun to face me, his eyes alert. “Yeah…”

“Can… can I come with you.” I didn’t want to be alone. Even if he wasn’t touching me, just having him there, knowing I was safe, knowing he would fight for me, it made me feel calm.

He came forward, holding out his hand to me. I placed my blood stained fingers in his, only realizing then that there was another graze across my palm. He held it gingerly as he pulled me onto my shaky legs.

“Can I pick you up?” he asked, keeping his distance. Maybe he thought I’d run, or maybe he was scared that I could break down again at any moment, and he didn’t want to put up with me for another three hours as I tried to calm down.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”

He placed one hand on my back, bent down and hooked his arm under my knees. Lifting me off the floor, he cradled me against his body and I curled in toward his chest. The smell of his leather, the sound of his beating heart, it all crowded around me like a protective and supportive cloak.

He’d seen me break down and lose my mind, yet here he was, and he wasn’t running for the hills. He wasn’t calling someone like Optimus to come and deal with me, and so far, I’d not even seen a flash of judgment in his eyes.

It would be nice to say he’d seen me at my worst and was still willing to stand by me.

That would be a lie.

This was bad, even I’ll admit that, but the worst was yet to come.

He hadn’t seen anything just yet.